Stateline Master Document

BOOTH

IN THE SUMMER OF 2008, AFTER TWO YEARS OF DEBATE, THE CAMPUS OF OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY IN STILLWATER BECAME THE LARGEST NONSMOKING AREA IN THE STATE.

S208/

3:30:00

Robin Purdie

OSU Seretean Wellness Center

ROBIN PURDIE:  "It didn't start at the capitol it started on this campus with our students. And our student government association in October of 2006 passed a resolution, a recommendation that the campus become tobacco free."

BOOTH

THE NEW TOBACCO-FREE POLICY MAY BE A PAIN IN THE NECK FOR SMOKERS, BUT IT'S A SHOT IN THE ARM FOR THOSE TRYING TO QUIT.

S208/

3:11:49

Sonja Hodson

OSU Student

SONJA HODSON:  "I can no longer contemplate the possibility of having a quick smoke. So, if I do have a strong trigger, stressor, then I can immediately can battle that and says "Guess what? You can't smoke here."

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PRECISELY THE IMPACT FOR WHICH ANTI SMOKING ACTIVISTS WERE HOPING:

S208/

3:45:23

ROBIN PURDIE:  ""There's two ways that people can take it I suppose...one is that "People can't tell me what to do," which we're not trying to. Or the other one is, you know..."Gosh, it's getting harder and harder, you know I used to be able to smoke in my office, well I can't do that, or use tobacco...I used to be able to smoke in restaurants, I can't do that."

BOOTH

IT IS THE LATEST IN AN ONGOING SERIES OF RESTRICTIONS ON TOBACCO USE.

WHEN OKLAHOMA'S CLEAN AIR ACT OF 2003 BECAME LAW, SOME BUSINESS OWNERS HAVE HAD TO TURN AWAY SOME CUSTOMERS.

S200/

5:02:00

Chad Bleakley

VZD's Restaurant and Club

CHAD BLEAKLEY:  "My customers literally just got up and walked across the street because bars were exempted."

BOOTH

OTHERS HAVE INSTALLED EXPENSIVE AIR HANDLING SYSTEMS FOR THEIR SMOKING AREAS.

AND YET SOME LAWMAKERS ARE NOW CONSIDERING NEW REGULATION OF PUBLIC SMOKING.

ON THIS EDITION OF STATELINE, THE BUSINESS IMPACT OF THE TURNING TIDE AGAINST TOBACCO.  ARE PROFIT AND TRAFFIC GOING UP IN SMOKE?

TRT

There was a time when it seemed like everyone smoked, and they did it everywhere.

Smoking was cool. Our heroes surrendered to the siren song of the cigarette.

Television brought the glamour and mystique of smoking into our homes. Even the Flintstones enjoyed rich tobacco flavor.

Doctors smoked in hospitals, teachers smoked in class and passengers on every flight waited for the pilot to give the O-K.

With the Surgeon General's report in 1964 smoking started to become a forbidden pleasure. But it wasn't until the 1990's that the smoker's world began to shrink.

Ray Vaughn

00:25:07       S-203

"It was everywhere, it was pervasive...but I particularly remember it at the capitol building. Because back in the early 70's I was a reporter at channel 4, and I covered the state capitol. So we would go out there, cover committee meetings, cover floor sessions."

Ray Vaughn

00:25:32      S-203

"There was smoking on the floor of the House of Representatives when I was a reporter out there. That was common; there was spittoons on the floor for those that used smokeless tobacco."

Ray Vaughn

00:25:45        S-203

"The committee rooms are the ones that I recall as being such a horrible place to be. Because the committee meeting would start, and many...ah, if not all the legislators would light up their cigarettes. And we met in relatively small rooms jam packed with people many of whom were smoking themselves. And I would just sit there and breath that second hand smoke, and I would go home every night of course, smelling to high heaven...eyes just red, you know...from the smoke."

Vaughn was elected to the State House in 1988, right away he set out to clear the air...starting with the capitol.

Ray Vaughn

00:26:51       S-203

"I think we spent around 50-thousand dollars one year just cleaning the paintings. Our capitol building has just incredible artwork, that artwork was becoming smoke covered, you know, dingy."

Ray Vaughn

00:27:21      S-203

"That kinda got some peoples attention. So we began to...to work to start cleaning up the capitol building."

(Commercial)

"When you smoke you inhale up to 4,000 chemicals. It's a toxic mix of substances including ammonia, the bleach in toilet cleaner...acetone, the chemical in nail polish remover, benzene found in paint stripper and hydrogen cyanide used in rat poison. And smoking delivers it straight into your body."

