HomeMy WebLinkAbout2001-10-16 Transcription October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 1
October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session 6:30 PM
Council: Lehman, Champion, O'Dormell, Vanderhoef, Wilbum, Pfab, Kanner
TAPES: 01-94 BOTH SIDES; 01-95 SIDE ONE
Smokin~ In Restaurants
Lehman/Let's get started, the purpose of tonight' s meeting is to discuss the smoking ban
in restaurants, first thing we're going to have to do is we have to keep the
doorway open, so if you folks want to slip up along the side, find empty chairs but
the fire code is kind of, requires that there be an, means we do have to keep an
open alley which we don't have yet.
Karr/There are chairs in the hallway and the microphone system is on as well.
Lehman/There are chairs outside the.
Atkins/(can't hear).
Lehmar~/Okay we'll be setting some chairs up outside but we do have to keep that open.
The purpose of tonight's meeting what we as a city feel we would like to do in
terms of smoking in restaurants and the purpose of this meeting is to take public
input both from those folks who would favor such an ordinance and those who
feel that such an ordinance is not necessary. And with the concurrence of the
Council what I would like to do is to give those folks who support the ordinance a
half an hour to present themselves to the Council and their case for that, those
who oppose the ordinance the same amount of time and then close the public
discussion and have discussion on the part of the Council is that acceptable.
Pfab/I would make a change, is it a pro and a con.
Lehman/Right.
Pfab/Okay do you want to flip for who goes where?
Lehman/I don't care, no but is the format okay?
Kanner/Well and how much time for each person, I would recommend three minutes a
person.
Lehman/Three minutes would be fine and if your here representing a group you might
want to appoint a spokesperson so that each group gets an opportunity to speak.
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 2
Champion/And they could have if their representing a group they might have five
minutes.
O'Donnell/Why don't we see how it goes and just start.
Pfab/Okay so are you going to the pros or cons first?
Lehman/Your call Irvin who' s going to go first?
Kanner/Flip a coin.
Pfab/It's my call.
Lehman/Yes.
Pfab/Okay cons, ones that are against the smoking ordinance.
Lehman/Those who are opposed to an ordinance that would prohibit smoking in
restaurants will be first and we will entertain.
Champion/I have one more thing to add.
Lehman/Yes.
Champion/Because we said on the agenda that there would be public discussion from
6:30 to 7:30 some people who might want to speak pro or con might not arrive
until after their group had spoken since that wasn't the format so we might want
to alternate pro and con.
Pfab/Well I, it's.
Lehman/Let' s go with the half hour each and then if folks come later, we will, we have,
I don't think we've ever shut people off so those folks who feel that such an
ordinance is not appropriate or necessary will have the opportunity to speak first
until approximately five after 7. So who would like to be first?
Bob Elli0tt/You want us to sign in.
Lehman/Yes I think that's necessary and give your name.
Bob Elliott/I'm first and looking around I see several of my friends with badges being for
a smoking ordinance so I'll go against what appears to be the majority and suffer
the slings and arrows.
Kanner/Your name please.
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Bob Elliott/I'm Bob Elliott, the Mayor asked me to give my name and I ignored him I'm
sorry, I would just urge the Council to use caution, it's my understanding, I may
be wrong on this it is my understanding that Ames has a similar ordinance which
is now in Court, if that's the case I think the very least you should do is to wait
until you find out how that is finalized. Secondly I would encourage you, there
are times when people speak to the Council and write letters and e-mail and you
might have 30 or 40 or 50 or more, keep in mind that if you had 620 people
contacting you for this that would represent one percent of Iowa City's population,
so if you'd keep that in mind. Also that in Iowa City many people like to see
referendum's or the public vote I would encourage you to at least consider
allowing the people to vote with their feet. The group that is pro the smoking
ordinance I think has indicated that 65 percent of the restaurants in town do not
prohibit smoking which means that apparently 35 percent do, that gives the
public I think ample choice if they don't want to go to a restaurant that allows
smoking, they can go to one of the 35 percent that do. I'd like to see you give the
public a chance to vote with their feet, I don't know if any restaurant owner if
pressured by loss of customers would not change his or her mind. One final note
there are people that say this is a health situation and I find it rather ironic that
your talking about whether it is a restaurant or a bar and how you differentiate.
How do you compensate talking about a health ordinance when you don't even
mention the problem with alcohol? That's all I have to say, thanks for the
opportunity.
Lehman/Thank you Bob.
Daryl Woodson/I guess it doesn't go up any farther, my name is Daryl Woodson, I think
Bob and I are going to be the only two people up here in the first half. I find it a
little curious that we're talking about this right now at a time when we're
celebrating American democracy and choice because this really is market place
issue as Bob said people can vote with their dollars. There are more and more
restaurants that are opening as non smoking, one just recently across the street,
Adagio, it is truly a market place issue, no one is forced to go into a restaurant,
your not required to go into a place. And if the Council feels that it is a
compelling enough public health issue to ban smoking in restaurants, if you feel
that it's compelling for government intervention in a private business then I think
the only thing you can do is to take that to it's extent and ban smoking in every
building in Iowa City with a commercial occupancy certificate. If second hand
smoke is bad in restaurants it's bad in lawyers offices, it's bad in car garages, it's
bad everywhere but.
(Applause by the audience)
Woodson/It's the only time an opponent is going to get an applause from these folks.
But the CAFE group spokespeople have stated in the press that the reason they're
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going after restaurants is because they think they can politically get it passed
against restaurants and they can't politically get it passed against everybody else.
Why don't we allow the marketplace to decide, if these people don't want to come
to restaurant that allows smoking or a place that has two separate rooms let them
go elsewhere.
Kanner/So you would support though a total ban?
Woodson/If you believe it's a serious enough public health issue I don't see how you can
say it's only a public health issue for restaurants, it has to be for everywhere. I
don't support it no, I don't believe in it, I think the marketplace should decide but
if you feel that it's a serious enough public health issue. I mean the marketplace
has decided, we've compensated at the Sanctuary, we have two separate buildings
with separate ventilation systems, one is smoking and one is non, it's not like one
side of one room. Other places have opened up and not allowed smoking. Some
places that cater to a younger crowd have tried it and found it was not successful.
You hear a lot about the studies that say after these bans are instituted on
restaurants that you know there's no change in restaurant sales, the research I've
done and I've found a number of those studies, all of them are based on sales tax
revenue. So if you were to pass this ban and say the Sanctuary and The Mill fail
and the new McDonalds opens by the Coral Ridge Mall you'll see an increase in
the sales tax revenue from restaurants and you'll say see there's no change, it's not
a matter, if it's a matter of affecting individual places, small businesses, why you
can take away the rights of a business man to cater to the market then why can't
the market decide whether or not smoking is a good thing, you know people are
not forced to walk in the door, they simply are not forced to walk in the door you
know and we as business people do our best to accommodate and you know if we
fail it's because we fail to accommodate.
Kanner/What about the issue of employees?
Woodson/Same with employees, believe me it's hard to find employees right now, it's
very difficult, almost everybody in Iowa City is looking for staff. If you can't find
who wish to work in a smoking environment and again if it's just restaurants and
not bars there are probably more students employed in bars where you would still
allow smoking.
Pfab/I guess Woody I would ask you how hard would you campaign for a total ban
smoking?
Woodson/I wouldn't campaign for it, again because I say I don't think it's a function that
government should be fulfilling. But if you believe it's a compelling public health
issue I don't see how you can apply it just to one class of business because it's
politically palatable.
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Lehman/Thank you.
Atkins/Ernie would you please the doorway, there are chairs out there.
Lehman/Yea the door, we've got to keep an opening to that door which means there are
chairs outside, there are speakers outside, but we can't have that crowd of folks
blocking the door, it's a fire issue.
Pfab/There are a number of chairs though.
Lehman/There are some chairs up here, there' s also room up here at the very front where
people can stand along the wall.
Pfab/I think they can even come up here and stand here right, you can come on up past
the good looking camera man there.
Lehman/Just a minute, we do have to clear the doorway folks.
Kanner/Come on up here, there' s space back here.
Pfab/(Can't hear).
Lehman/Okay go ahead.
Kevin Perez/Kevin Perez, 161 Columbia Drive, apparently Woody and I are two of the
restaurant owners that's about 20 percent of the smoking restaurants that allows
smoking in restaurants. I just want to start by asking three questions first to
Connie? Can I smoke in Catherine's?
Champion/No.
Perez/Emie can I smoke in Enzler's?
Lehman/Nope.
Perez/Mike can I smoke in the vacuum repair shop?
O'Dormell/No,
Perez/Now let's close this reel, just to go on with this, did you come to these decisions
on your own or did you consult with the other six members of the Council? Did
you guys, is there a reason that seven of you are making a business decision for
me? The CAFE folks will say it's a health decision, I totally disagree but I'll get
to that later. When I made the decision to open 126 it took a lot of thought, hard
work, and planning, I also planned to have a smoking section, it is legal and there
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is a customer that did smoke. I learned in Kindergarten at a safety camp that
smoke rises so I put the smoking section on the second floor. I also spent a couple
thousand dollars on an air cleaner to make my customers comfortable. On
Friday's and Saturday' s the restaurant is full, I got some complaints from non
smokers so I switched my policy to a non smoking policy before 8:00. Since the
eight months I've instituted the policy I've had few complaints and managed to
serve my customers. I didn't need the Councilors or the rest of you telling me
how to run my business. Thanks. And along the same line I'm also opening
another restaurant in town called the Monkey House and it's geared toward
children and families and it will be a non smoking restaurant so I'm not just
totally against, I'm not pro smoking, my customers are an adult, it's making an
adult situation and I don't believe.
(can't hear).
Perez/It's hard for me to imagine me telling someone to how to run to their business.
For example Conhie I may think your prices are too high, do I come to you and
say your prices are too high? No I don't shop there. Same with Ernie.
Champion/I wouldn't have anything to fit you.
Perez/I'm sorry. I'm sorry, say that again, I missed it. You know it's capitalization, like
it or not that's how our economy is based on, you know if I need to make changes
I will but based on what I want to do not on what you have decided for me. There
are many good restaurants in town that have made the decision to be non smoking
and there are some that haven't. Why would you believe that you guys are
qualified to tell me how to run my business? If you don't want to sit in a smoking
restaurant don't. Come sit in mine and sit downstairs, go to Atlas sit upstairs, go
to Linn Street, go to Givanni's, there are many places to go. At the end of, it
seems like at the end of this decision you can smoke at Catherine' s if you like,
you can smoke at Enzler's, and you can smoke at Brandy's, so it seems that if you
singled out restaurants and it doesn't seem right, if you want to have non smoking,
non smoking for everyone and just see if you can get that passed because your
trying to pass something that's legal. As far as my employees health goes 75
percent of them smoke, I want them to smoke upstairs where I have the ventilation
set, I don't want them sitting outside the front of the restaurant smoking on their
breaks or before and after work. And besides I also have an enforcement policy,
how are you going to enforce it? 911 I've got a smoker at 126, I mean it doesn't
make any sense, so I mean are we going to arrest more people, we can build
another jail, it doesn' t, I just get so angry when I think about this. You've singled
out restaurants, we, most of the restaurant work very very hard in what they do,
it's not an easy business, a lot of them come and go and for you guys to make this
decision does not make any sense to me. You know I have three children, I'm
concerned about their health also but I'm also concerned that they also make their
own decisions, they don't need the government making their decisions for them
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and I don't think that you guys should be making decisions, a business decision
for me, I feel very strongly about that and that's it.
O'Donnell/Can I ask you a question?
Perez/Yes.
O'Donnell/Have you ever had a person come up and ask you to be smoke free?
Perez/Ugh, not really, it's not.
(can't hear, someone in backgrotmd talking)
O'Donnell/When I had my Burger King downtown and I had my convenience store, I
had many people come up to me and ask me if I would be smoke free and that' s
what I base my decision on.
Perez/Right.
O'Donnell/So I just wanted to respond to that.
Perez/Right, and I, some people have and some people also have lots of great customers
that are smokers because they know they can smoke. You know Monday through,
or excuse me Sunday through Thursday, I'm not busy enough to have both levels
full so there' s always a non smoking table, always, they never have to wait for a
non smoking table. Upstairs you can have a smoking table and never have to sit
next to a smoking table, I've made that decision. Friday's and Saturdays that they
have to sit next to each other, and I said no smoking before 8:00 so I solved that
problem on my own and the customers, I mean I think we've done okay in this
town, I think we're a good addition to the town and I think you know my next
business, the Monkey House will be a great addition to this town also. And I just
don't want to, I work pretty hard here, I don't want to feel like I'm fighting the
city on everything, I think that you should respect the business owners and what
we've done and as hard as we've all worked. I also you know, I feel very; you
know, how I think. Any questions or anything?
Pfab/I have, you said you don't want to fight the city on everything, what else are you
fighting?
Lehman/We're not talking about something else?
Perez/Trust me, I've been.
Lehman/Thank you Kevin.
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O'Donnell/And I hope you won't let Connie's comment keep you out of her store.
Perez/No I missed it, I'll have to watch it on tape.
Lehman/She said she doesn't have your size.
Perez/Okay.
Lehman/Anyone else who would like to speak? Here we go, there is, now we're
entertaining those folks who oppose a smoking ban at this point.
Haywood/I'm sorry that' s not me, can I go ahead and talk?
Lehman/No we're actually trying to divide it so we take those folks who oppose it first
and then the second part.
Haywood/Is there anyone else?
Lehman/Is there anyone else who would like to speak? It's probably a good observation.
Is there anyone else who would like to speak in opposition to an ordinance that
would prohibit smoking?
Wilburn/Can I ask a question of, since there are no more, can I ask one of the folks who
did speak against a question?
Lehman/Sure.
Wilburn/A couple of you commented about it's the role of govemment, it's a free market
decision. Could you comment in your opinion, I can think of several things where
govemment did in an interest of public health made a decision to impose some
sort of regulation both in the way food is handled and I'm thinking also of perhaps
some arguments may have come against some decisions that eliminated smoking
in some public places, federal buildings, airlines, that type of thing, could you
give me your opinion about that.
Woodson/Well I mean, eliminating smoking in government buildings, those are your
buildings, you know, that' s a decision that government made for it's buildings.
And also government buildings, people are required to go into government
buildings because it's pan of their participation in society, you've got to go get
your driver's license renewed, you've got to come down to city hall and pay your
water bill and etc. As far as you know, the comparison with the health regulation
of food, you can't see saminila, you can see and smell smoke. You can have a
sign posted smoking or non smoking, but your also regulating the safety of a
product, you know, your regulating the safety of a product that a business
produces. Okay, sure you can say people don't go into a restaurant if they get sick
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there, well I can tell you there's been some times in Iowa City there was a
restaurant probably 20 years on Riverside Drive that had a food poisoning
outbreak that the State Department traced to that restaurant, it didn't stay open
very long. So I mean yea there are points for government regulation to regulate
health and safety, but at what point do you take that? Someone mentioned to me
the other day that obesity is the largest health problem in American, are we going
to start regulating the fat contents of the food then. I mean go out to McDonalds
and tell them to get rid of the deep fat fryers. You know, there's a point where it
needs to become a market place decision, you know your not punishing tobacco
companies with this, your punishing small businesses.
Wilburn/Thank you.
Kanner/Well actually Philip Morris in their literature they are fearful of these bans
because they are fearful people are going to quit so there is that, that' s not the
reason.
Woodson/A total smoking ban.
Kanner/That' s not why the reason I think it's necessarily the best thing. But there are
also employee health concerns, and we regulate that, for instance your not allowed
to buy a meat slicer that' s in terrible shape, now you could buy one for $100.00
that doesn't have a guard, your not allowed to do that, that' s against the law, you
have to buy one that' s safe for people and I think that's the heart, for me of some
of this issue is safety of the employees. You can say only people that smoke can
work in this place but I don't think that's the way it works, and people try to do
that on race, and we said it's illegal to do that kind of thing, who you hire and who
you don't. And I think it's the same thing with smokers vs. smokers and that's a
concern I have that your saying well the smokers want to work here and it's okay
therefore to have smoking.
Woodson/Well I mean I would not choose to work in a meat packing plant because
that's pretty dangerous work even though I might need the job I would choose to
take another position, I might choose not to work at a computer terminal all day
because of the dangers of carpal tunnel syndrome.
(can't hear).
Lehman/Let' s just keep the comments at the podium please.