By the late 80's public opinion began to change. Vaughn and Ben Robinson his ally in the Senate saw an opportunity.

Ray Vaughn

00:41:11      S-203

"Next year it was the idea that, you know, people have to go to not only the capitol building, but they have to go to public buildings, governmental buildings...they have to go to the courthouse, they have to go to city hall to conduct business. So when they go to those places to conduct business, which we require them to do, they shouldn't be subjected to this there either. And so then we expanded it to public buildings."

A 1975 law prohibited smoking on buses, in theaters and museums and on elevators, but it wasn't until 2002 that smoking was banned in all state buildings. City and County buildings went smoke free in 2003, and in 2004 lawmakers passed a bill that raised the excise tax on cigarettes, banned cigarette vending machines and set stricter penalties for selling tobacco to minors.

Ray Vaughn

00:41:23      S-203

"Several of us came out with bills to basically take smoking out of public places entirely. And I knew we were on the right track when both the president of the senate and the speaker of the house had a bill to do the same thing. (Laughs) So when you have the leadership going in your direction, you're usually in good company."

The Oklahoma Clean Air Act passed in May of 2003.

Wes Glinsmann

5:01:45     S-108

"It went into effect in the fall of 2003 for all work places except for restaurants. And then it gave restaurants until March of 2006 to go smoke free or to build the smoking rooms."

In order to get the bill passed lawmakers exempted bingo halls, casinos, VFW and American Legion halls.

Ray Vaughn

00:59:13         S-203

"Bowling alleys initially wanted to be exempt. They saw smoking I guess as a part of the bowling culture."

Ray Vaughn

00:59:29      S-203

"They were very fearful that it was going to cost them a lot of revenue. What they in fact saw based on the bowling operators I've talked to was a resurgence of customers coming from church leagues, children's leagues, families coming back in bowl that would never have darkened the doors of a bowling alley because of the smoke environment."

Wes Glinsmann

5:02:57   S-108

"People still keep going out to eat. They didn't just magically stop eating because they can't go to a restaurant and smoke. And that's what we really saw in Oklahoma and that's what we've seen in other states across the country that have adopted restaurant and bar bans."

It was in a smoke filled room that Cattlemen's Café was put up as the pot in a dice game. With the roll of a "Hard six," Gene Wade was in the restaurant business. For nearly 100 years customers in Stockyards City have enjoyed a cigarette along with their steak.

Dick Stubbs

4:14:46       S-109

"It went in to people requesting more non-smoking seats than smoking in the early...or late 80's. But really the change got very severe in the early 90's and it switched pretty fast, and suddenly we had 80% of the people wanting non-smoking."

Dick Stubbs

4:25:40        S-109

"Here in Oklahoma we have a 60% rule. If you're selling only 40% or less food you can be all smoking."

Dick Stubbs

4:02:48        S-109

"So when the law passed this last time where they said you could have, uh...smoking rooms. The legislature really did a good job at that time of stating that the business owner and their customers got to choose an area; instead of just trying to force somebody's personal beliefs on it, they gave restaurants the right to build a smoking area as long as they had separate ventilation...separate exhaust system. You couldn't exhaust the smoke out near a door, uh...so, to build a room it became very expensive."

Stubbs spent 30-thousand dollars on the smoking room at Cattlemen's, and he knows some owners who spent more than 130-thousand.

Dick Stubbs

4:03:30          S-109

"A few restaurants...and I think there's approximately 130 in the state of Oklahoma spent the money to put in smoking rooms. We were one of them, our smoking room opened up a year and a half ago in March, and since that's happened all of our people that request smoking go into a separate area. That area has glassed off walls, it has separate, actually it has three different ways we get rid of the smoke...one of them is a giant exhaust that literally take the smoke and pumps it two stories high and out away from anybody, and also away from any intake on any air-conditioning. We have our air conditioning system we had to change 100%, uh; put in separate air-conditioning that did only that room and sucked only from that room. And then we also put in an electronic filter that pulls any particles in the air into that."

Groups like the American Heart Association did not support the smoking rooms compromise; they pushed for a total ban.

Wes Glinsmann

5:14:32        S-108

"We know now that ventilation doesn't work."

Wes Glinsmann

5:14:56        S-108

"The current technology available to ventilation engineers is such that, while it does a good job of filtering out some of the odor and the visual effects of smoke, it cannot filter out the fine particulate matter that really does a lot of the damage."

Wes Glinsmann

5:15:29   S-108

"Even people outside the ventilation systems are still being exposed to these toxins that are in the second hand smoke just because the ventilation system can not take them out of the air."

Stubbs disagrees. He says they've had no complaints since the room went in.