Woodson/Like I said I'm not trying to argue that smoking is healthy, we all know that
it's not. The question is you know do we ban it in just restaurants and why just
restaurants? What is the difference between a restaurant and something else, if
you really feel that it needs to be banned ban it, put up a sign on the edge of the
city, the only place your going to smoke is in your private residence if your
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 10
landlord allows it. Itputs everybody on alevel playing field, that waythere's no
place you know is competition. You know you've got a lot of different
restaurants, when your talking about restaurants your talking about McDonalds,
your talking about fine dining, your talking about places like the Sanctuary, The
Mill and a couple of others that essentially are night clubs with entertainment, and
food and drinking and p laces that some may not be able to exist if you take away
a fairly large percentage of their business and if you have smoking in bars but not
in restaurants that have a bar as part of the restaurant you know then you have can
make rules saying they have to be physically separated rooms, physically
separated ventilation systems. Technology you know has gotten to the point
where we can do that, you know, you can balance the air in a room and you can
make sure that the air from the bar area where there' s smoking doesn't flow into
the dining room, and have separate ventilation systems, it can be done but if you
ban it in all places that serve food then you've got a bar downtown like Brothers
that makes huge revenue off of it's alcohol sales, very little off it's food but you'll
find more people going there to eat the burger baskets because they can have a
cigarette with their burger basket. You know your putting places at a
disadvantage here.
Wilburrg Thank you.
Bob ElliotU I'm in partial agreement with that, I have no problem with government
regulating on the basis of health, I think that's governments roles, the health,
safety and welfare of the individuals, I simply, I think if you'll remember I started
my comments with urging caution, I think the government should be extremely
cautious when they make a move like this. For instance my wife and I have
commented several times when we see a car driving through town with someone
driving the car, little children in the car, and the driver or someone else in the car
is smoking, to me that's absolutely reprehensible and I think that should be
criminal, but I do think, the thing I would urge, you have every right to regulate on
the basis of health, I would urge extreme caution.
Wilbum/Thank you.
Kevin Perez/I just want to reiterate about you Steve asked a question about employees
and employees health, in what Woody had said, there's not much difference
between a bar and a restaurant, how cotrid you say it's okay to say for an
employee to work at a bowling alley, it's okay for people to work in a bar that
have smoke, but not okay in a restaurant, it doesn't make any sense, you have to,
if your going to make the law make it complete, you can't make another half ass
law like we did with the liquor law. You make a good law that says non smoking
everywhere and see if you can pass it, instead of picking on little pieces at a time
where there's 18 or 20 restaurant owners that are trying to fight for their lives
while you make the decision so we're just like 18 little people and two or three of
us show up and you've got all these people that don't want smoking in the
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restaurant, I mean we're just a few people to show up to fight for what we believe
in so you can not separate the restaurant from the bowling alley from anywhere,
how can you do that and stay within your argument, it doesn't make any sense. I
mean can you tell me how you can differentiate between a bar employee and a
bowling alley employee?
Kanner/I agree with you, I think it's difficult to do.
Perez/But yet your planning on a law that says we are and part of your reasoning for
making the law is because.
Karmer/Well actually Kevin I think I would lean towards a total ban, I think that it's the
route to go and I think we have some people here that might concur with that, we
have not accepted any ordinances being final that we're going to look at, it's still
up in the air as far as I'm concemed.
Perez/Well I just want to make that point it's very hard to differentiate and you can't use
an argument that doesn't go across the board.
Kanner/I appreciate what your saying.
Lehman/The purpose of this meeting is to really take input from those folks who oppose
and who favor it.
Perez/I'm just trying to use up our half hour.
Lehman/Oh.
Kanner/We're getting that dress for you Kevin.
Lehman/Anyone else who would like to speak in opposition to the proposed ordinance?
Paul Carlston/Yes I have some prepared remarks I won't take time to read all those.
Lehman/You need, you give us your name first please.
Paul Carlston/My name is Paul Carlston, I'm a resident of Iowa City, I've wanted to take
issue with one contention that has been made repeatedly in favor of this ban which
is that it is a health issue. It is not a health issue, it is a political argument about a
health issue and that's a very different matter. The people from CAFE and the
rest of them are not really being honest about what their real objective is, they do
not want a ban on restaurants, they want a ban on smoking period. This is, the
hypocrisy behind all this is, is simply mind boggling, I'm not a smoker, I wouldn't
let people smoke in my house, I also wouldn't let my mother, the good Swede that
she is fix Lutifisk in the house and that' s really what their talking about here is
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what they really object to is the smell of smoke. A lot of us enjoy the aroma of
somebody else' s good cigar or pipe tobacco, it's a matter of taste. If your going to
a pass an ordinances kind of I'd rather ban restaurants from fixing fish, the smell
of seafood simply ruins meals for me. I kind of like the matter of this as that
there's an argument here very simply comes down to, it's, yesterday's newspaper
had a letter from "1 0 pediatric associates", basically all concerned about the health
of little tikes. Well did all 10 of these guys flunk logic, simply matter of this and
what an addict is by definition is somebody who requires a certain level of
nicotine in his system the matter of this to maintain a matter of the flow of
sustained level flow of nicotine to his brain. If he smokes less at work, he smokes
less in the restaurant or bar on the way home, and he's got to go home and smoke
with the kitties, he's going to do what he's going to do, he's going to stop and
pick up take out, go home and between the meal and desert smoke a half a pack of
cigarettes, who ever thinks that children are going to be advantaged by this? If
you really want this kind of an ordinance then go to the root of it, if you want to
protect children then protect children where they are exposed to second hand
smoke which is mom and dad in the home, ifthat's really what your. The point of
all this is nobody really wants to own up to the matter of this so they say the
hypocrisy behind this, this is not a ban on restaurants. I went through all this a
number of years ago, as I say I'm not a smoker but what I have in my pocket here
is well I have to carry all the time is an Ephipen, I'm one of the millions of people
who are severely allergic to rose plant, rose family plants and the products made
from them, bath salts, soaps, bath oils, particularly perfume, the most dangerous
thing in the world for me is if these one of the women from CAFE perfume lady
gets on the elevator with me I mean I'm not worrying about dying down the line
or my health adversely affected because somebody is exposing me to second hand
smoke, I'm worried about that woman who's going to kill me if she gets on the
elevator with me. Now sure, I'd like to live in a world where there's no second
hand smoke, but I say here where I'd like to live in a world where children get
nutritious meals and parents who feed them at fast food out lets are thrown in jail.
I'd like to see children live in a world where all of us, CAFE yuppies, and nattying
ninnies alike park our 4 x 4's, our 2 x 4's, our RV's, our SUV's, our XYZ's, or
ABC's or whatever it is and ride our bicycles. And I'd like to see this Council
stop tearing down livable habitats and buildings to put up more parking lots, a
matter of this, where as the Mayor just six months proposed a matter of this is, he
didn't like to see the shuttle bus continue over the sununer because if it did
students would ride the shuttle bus instead of driving and polluting the air and the
city would be out the parking, $75,000 worth of parking fines and fees. This thing
so reeks of hypocrisy, I'd like to (can't hear) with one remark, as I went through
all this when I lived in Montgomery County just outside Washington DC.
Montgomery County adopted a similar matter, and as a result yes the (can't hear)
all came back and said it really didn't hurt businesses because the county
continued to grow, sure. But Gathers Bergen 40 miles away from the center of the
city, but in places like Wheaten, and Silver Spring and Kinsington and College
Park and the communities along the line a lot of businesses were hurt very badly
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 13
and the ones that were hurt most severely were the ones that couldn't do drive in,
couldn't do take out, if you've got a drive in there' s no problem, people come in,
smoking in the car, kids in the back seat, get their Kentucky Fried Chicken and off
they go, smoke and all. But for the businesses othenvise what happened was
people like myself, my company, we had a contract with the govemment in the
justice department and then mostly the Department of Energy and down in the
center of Washington, DC. And every Friday we used to gather just across the
line in Montgomery County for daily, weekly, for our staff and our employees and
we moved it out into DC across the line, we had to, a matter of this, people simply
didn't want to come any longer to that. My own specific experience of this was.
Lehman/You need to wind this up a little if you can please.
Carlston/My most experience was when the government, when the Department of Energy
banned smoking in the building, the four stalled building, I really had a basic
choice, I could either let a lot of the staff go that had been with us for years and
for the lux of trading new staff or I could agree that employees would every hour
3, 4, or 5 times a day, ride down the eight floors on the elevator, walk out a block
and a half to the street, take 5 minutes to smoke and come back. The nature of
information management it's one of those things you really quantify so we have
very good statistics at the end of the year and I found that the smoking ban cost us
10 to 12 percent in productivity simply because of matter. So now what I'm
hearing here is that some restaurants here are going to have to allow his cook who
smokes to go outside the building to smoke so that he or she won't be affected by
their own second hand smoke. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you. Okay it's time.
Ellen Haywood/I'll be, I guess I will balance this thing out by being short, my name is
Ellen Haywood. I would like to just make a couple of brief points, first of all this
is a public health issue, we as a city decided several years ago to ban leaf burning
because of the concern of some of our citizens, now I would like you to think
about how the City Council made a decision on that case and do we hear anymore
complaints about that? Number two we hear about choice about how.people don't
have choices, somebody have emphysema does not have a choice if they can not
go to a restaurant that allows smoking. I would prefer that everybody have every
choice that all of us have a choice of clean air everywhere. I would prefer that we
have clean air everywhere just not in restaurants, not just in bars, but any retail
establishment in Iowa City. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you Ellen.
Dr. Miles Weinberger/I'm Miles Weinberger, I'm a head up the Allergy and Pulmonary
Division at the Pediatric Department at the University of Iowa Hospital and I
would like to reinforce that this is first and foremost a health issue, no question,
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 14
and I think no one questions anymore that smoking is the leading preventable
cause of illness in our society. Smoking among in smoke environments, a study
out of Califomia that was published in the Organ at the American Therastics
Society just one or two years ago demonstrated that bar tenders when they
compared their lung health both by symptoms and measurement of pulmonary
function before and after the smoking ban in California showed a substantial
decrease in respiratory symptoms and a substantial increase in their lung function
so smoking exposure, smoke exposure by employees involuntary smoke exposure
is a health hazard, it does have effects, there are also many anecdotes by the by
personnel who worked on airplanes before and after they stopped smoking. As
it's already been pointed out, the precedence of requiring private enterprises to do
things for public health is well established. Should this be applied to beyond
restaurants including bars and other places? Probably, a strong argument could be
made for that but politics is always the art of the possible and you've got to start
somewhere. Restaurants are a logical place, it levels the playing field for all the
restaurant owners as Mondanaro pointed out in his Letter to the Editor in the
newspaper a few weeks ago he felt that a level playing field where all the
restaurant owners had to play by the same rules would be beneficial and prevent
the occasional loss to all. Certainly the date in California does not argue that bar
owners or restaurant owners have suffered as a result. The, I've been through
enforcing smoking regulations in other places, I was, I've been with at the
University of Iowa Hospital long enough to remember when they still had
smoking there, I was one of the leaders in getting smoking out of there. Yes it
created a lot of controversy, but it certainly was the right thing to do, it is again
the right thing to do to at least start here with the restaurants, it won't end here.
One result, positive result I can tell you from smoking ban at the University of
Iowa Hospitals that a number of people who were smokers who worked in my
division eventually stopped smoking because when you can no longer, when you
decrease the social aspects of smoking you start improving the overall public
health by having fewer people smoking. And California indeed has the lowest
smoking rate of any state in the country in part because of the money they spent
on propaganda, counter detailing the tobacco companies and in part because of the
total ban on smoking in public facilities. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Kanner/I had a question for you. Could you tell me your name again first?
Miles Weinberger/Miles Weinberger.
Kanner/Miles thank you. One of the things that we've been seeing in literature is that the
World Health Organization Study which showed a 16 to 17 percent increase in
lung cancer risk from pass a smoking exposure in the home or in the work place
was not valid. And I was wondering if you or subsequent speakers could speak to
that, they talk about it didn't reach the 95 percent confidence level for to be
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 15
statistically relevant and can you let us know, do you think the WHO report is
valid that there is that increased risk for passive smoke?
Weinberger/I think it depends on which you study you look and the sort of environment
they're in, I think the study was strongest that I can remember the ones I'm
familiar with anyway and a Japanese study looking at women, the wives of
smokers who did have an increase in lung cancer, they of course have small
homes and rather closed environments. I think it's important, you know everyone
emphases the lung cancer risk of cigarette smoking and that certainly is a
substantial risk for the smokers, it's a very slight but statistically significant
increase for those passively exposed to smoke depending upon the environment
they're in but that's not the biggest risk. There are far more people who have
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease from smoking who got cardiovascular
disease from smoking and asthma, which is a problem in 10 to 20 percent of
children to some extent is clearly aggravated by smoking, we just had a
publication this month looking at the outcome of asthma management in homes of
smokers of children, these are children, homes of smokers versus homes of non
smokers. We had a 90 percent full satisfactory control of asthma in the homes
where there were non smokers, that was 50 percent in the homes where there were
still smokers. And that's with exactly the same treatment, now that's homes one
of the speakers here emphasized that's one thing we should emphasize. Well how
are we going to get there, well decrease smoking among people by decreasing the
ability to smoke in public places, on airplanes, that gradually started getting the
message to people, maybe they should stop. There's a lot fewer parents smoking
today because of these kinds of measures, because of restricting smoking in public
places. And smoke does aggravate people with asthma and other lung diseases w
hen they go into environments where they smoke and we should certainly give
them the right to work in a restaurant if they want to without being made sick or to
go to the restaurant.
Lehman/Thank you. I'd like to ask the Council if we have questions, write the questions
down, we've got a lot of folks who'd like to speak tonight and if we're going to be
limiting this to a period of time there's a lot of folks who will not be able to speak,
we'll write the questions down and ask them after. Okay.
Kanner/Ask when after, these people are going to be back the next hour to ask them.
Lehman/I suspect a lot of these folks would be glad to wait and answer questions.
Kanner/So during our hour we'll allow people to answer questions?
Lehman/Yea if we'd like, but I do think there's a lot of folks here that would like to
answer questions but we just took up about 12 minutes and according to my watch
we're going to run over anyway but go ahead John.
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John/Okay.
Kanner/But Emie I just want to clarify then that I will hold my questions if we're as a
Council going to let these people answer questions.
Lehman/Yes that's fine.
Kanner/At a later time tonight.
Lehman/That's fine, let's do that, right, go ahead John.
Dr. John Kammermeyer/John Kammermeyer, Dr. Kammermeyer I'm an allergist here in
town for the last 22 years. I will try and keep, I could talk a half an hour on this
but I'll try and keep it just a few minutes. It is a health issue, it is an important
health issue, I would echo everything that Dr. Weinberger said, I have 80 percent
of my patients are asthmatics or have inhalant allergies and they have significant
problems with second hand smoke. I have three patiems fight now they're
University students that work at restaurants or night clubs, they are exposed to
smoke, their asthma control is lousy, they know that, they feel they have to keep
that job, they can't feel they can get another one better, their work environment as
a part time student job is severely impacting their health because they are exposed
to second hand smoke. Many of my asthmatics if they walked in any public
setting or any restaurant or bar where there was smoke they could end up with an
asthma attack that might even send them over to the Mercy Emergency Room.
Asthma is severely impacted by second hand smoke, Asthma is increasing in
incidents and severity in the United States today, there's a lot of arguments as to
why, I personally think some of it is with air pollution and second hand smoke.
But it is a serious medical condition, people die with sudden deaths with asthma,
there have been three I know of personally in the last few years in Iowa City, there
was a high school student a couple weeks ago that died of a sudden asthma attack
up in Cedar Rapids. It also impacts allergy, exposure to second hand smoke
without going into the details why or how increases the likelihood and potentates
the potential to increases the ability for people with a genetic potential to develop
inhalant allergies and asthma. Okay as a few other comments non, also I sent you
a letter that you have that points that exposure to second hand smoke for half an
hour to an hour impairs coronary blood flow just as much as it is impaired in
chronic smokers that are chronic smokers. So it has major quick impact on the
persons coronary blood flow and the risk of heard disease and heart attacks. If
you make a ban, if I had my druthers on this, I'd like the earlier speakers that are
opposed, say I think we should have a ban in all public places, restaurants, night
clubs, every public location in the city if I had my druthers, not just restaurants.
But aside from that I also think you need to consider one little issue that we have
Coralville too and I think we need a level playing field for everybody here so I
think it would be good to coordinate a smoking ban on restaurants or all public
places with the City of Coralville as well. I guess that' s the, just to my
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 17
comments, I will close with one comment that I picked up a year or two ago from
a couple of friends who live in California during the campaign to ban smoking in
all public settings in California. One of the comments or slogans was the
following, I hope I don't offend anyone but the comment in advertising out there
was and think about this, having smoking and non smoking sections in a
restaurant is a little bit like having urinating and non urinating sections in a
swimming pool.