Dick Stubbs

4:04:41        S-109

"It's kept down the smell, it's kept it clean and it's worked very, very well for us."

Dick Stubbs

4:04:48        S-109

"One of the advantages we got was the fact that by putting all of the smokers in one area we were able to, actually pick more non-smoking seats also. So our business went up pretty drastically, because we didn't have to say no to any customer, we were able to please everybody."

Dick Stubbs

4:26:37        S-109

"Everybody's been happy since the law passed...including me. (Laughs) Because I really don't want to tell 25% of the people in Oklahoma that they can't come here and enjoy dinner with their cigarette."

Chad Bleakley had to have that conversation with his customers. VZD's in Oklahoma City was built as a drug store. The floor plan works for a bar and grill, but there's no place for a separate smoking room.

Chad Bleakley

5.05.59    S-200

"You know my typical customer before hand was... you know probably a little bit overweight a lot of fun to be around had a couple of drinks, smoke some cigarettes, ate a hamburger with you know bacon onions cheese they added it on you know? People that typically come in and thank me for being non-smoking you know after thanking me profusely for a period of time and saying how miserable it was before. When I finally ask them what they'd like to have...I would like to have a half spinach salad and a water...HAHAHA. It's been hard HAHAHA..."

Chad Bleakley

5.00          S-200

"So in the two and half years since it passed I took a very large dip at first."

Chad Bleakley

5.05          S-200

"I've really just taken the financial hit myself. You know I sure a lot of the front end employees initially lost some in tips...you know drinkers tip a whole lot better than the ...a lot of people that don't typically drink with a meal."

Initially restaurants that went non-smoking reported a 20 to 25 percent drop in sales.  Today a sign calls out to smokers to cross Western and light up.

Chad Bleakley

5.02            S-200

"My customers literally just got up and walked across the street because bars were exempted. So they would come in have a drink say "Hi," apologize and say they were going across the street and wish they didn't have to..."

Chad Bleakley

5.12.18      S-200

"Luckily this isn't my only source of income so.../ If I had not been able to put money into this to keep it a float / no I wouldn't have made it. It would have put me out of business in six months."

Even some of the smoking customers say they like the change.

Chad Bleakley

5.07:05   S-200

"I get a lot of smokers in and you know I get a lot of ...a lot of and this tends to be more of the...females better dressed who tend to take care of them selves but still smoke though. They tell me how much they like coming here because they can still go outside and smoke they can still smoke but they don't smell like smoke because there is not any here. So they are saving on dry cleaning."

Chad Bleakley

5.04         S-200

"I've really taken the long term gamble that in the end...this legislation was the right thing to do. I whole heartily believe that it was executed poorly, poorly written...left people like myself out in the cold.

Chad Bleakley

5.03         S-200

"With that in mind I've taken the long term approach knowing that eventually smoking is going to be banned everywhere."

Chad Bleakley

4.58         S-200

"Prior to smoking I was 60% food and 40% alcohol. Since then I am now 75% food possibly more and 25% alcohol. It's a lot harder to make money off of food."

Chad Bleakley

4.59        S-200

"In essence, you know with food sales my labor expenditures go up and my cost of the goods go up. So I not making near the money on the back end. So it has changed my business model considerably. And long story short I haven't made money since smoking I have been able to keep my business open and my sales have increased and I'm really busy...I'm just not making any money."

Dick Stubbs

4:08:36       S-109

"In the early 90's, a few non-smokers...they were the ones that were really very oral about their complaints. They were almost militant, today the militant person is the smoker...who, because, has had their rights taken away and even though our smoking room is very comfortable and everything, some of our smoking customers feel like they are being discriminated against."

Ray Vaughn

00:44:24      S-203

"Smokers for a long time talked about smokers rights, "Well I have a right to light up, and this is a public place." And you had to change that total mindset that "No, wait a minute this is my air too, I have a right to be here, this is my public building and I don't want to be subjected to the second hand smoke."

Wes Glinsmann

5:04:26        S-108

"The second hand smoke issue is really huge for public health. When the Surgeon General's report came out in 2006 it was really a wake up call, not only to those of us in the health community but really to everyone."

Wes Glinsmann

5:05:17        S-108

"Even just short hand exposure to second hand smoke can be dangerous."

Ray Vaughn

00:56:33      S-203

"The people that work in those bars are breathing all that smoke. We saw workers comp claims filed as long ago as the early 2000's from people that have to work in smoke filled environments and chronically ill as a result."

Wes Glinsmann

5:06:21        S-108

"The thing that's so frustrating about our current law that we have is that it's really created a class of second class citizens. We tell restaurant and bar workers "You're not worthy of the protections that everybody else gets."