Dr. Tom Rosenberger/My name is Tom Rosenberger, I'm a pediatrician in Iowa City,
and I'm representing the 10 pediatricians at Pediatric Associates who were
referred to previously. I think, following Dr. Weinberger and Dr. Kammermeyer
and all the factual information which I don't think is controversial at all, I think
one thing we have to address is the message that we give to kids about smoking
it's a life style, and the letter that we submitted that was published in the paper,
talked about our going into exam rooms with adolescent patients smelling the
smoke on them, seeing the fingers and teeth stains and all of this, and we also
know that when we walk into exam rooms we can tell when parents are smokers.
Statistically it's been shown that kids in smoking families have more respiratory
problems, it's already been addressed, we can attest to that, we don't have
numbers but we know when it happens. If you raise your child in a home where
you talk about the health hazards and consequences of smoking and.
(END OF 01-94 SIDE ONE)
Rosenberger/An idea of what goals your looking for and then we take them out to a
restaurant and everybody is smoking and you say why what's going on here you
know, this must be an acceptable practice and this is sort of the thing that also
young people, adolescents come to Iowa City as college students, they are
adolescents, and were non smokers and become smokers because of where they
go and what everybody else is doing this has a tremendous impact on public
health so we do think this is a health issue and in anyway we can diminish or
prevent some children from as our little article said the first pop or the first chew
that makes them a lifetime addict we think it's important, any step that we can
take is the right direction and I would agree with the gentleman who said t hat
smoking in the home is probably more hazardous to most of these kids but this is
one step in the direction where we can take some action to make an impression
that this is, there is a problem with this lifestyle. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Suzanne Jacque/My name is Suzarme Jacque, I live at 924 E. Market Street and I am
employed by the American Cancer Society and I think it would be helpful ifI
provided some information that we have on what is going on in Ames as you
begin this discussion. Those of us who work in tobacco control which I do, really
we're not surprised to hear that Philip Morris is funding the lawsuit in Ames.
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 18
There are three things I would like you to remember, number one the Ames
ordinance covers restaurants and bars, it has many exceptions, many exemptions
and that made it especially attractive to the tobacco industry. Number two not
only is the tobacco industry paying for the lawsuit they actively recruited the
businesses that are part of that lawsuit, and number three of the seven businesses
involved five of them are bars, one of them is a truck stop which is exempted
from the ordinance anyway, only one of the businesses is a restaurant. I know that
the local Clean Air For Everyone group has always strongly recommended that at
this point in time we begin with passing a smoke free restaurant ordinance
because that is what polling in this community has shown that the community
wants. It's also kind of a scare tactic by the tobacco industry, we've seen it in
many communities across the United States with our counterparts in ACS offices
that the tobacco industry thinks this is a good way to terrorize communities from
going ahead with their ordinance. Our Iowa Attomey General knows this, he's a
strong proponent of Tobacco Control Issues and I believe it was here in Iowa City
that he encouraged the city to move forward with their strong smoke free
ordinance. And I ask you to listen to the Attorney General, to the people who
have been working on this ordinance and really pass a strong smoke free
ordinance as we begin this process. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Martha Lutz/Hi I'm Martha Lutz and I'm not in Nebraska, that' s relevant because I live
here in Iowa City and have since 1987 but in 1999 1 enrolled as a distance
education student working on a Ph.D. in Entomology at the University of
Nebraska so what I'm here to give you tonight are facts from the world of
Entomology that have to do with cigarette smoking. Are there any other
Entomologists? Okay I'm the only one, first of all from the Entomologists point
of view, I'm not going to look at the cigarette as whole, I'm going to look at one
chemical in the cigarette and that' s nicotine, and I think we can probably all agree
there's nicotine in tobacco, the plant nicotiantobacium (sp) contains nicotine, if
you dry the leaves, put them through a curing process, roll them up and smoke
them that's a cigarette, if you extract the nicotine and put it into a variety of
formulations it's an insecticide, I'm talking about the chemical, set aside
everything else that's in there let's just focus just on the chemical nicotine. I
graduated from Comell University, that's the one in New York in 1978 with a
bachelors degree in Entomology, my senior year I was a undergraduate teaching
assistant in the Applied Entomology Course where we teach people how to poison
bugs to death, back then nicotine formulations were over the counter and legal for
use in public. In 1999 when I enrolled at Nebraska one of the first things I learned
was that nicotine is no longer available over the counter, it is no longer permitted
for use in public, as a chemical nicotine went on the ban list sometime between
1978 and 1999. It joins DDT which was banned in 1972, it joins chemicals that
are not insecticide lead, you can't buy lead base paint and use it in a house
anymore, it's not the paint that's banned it's the lead. I'm focusing on a chemical
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 19
which has now been banned from public use by the federal govemment. DDT
was banned not for toxicity to humans but because it persists in the environment.
Nicotine was banned because of extraordinary mammalian toxicity, it is incredibly
poisonous to humans. These are chemicals that you can buy and use in public, I
don't think anybody would want me to walk in a restaurant with this I believe it's
a promethean (sp) preparation, it's good for use the day of, you can spray it on
food and eat that food later in the afternoon, but even though it's available and
legal over the counter for use in public, you don't want me using it in public. This
is the only legal formulation of nicotine that can be used and it's not even for use
in public, this is a granular dust type preparation, 0.35 percent nicotine content
available over the counter.
Lehman/Your going to have to wrap this up a little okay.
Lutz/The nicotine smoke generator is no longer available unless you have a certified
applicators license because it is so toxic that for example normal full protective
clothing and breathing apparatus available to the average fire department will not
provide adequate protection against inhalation or skin contact with this material.
Now I'd like to make one more point, it has barkned by the Federal Government
from use in public, it is also a factor in causing ADD and ADHD, nicotine mimics
the action of a chemical that mediates nerve to nerve discussion in the brain and
the rest of the body. You have a chemical called ascerteel coalin(sp) in your brain
and in your body, nicotine mimics it's action, binds to receptors in your brain, it
binds to receptors in the brain of the developing fetus, and prenatal exposure to
nicotine causes truncation of brain development, the same way that philidimide
(sp), anyone old enough to remember philidimide (sp)? It causes truncation of
limbs, you can see that, what you can't seen until the child is old enough to be
diagnosed with a cognitive disorder is that nicotine exposure before birth
truncates development in the brain and can lead directly to ADD and ADHD, now
not every child exposed to philidimide (sp) had tiny limbs, there was variability in
the expression of exposure to this drug. Similarly there will be variation in how
much cognitive disorder develops in a child exposed prenatally to nicotine. But
we're talking about lawsuits in Ames, how about a lawsuit by a woman who
worked in a restaurant that allowed use, fumigation in public by a chemical
banned from public use by the federal government and who's child then
developed ADD later in life, how's that for a lawsuit? If you worked in a
restaurant where smoking was permitted and were pregnant after the time that
nicotine went on the ban list and was banned from use in public by the federal
government and your child later developed a cognitive disorder you might want to
go see a lawyer.
Lehman/Thank you.
Claudia Corwin/Good evening my name is Claudia Corwin, I've lived in Iowa City for
eight years, I'm a physician at the University of Iowa, but I come to you as a
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 20
mother of two children. I urge you to do the right thing, I'm seriously vested in
the success of downtown area in Iowa City, I spend a great deal of time in Iowa
City downtown, my friends do and they spend a great deal of money downtown. I
simply you to do the best thing that you can, I have very little to add to the
eloquent statements of my predecessors but take this matter seriously to heart, we
have an excellent show out tonight and that gives you a very good idea of the
commitment behind the community to support a smoke free ordinance, thank you
very much.
Lehman/Thank you.
Matthias Lilleg/Good evening, my name is Matthias Lilleg, I just want to make a couple
pleas to your sensibilities and just for my own experience I was in Tucson for
about three months during the spring and Tucson has a smoke free ordinance in
the restaurants and it seemed to work well, I thought it was pleasant. I thought it
was pleasant because I have asthma, I got, I have an inhaler I have to cany around
with me everywhere and I guarantee you second hand smoke restricts my
breathing and if I don't have my inhaler I go to the hospital because I have an
asthma attack and I just hope you can help protect people like me from second
hand smoke so we don't have to go to the hospital. Thank you very much.
O'Donnell/Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Jeff Wilson/My name is Jeff Wilson, I've lived in the Iowa City all my life, my children
go to Kate Wickham, I work at University Hospital as well, I'm a lung physician
there, I appreciate the opportunity for us to talk with you tonight. Over the last 20
or 30 years the amount of information that's accumulated about the health affects
of environmental tobacco smoke is really astounding and currently it's developed
to be the third leading cause of death in this country, preventable death behind
active smoking and active alcohol use, okay so approximately somewhere in the
range of 45,000 to 55,000 people die are estimated to die each year prematurely
from environmental tobacco use, the majority of that is from premature coronary
disease, and in response to Mr. Kanner's question about lung cancer, if you pool
all the studies that are well controlled on lung cancer and environmental tobacco
smoke you come up with an average of about a 50 percent increase in the risk of
lung cancer for people who work in restaurants and that does reach statistical
significance when you pool data from multiple studies. And because of all this
data in 1993 the Environmental Protection Agency designated environmental
tobacco smoke as a Group A known carcinogen and yet despite that no action has
been taken by either the Federal Government or state governments in most states
despite recommendations from the EPA, from the National Institute of
Occupational Safety and Health, that environmental tobacco smoke be eliminated
from the work place to protect workers. So we're here tonight asking you to do
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 21
something that the federal govemment should have done and the state government
should have done but doesn't do because of the influence of the tobacco
companies. Now let me try to put this in perspective, and let me ask you would
anyone, would anyone of you or anyone here actually for that matter want to work
in a place where there was known asbestos exposure? Or would anyone want to
go to a restaurant where there was known asbestos exposure? And the answer to
that of course is no, okay, but the fact is that environmental tobacco smoke kills
far more people in this country every year and always has than as asbestos does
and yet asbestos is a very tightly regulated substance because of worker protection
safety concerns. Now I respect the restaurant owners concems and I think from a
public health standpoint there's no question that the best thing to do would be to
have a total ban but you have to start somewhere and this is where your being
asked to start. And let me tell the restaurant owners what the published data from
the published data what they can expect.
Lehman/Your going to need to wrap this up if you can.
Wilson/Okay from a ban on smoking in restaurants, they can expect their employees to
be more healthy and more productive and have less sick time and these are all
things that have been published that I'd be glad to provide to you. They can
expect less fire hazard in their business, they can expect less employee lawsuits
because there are multiple lawsuits around the country now that employees are
taking against their employers for illnesses perceived to be due to environmental
tobacco smoke. And lastly they can expect no change in their business, and if you
think about it when smoking was banned on airlines did less people fly, did
people quit flying? No. When smoking was banned at the Hospital, did people
quit going to the Hospital? No. When smoking was banned in the football
stadiums did people quit going to the games? They might have but not for that
reason, okay. And the same thing is true for smoking in restaurants, people will
still go to restaurants but it needs to be a commtmity wide thing so no individual
restaurant owner should have to take an individual risk. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
O'Donnell/Your going to have clear the door again.
Beth Ballinger/My name is Beth Ballinger.
Lehman/Just, could we keep that doonvay open though, we really do have to keep an
opening for the fire code, the fire code says we have to have fire way. Go ahead.
Beth Ballinger/My name is Beth Ballinger and I live at 48 Pentire Circle, and I've lived
here in Iowa City for 4 ½ years and I speak as a physician at the University who
takes care of patients who are living with results of exposure to second hand
smoke and I also speak as one of the spokespeople for CAFE and I want to remind
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 22
you here tonight about what this is all really about. This is truly just simply a
health thing, and I want to thank you for being concerned about the health of the
citizens of Iowa City by considering some form of a smoke free ordinance for
restaurants, we really do appreciate that. And because it's about health I want to
remind you what the components of an effective smoke free restaurant ordinance
would be and there are three of them and they're very simple. First of all it would
cover all restaurants, there' s nothing complicated about this, it's where a meal is
served. It would be all the time otherwise it's entirely unenforceable and entirely
illogical because the smoke doesn't go away, I think someone said it pretty clearly
for me before that talk about dividing a swimming pool up. Also there can be no
exemptions or compromises, that's one of the main problems with the Ames
ordinance is that there's too much inconsistency in that ordinance. An ordinance
with these elements will not only protect the health of not only the people that eat
at these restaurants but also the workers who are employed in the restaurants.
And all of these people are your constituents. I would remind you that the health
of these people are priceless and it shouldn't be trivialized by comparing it to false
claims without basis about loss of business revenues. And if you'll indulge me,
would everybody here tonight who supports this strong smoke free ordinance that
has the three elements of no compromises, affects all restaurants and has no
exemptions please stand up and show your support to the City Council and let
them know your in favor of this measure and we'll continue to let you know.
Thank you for your time.
Lehman/Thank you Beth. Yea we're going to go, actually we're going to go for about
another 5 minutes and then we are going to have to, we'll take some, we'll have
questions from the Council but obviously there's probably not going to be time for
everyone, if you have something significantly different to say I would certainly
appreciate it.
Ellen Lewin/I'll be very brief because people have said lots of things that I agree with.
My name is Ellen Lewin I live in Iowa City, and since we've heard a lot about
California, I have to say I moved here four years ago from California and the only
thing I have found more perplexing than the weather has been the fact that this is
controversial. We started, I lived most of my life in San Francisco, we started
with a restaurants ordinance like what's being talked about here, and within a
number of years that became expanded and finally became a state wide policy,
there' s no smoking in restaurants, bars, sports arenas, or any other public space,
period, end of discussion. And now that that policy is in place it's just not
controversial, you can't take your business elsewhere because there's no where
else to go. I guess you can smoke at home or you can smoke in the street but the
experience most of us have had is that lots and lots of people stopped smoking
and I think that's the reason for California having the lowest smoking rates in the
country. One of the things one sees coming, moving here from California is that
smoke seems to be everywhere, it's really quite unbelievable and rather shocking,
considering what a progressive community this is in other ways. So that's all.
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Deidre Ftmk/My name is Deidre Funk and I'd like to say there have been people who are
striking out against the ordinance that say that if you don't want to go to a
restaurant where there's smoke you can choose to go to another restaurant.
However I would like to remind you that children, young children do not have a
choice if their parents take them to a restaurant where there is smoking. I'd just
like you to remember that. Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
O'Dormell/Thank you.
Lehman/I see there are three folks and we're going to take the next three and then we're
going to take a short break, go ahead.
John Solow/Hi, I'm John Solow, I'm a professor of Economics at the University of Iowa
and I'm going to try to tell you a something a little bit different. I'm not a doctor,
I'm not going to talk about the health consequences. I want to commend you for
being concerned about the economic consequences for business, I think the cost as
well as the benefits ought to be weighted and I think that's something you ought
to pay attention to. I understand the concern of the restaurant owners who can
only see the smokers who are going to leave their businesses, just like to remind
them that there are non smokers who may come to their businesses and since far
more people are non smokers than smokers in the United States there's no reason
to believe that the one is going to out weight the other, the former will out weight
the latter. As I said I think it's important that you be concerned about this but if
you are concerned about this I think the logical thing to do is to look at the
evidence to see what we do know about the question of the impact of non
smoking ordinances on restaurants and this is a subject that has been studied at
length across the country from Texas to Wisconsin, from Massachusetts to
California to Colorado, large cities, small cities, urban cities, rural cities, over and
over and over again, the answer is that there is no impact, good studies, good
statistical studies not based on people' s fears, people's beliefs, people's anecdotal
evidence but controlling for other economic variables that matter like whether
we're in a recession or not something (can't hear) you will hear people say that
restaurant businesses in Ames are doing badly fight now because of the anti
smoking ordinance. I'd like to point out that we're in a recession and that has a
big impact on restaurant business as well. The studies that control for that sort of
effect, the control for population growth and income growth that compare cities
that have ordinances to cities that don't have ordinances find and this is a uniform
finding there is no affect. Yes those studies are based on sales tax data, sales tax
data are the best data to use because they are objective, because you have to report
sales tax revenue, you can't lie about that, well you can but it's a crime, all
businesses do it and the comparison of sales tax revenue in the restaurant category
to sales tax revenue generally gives a fair, objective, non biased picture of what's
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 24
going on and I'll just, I have now looked at dozens of studies, literally dozens of
studies and there is no affect, I know we're concerned about the Coralville Iowa
City level playing field issue, I went back and looked at the studies, the one I can
tell you for certain because it's one I know myself, is Palo Alto California and
Mountain View Califomia, I did my Ph.D. in Palo Alto, I know exactly where
Mountain View is, it's at least as close and easy to get to as Coralville to Palo
Alto, no impact, so I think you ought to be concerned about what the restaurant
owners say, I think they have a right to be nervous about this but I've just got to
tell you time and again the evidence is that these sorts of studies have no impact
on restaurant business, not positive, not negative, just none so if that' s the answer,
ifthat's the answer of your concem, I think you should try to lay that to rest and
go on with what the doctors say is good for the health of our citizens, thank you.