Wes Glinsmann

5:06:47      S-108

"Oh, well they choose to be there, you don't have to choose to be in this restaurant or this bar...whatever." Well, that's an easy argument to make if you're wealthy enough to afford that you can just quit your job and walk away."

Dick Stubbs

4:19:34      S-109

"In our case probably 50-percent of our entire staff smokes. Anybody that does not like to work in the smoking room, they don't have to...we work them in a different area of the building."

Sen. David Meyers

01:08:54        S-203

"We've got lots of data now that say second hand smoke is a problem...so; we need to get rid of it."

Last year State Senator David Meyers filed a bill to end smoking in all public places.

Sen. David Meyers

01:16:35      S-203

"I'm convinced that second hand smoke causes, causes us health problems. And if you look at the state of Oklahoma we have a health problem."

Sen. Randy Brogdon

04:27:36     S-206

"Well, if that were the case then we should ban smoking altogether."

When Meyer's bill came up in Committee State Senator Randy Brogdon offered an amendment to ban the sale, distribution or transportation of all tobacco. Other members of the committee did not embrace the idea.

BNF-403

"Smoking"   Randy Brogdon Bite

"Would it not make more sense to just go ahead and outlaw...and have a very serious debate and discussion on stopping smoking in the entire state of Oklahoma?"

BNF-403

"Smoking"   Randy Brogdon Bite

"Next year, I would imagine it would be our homes and automobile.  We could just cut to the chase and get it taken care of in one fell swoop."

Sen. Randy Brogdon

O4:23:45     S-206

"When government is able to come into your private property and dictate to you what you can and cannot do that is a property rights violation."

Myers didn't get the votes he needed and the bill died on the senate floor.

Sen. David Meyers

01:12:35       S-203

"I did meet quite a bit of opposition from one or two restaurant owners who I don't think understood the bill completely."

Dick Stubbs

4:18:13      S-109

"That particular bill basically would have penalized the people that tried to follow the law. Whenever you tell somebody they can do something if they spend a lot of money doing it, and then less than two years from the point of them spending that money you're saying "O-K, we're going to take it away from you now."

Sen. Randy Brogdon

04:40:59      S-206

"No telling how many millions of dollars were spent on their private property to upgrade to a new government regulation and now here government goes again meddling once again and putting even tighter restrictions and ignoring the investment that has already been made."

Wes Glinsmann

5:13:31   S-108

"This bill is going to happen...whether its next year or five years from now or whatever. This really is the nationwide trend."

25 states have adopted laws stronger than what Oklahoma has, and several major cities have gone smoke free...even if their state hasn't.

Wes Glinsmann

5:13:58      S-108

"Oklahoma, you know, five years ago was really a leader on this issue and sadly we've kind of fallen behind. But I really think this is the year that we can kind of pick back up and...really finish the job."

Sen. Randy Brogdon

04:46:12     S-206

"If it comes back I'll do everything I can do to block it."

Sen. David Meyers

01:20:22       S-203

"We're anticipating that we're going to run that bill again this year."

Sen. David Meyers

01:20:22       S-203

"I'm not exactly sure what form its going to be in at this point in time..."

Sen. David Meyers

01:20:56       S-203

"Also it doesn't make a whole lotta sense to demand that a restaurant owner that has put quite a bit of dollars into this to just throw it away."

Sen. David Meyers

01:21:42       S-203

"...So, it'll be in some form, it may not look exactly like it did last time I brought it forth."

Sen. David Meyers

01:20:38       S-203

"For instance, it doesn't seem fair to a cigar bar who is selling cigars and they know who the person who's coming in to buy it is going to sit down to smoke it, not to allow them to smoke in the cigarette bar itself. I mean that doesn't make a whole lotta sense."

Tami Foust

02:03:07     S-202

"Very few cigar shops you can go in that you can't smoke. Almost everybody has some type of smoking room. What has not happened in Tulsa and our area is a smoking room that is also a bar."

The Cigar Box in Jenks is one business that could lose money if the law changes.

Tami Foust

02:07:45       S-202

"Well, obviously it would have been a big decrease in business."

Tami Foust

02:08:54       S-202

"I would not have to close the bar; I couldn't allow smoking in the bar."

Tami Foust

02:06:22       S-202

"Our business is not affected at this moment because of that law, because we do not serve food. O-K?  We are strictly a cigar bar. You can come in and pick out a cigar and go to the back and have a cigar, you know, with your drink."

Tami Foust

02:38:25      S-202

"If you like the Pedrons another thing you might like...maybe the Diamond Crown Maximas. Have you tried those?"