Lehman/Thank you.
Eileen Fisher/My name is Eileen Fisher, I live at 3722 Hummingbird Lane SE. I just
want to tell you what the Iowa Attorney General had to say about smoke free
ordinances. Smoking areas and this comes from code in the Iowa Code 142B.2
where it says "Smoking areas may be designated by persons having custody or
control of public places except in places in which smoking is prohibited by the
fire marshall or other law ordinance or regulation." What this means is that cities
in Iowa can pass smoke free ordinances. So why is Philip Morris suing Ames?
Why are they so frightcried about smoke free ordinances? Well let me read to you
a quote from Philip Morris' s own internal documents which were made public
during the trial between Minnesota and the tobacco industry. And I quote "the
financial impact of smoking bans will be tremendous, 3 to 5 fewer cigarettes per
day will reduce tobacco industries armual manufactured profits by a billion dollars
plus per year." They're worried about profits, we're worried about our children
becoming smokers, and that's why we're here tonight. How does Philip Morris
plan to stop cities from passing these tenible smoke free ordinances which will
cost them money? Again taken from their internal documents, this is what they
slay. "Slap a lawsuit on a large city that enacts a smoking ban so it serves as an
example to the leaders of other towns." So they know the trouble that they will
bring upon themselves if they are brass enough to pass an ordinance that their
citizens wants. In other Philip Morris internal document they say very crudely
"Sue the bastards", so what does Iowa City say? What are we telling you? 68
percent of us want smoke free restaurants, we want it because we want to protect
our children, we don't want our children to work in these places and get lung
cancer, cardiovascular disease, asthma, bronchitis and all the other things that are
related to tobacco use. We urge you to do the right thing, to act now and to direct
the City Attorney to draft a strong smoke free ordinance, thank you.
Dr. Bill Field/I'm Dr. Field, I'm an Epidemiologist at the University of Iowa and I'm
interested in this ordinance for several reasons, I think the first reason is, there' s a
lot of talk about family restaurants and there's talk about bars. I can choose not to
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 25
go into a bar and I do that, that has smoking but my kids ask me I have three kids
and I've lived in Iowa City for 15 years and in fact we were talking earlier about
Palo Alto and the city right next door Mountain View, and they were smoke free
15 years ago, when we moved here 15 years ago I was really surprised that this
city didn't have an ordinance, that was 15 years ago. But getting back to the
family restaurants, I think the focus needs to be on family restaurants because my
kids, they ask me to go to this place or go to that place and I won't take them I
mean we're limited to going into Mondo's or someplace that does have a non
smoking, even in smoking sections, it's sort of a joke, you sit there and the smoke
just drifts down on you, it's not real. I've done cancer research now for 15 years
and I've met with hundreds of people have died of lung cancer, and it's a horrible
disease, it's a terrible way to die and that's one reason I think the ordinance is
needed, that' s where a lot of people start, they start by smoking, they go to
restaurants, they see people smoking, and I hope that the Ames ordinance, I mean
this is really big business against the City Council, I hope that the Ames ordinance
isn't something your going to use to put this thing off another six months or so, I
mean it needs to be done now. Like I said I was surprised it wasn't done 15 years
ago so I thank you for having the forum and look forward to your decisions.
Thank you.
Lehman/Thank you. Pardon. We're going to take a break for about 10 minutes, 5
minutes of 8 we'll be back. Okay, go ahead.
Break
Lehman/Okay folks are there questions that the Council has of folks who have spoken to
us?
Kanner/Say that again.
Lehman/Are there questions that any of the Council persons for the members of the
audience who have spoken to us?
Karmer/Yea is Martha still here? I had a question, you were talking.
Lehman/Martha would you stand up to the microphone please.
Kanner/About nicotine as a chemical, it seems that you were talking about different types
of nicotine as it is applied in common use, different uses. How does second hand
smoke compare to pesticide use that you were talking about? Is it the same
danger?
Martha Lutz/Yes it is because nicotine is the same chemical, it's like if I can use an
analogy for a moment, lead is still lead whether it's in paint, whether it's in glaze
in a mug, and you drink from that mug and get lead into your system that way.
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Whether it's in lead pipes that hot water is rtmning through and carries lead into
your body, it's the same chemical. Nicotine is a defined chemical, I think I've
even got a picture of it with me if you want to see it, that chemical is what I'm
talking about and it's the same in cigarettes, and it's the same in insecticides and
it's the same in the tobacco plant growing in the field.
Kanner/Well the question is not whether it's the same but whether it's delivered in the
same way. Let's take an example of asbestos, there is asbestos in buildings and
we feel it's safe because it's covered up so it's not as dangerous as if it's not
covered up.
Lutz/Right.
Kanner/So one might say that nicotine is not in cigarettes as second hand smoke is not
delivered in the same amount that it's delivered as a pesticide.
Lutz/Well I can talk about amount for a moment, with regard to the amount, the OSHA
permitted exposure limit for nicotine is ½ milligram per unit of skin surface, ½
milligram of skin contact is permitted by OSHA. The permitted exposure limit
for inhalation or ingestion is zero, your not allowed to inhale or ingest any
nicotine at all. What that means is that ifthere's any in the air, any precipitating
out into liquid or food that's going to be eaten or drunk your exceeding the
permitted limits. Now the formulation I showed you is to be used mixed with soil
only, it doesn't get into the air at all, it's not permitted for use where food plants
are being grown, it's only for ornamental gardens, it's only to be used as a
repellent, not to be ingested, not to be put into the air, the instructions specifically
say don't let it get mixed with water. So nicotine as a chemical whether your
smoking, 90 percent of the nicotine in a cigarette goes off into the air in the smoke
and can be inhaled can be precipitate onto things and be ingested, can land in
water and drunk and by the way it's very water soluble, if you handle a damp
tobacco plant, the nicotine in the leaf will go into the water on the surface of the
plant, cross your skin, we have a wonderful skin for observing water soluble
materials, nicotine very readily absorbs across the human skin, into the bleed
stream, it crosses the placenta beautifully, and if you smoke or if you inhale
cigarette smoke, or if you handle wet tobacco plants that nicotine is going to be in
your body, in your blood stream, and if your pregnant it's going to be in your
unborn child. And as I said earlier it interacts directly with receptors in the
developing brain, truncating their normal development the same way validified
truncates normal limb development. So you actually get cognitive disorders
caused by prenatal exposure to nicotine, and nicotine is already a banned
chemical.
Lehman/Other questions.
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Kanner/So your saying that there' s no way a building can be made safe as far as second
hand smoke affects and nicotine.
Lutz/You have to get all the nicotine out of it, if you remove all the nicotine from
tobacco, if you take nicotine tobaccum (sp) and remove all the nicotine from the
leaves and make cigarettes out of them then they've legal. But the actual name of
the insecticide formulation that has been banned from public use is a nicotine
smoke generator. You put nicotine into a fumigant machine, you dispense into the
air in the form of smoke, and that is the insecticidal use of nicotine dispensed into
the air in the form of smoke. It is not permitted for use where food is being grown
or prepared, it is only permitted for use in closed greenhouses that are only used to
grow ornamental plants. It's used against, if it's white fly's things like that,
nobody is allowed to enter the building for a full 12 hours.
Kanner/But Martha I'm not concerned about, I'm concerned about nicotine that's
delivered by second hand smoke in buildings.
Lutz/That' s a nicotine smoke generator.
Kanner/And your saying that that's not safe health wise for anybody.
Lutz/No it isn't, it's exactly the same thing whether your putting nicotine into the air and
smoke from a fumigator or from a cigarette it's exactly the same.
Kanner/Okay thank you.
Lutz/The difference I think is that it's not quantified in restaurants where as it would be
in the fuelex nicotine smoke generator.
Kanner/Thank you.
Lutz/Any other questions?
Lehman/Any other questions from the Council?
Kanner/Is John here, the Economist, I had a question for you. What about Woody's
issue about although you may see increases in sale or it stays the same
individually you get great changes, for instance his restaurant may go out of
business, there may be a McDonalds and you get increased tax sale.