Tami Foust

02:19:34     S-202

"We're going to help them out with a cigar, ah...we'll check them out and ask them "Would you like to have a drink with that or go to the bar and smoke?"

Tami Foust

02:09:12    S-202

"We opened our business based on current laws, and the current law says that we can allow smoking in our back room and on our patio."

Tami Foust

02:20:31    S-202

"When you walk into a smoking establishment you know you've made that choice. You've made the choice to walk in someplace that you know there's going to be smoke."

Foust and her partners like many bar owners invested thousands of dollars for special ventilation along with separate heating and air systems.

Wes Glinsmann

5:10:33       S-108

"The vast majority of these case these businesses will have recouped their costs for that. "

Tami Foust

02:26:26     S-202

"What's recouping your money? Recouping your money is not making money. I mean the last I heard we were here to make money. And I think that if anyone knew there was going to be a law that possibly could just shut down smoking any where; I don't believe they would have spent the money so that they could recoup it."

Employees from nearby restaurants that have gone smoke free now take their breaks here.

T-K's Employees

01:53:54        S-202

"At TK's we're not allowed to smoke, we're not allowed smoke breaks. And we have to go the whole shift without smoking. Technically it's not even their rule it's actually the Health Department of Tulsa County."

T-K's Employees

01:54:18        S-202

"...Yeah, your uniform will be stinking like it. Not even that, even if you're off work and you're clocked out...and say you're on the back dock and you're in uniform and the Health Department comes in, that's a fine."

T-K's Employees

01:54:57        S-202

"I mean it's a given. Best time to have a cigarette...when you're drinking, or after you eat. I mean it's a routine, a routine thing."

Tami Foust

02:15:49      S-202

"They want to be together, they want to enjoy themselves not just as an individual smoking. And not just necessarily a party atmosphere but it's the intermingling and the guys that want to play dominos and the people that just want a place to sit and talk."

Tami Foust

02:08:25      S-202

"Yes people will drink, yes people will buy cigars, but people want to do that together...it's an entertainment. That's their form of entertainment."

When the Legislature is in session restaurant and bar owners will be watching the capitol very carefully.

Tami Foust

02:17:49      S-202

"They need to look at the business part of it, not just the individual part of it and, you know, write it in where the law can be for both people. There has to be a happy medium. And there has to be a way that it can be written that, you know, once you walk through those doors you know you've made that choice."

The issue is sure to come up again and lawmakers will ask themselves "How far do we go?"

Ray Vaughn

00:47:37   S-203

"I think we're almost there legislatively, there's not a lot of area that people are going to be willing to go. For example, I don't think you would see legislation pass that prohibited smoking in your private residence, or your private automobile."

Wes Glinsmann

5:03:13     S-108

"The business does not decrease, yk, people still go out to happy hour, they still go out to their favorite restaurants to eat. And that's really the economic point we want to get across is that what we see nationwide is that these bans do not affect business."

Dick Stubbs

4:21:53     S-109

"We know that it will be under attack every year. Hopefully our legislators will certainly keep seeing like they did last year that it's really not fair to take away something. And plus the fact that people that have put in the smoking rooms, it's worked so well...we do not get any complaints from non-smokers."

Tami Foust

02:09:40      S-202

"We pay a huge amount of taxes that...um; we just feel that our rights need to be protected also."

Sen. David Meyers

01:16:14    S-203

"Would you rather go into a bar that's smoke filled or would...if you're a non-smoker? Or would you rather go in one that's non-smoking?"

TRT

BOOTH

A STUDY RELEASED BY THE STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENT COMPARES RESTAURANT SALES TAX COLLECTIONS IN OKLAHOMA AND KANSAS FOR TWO YEARS PRECEEDING AND FOLLOWING MARCH FIRST, 2006, THE DATE SMOKING WAS PROHIBITED IN RESTAURANTS WITHOUT SEPARATE VENTILATION SYSTEMS.  SALES TAX REVENUES ACTUALLY WENT UP IN THE YEAR AFTER THE LAW CHANGED.

ADJUSTED FOR OTHER ECONOMIC FACTORS, TAX REVENUES DIPPED SLIGHTLY FOR THAT SAME PERIOD AND RECOVERED THE FOLLOWING YEAR.

BUT SALES TAX COLLECTIONS DO NOT REFLECT THE CAPITAL EXPENDITURES OF RESTAURANTS WHICH HAVE INSTALLED SPECIALIZED VENTILATION SYSTEMS.  AND IF THE LAW CHANGES AGAIN, THAT MONEY MAY HAVE GONE UP IN SMOKE.

TRT