John Solow/That' s a really good question and I can't give you an answer to that one, that
is a very good question, there's, I have not seen, I've looked but I've not seen the
study of turnover rates following these. You should be aware that restaurants
turnover from time to time anyhow so you should be able to sort out turnover rates
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 28
before and after bm I'm a scientist, I'll be honest with you about that I have not
seen that one and that's a good point.
Dan Ramsey/I have an answer for you on that Steve. If there had been a restaurant or a
business that had gone out of business as a result of passing a smoking ordinance.
Lehman/Would you give your name please.
Dan Ramsey/Dan Ramsey I live in Iowa City.
Lehman/Thank you.
Ramsey/The tobacco industry would have made a big deal out of it, you would have
heard countless person after person come out here went out because of smoking
bans, this business, this business, there isn't anything. The tobacco industry
would have made that obvious to you since nobody has come forth and said that
not even the tobacco industry, my conclusion's got to be there has been no
business that have actually gone out as a result of a smoking ban. Because
certainly there would have made mention of it or you would have seen it out there
on web or someplace that would have made mention of it somewhere and there
isn't any mention of it anywhere.
Solow/Steve let me add one more comment that just come to mind. And this doesn't still
while I agree with what Dan says it doesn't give you a direct answer but the study
of Madison Wisconsin when they instituted theirs undoubtedly there was some
turnover but the number of restaurants in Madison continued to rise during this
period so if there was some going out of business there were more coming into
business than were going om of business on balance so it's not that there was
same amount of revenue but fewer businesses, there were more new restaurants in
total in Madison after the ban than before and so the number rose and at least.
(Can't hear).
Solow/I couldn't tell you without the study in from of me okay but the rate of growth of
establishments was actually higher than it was previously. So undoubtedly some
restaurants go under, restaurants go under for a lot of reasons, restaurants have
their revenues rise and fall for a lot of reasons, I think it's important when you
look at these things not to rely on anecdotes and people's impressions of what
caused things but to look at careful statistics and studies.
Lehman/Thank you John. Other questions from Council.
O'Donnell/Ernie you have a couple people there that would like to speak.
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Lehman/Keith you've got three minutes. I mean we had the first hour was for public
discussion, we've been going for an hour and 35 minutes so go ahead.
Keith Dempster/I understand and I hope you will that other people' s anecdotes are my
life history. (Can't hear) Iowa City spent a lot of time spent a great amount of
time and energy preserving the freedom of choice at the clinic door, now we seem
to be concentrating our efforts to outlaw freedom of choice at the cafe door.
People in a war or on a mission don't often worry much about collateral damage.
This seems to be the case and the current fennent towards the new Puritanism.
The Mill Restaurant may be the longest lived restaurant under the same
management in the county, I am three months short of 40 years, operating in an
area that is definitely not an easy business climate and hasn't been for at least 15
years we have survived in a difficult business in a difficult town by addressing the
needs and wants of our customers. We are not an alcoholic kool aid stand, we last
had need of police in 1972, and we have not found our names in the paper for
serving minors but on one occasion in 40 years and yet we are one of the most
vulnerable places imaginable in this current situation. It would require us to
completely reconfigure the business to attempt to continue paying the rent and the
taxes, we have for instance at The Mill generated about two thirds of the bands
that you people hired to go out on the plaza raising hell with everyone' s dinner
hour all summer. They are adult bands for adults and we are an adult place. We
find now, I have an old gentleman that likes to come down and have a pitcher of
beer at night, he can't because you can't serve one person one pitcher. I had a
couple in last weekend with their four year old, maybe they shouldn't have
brought that child in but they are the parents whom I could not serve a pitcher of
beer because there was a minor at the table. This is not a good situation for us, it
would require us to put our entertainer's out of business, you have found by
observing Mondo's that if you have a decent band Big Wooden Radio you always
like them, but the customers won't stay if they have to go out and freeze to have a
cigarette. With my employees I'm protecting them, the vast majority is over 21
and my average is about 3 ½ years of college among them, they are not the
uninformed. I am very lucky in being able to get a quite competent staff because
they don't have to freeze their behinds off in the back alley and the added
advantage is that I know when they're going back for a break to have a smoke
their not having a toke and I can't tell that about the folks I see up and down the
alley. These are distinct problems. We have about half of the place as non
smoking, but my figuring is this in the rush to our new Puritanism it is not that
people smell smoke, it is that they see someone smoking, this tends to be a
problem. Now we can make the configurations to have completely separated
areas of heating and air conditioning. It is a grotest expenditure but it may be
necessary and it's one of the few ways to survive. I would like to serve, I have
another 10 years in Iowa City, I turned 69 today, I have my lease until I am 80
and I thoroughly intend to give it a good shot but if this ordinance goes through,
no smoking, no time, no way, I can not like the Burger Chefs and Burger King' s
of the world rely on 40 percent of my traffic being out of drive-in's. Why do you
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 30
think downtown burger places die? They elected no smoking and they have no
smoking if you want to in your car drive in. It may be inconsequential to those
who do not deal with individual lives but tax situations, do not worry about
driving out older establishments, when Mrs. Gore came for a reception and rented
the whole place I don't think she worried that sometime someone had smoked
there.
Lehman/You need to wrap this up Keith. Thank you. Are there any questions from the
Council before we start discussing this among ourselves? Okay guys what's
your pleasure? I think the first thing we need to determine from among ourselves
is there an interest in moving forward with some sort of an ordinance that will
prohibit smoking? I mean do we have?
Pfab/I'm for basically what they were asking for.
Lehman/Well I don't, there's no point in delaboring this discussion if there are, if we do
not have the will to move forward with this. So I mean I hear folks.
Kanner/Yes.
Champion/Yes.
Pfab/Yes.
Lehman/All right fine, now just how do we want? No before we start Eleanor if you
would give us a brief run down of the Ames situation.
Dilkes/At the risk of opening up a can of worms I have to respond to something Mr.
Dempster said about not being able to serve one pitcher of beer to one person.
Lehman/Right.
Dilkes/That is not accurate as you all know, as long as you deliver that pitcher of beer to
somebody is of legal age to drink.
Lehman/Okay go ahead.
Dempster/Can I have your permission to reinterpret how I read this?
Dilkes/My suggestion would be that if you have questions you give me a call.
Dempster/Well you didn't answer the question which I will put into operation tonight if
that be in deed the reading of it.
Lehman/Go ahead Eleanor.
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Dilkes/First of all I think it's important to remember what the Ames ordinance does, and
just kind of in summary fashion, first of all it starts by applying the general
smoking ban to all public places not just to restaurants. It then creates a number
of exceptions that that ban for things like smoking alley, or bowling alleys and
track stops and private parties and that kind of thing. It also allows smoking in
food establishments after 8:30 or after an earlier time if food, if that
establishments typically quits serving food before 8:30. It also has an exemption
for establishments that food restaurants if less than 10 percent of their gross
receipts are from food so it's a very different ordinance than at least the one
you've contemplated in the past when you've discussed this. In terms of the
lawsuit I don't have the kind of behind the scenes insights that the woman from
the Cancer Society provided you, I can just tell you what I understand from the
City Attorney in Ames and what I understand from reading the pleadings in that
lawsuit. It was brought by a group of establishments essentially the claim being
made is that the Ames ordinance conflicts with the State Code.
Wilburn/Just the preemption?
Dilkes/And therefore there's a preemption. As you know the preemption issue is one
that has been talked about ever since this idea was first brought for several years
now, I think we gained some comfort with that when the Attomey General' s
opinion came out finding out that in the Attorney General' s opinion there was no
preemption by the State Code. I believe in my opinion an argument could be
made on both sides how that' s going to play itself out in the courts I don't know.
There is language in the State Code that is conflicts, Eileen Fisher read you one
paragraph of the State Code in which the Attorney General relied, there's also
another paragraph in the State Code that specifically talks about in order to ensure
uniform enforcement throughout the state local laws that are inconsistent with the
State Code will be preempted. So therc's some language that it's tough to figure.
But in any event I think I gained a lot of comfort by the Attorney General' s
opinion and that and was comfortable with you all proceeding. In terms of the
proceedings in Ames the plaintiff in that case applied for a temporary.
(END OF 01-94 SIDE TWO)
Dilkes/(can't hear) lawsuit is proceeding in joining enforcement of the Ames ordinance.
Typically in those kinds of actions the plaintiffs have to show number one that
they are likely to succeed on the merits and number two that they will suffer some
kind of irreparable harm, if they do not receive a temporary injunction the
irreparable harm being claimed by the plaintiff and that is loss profits and damage
to the business. It is my understanding that Ames has countered that with the
public health argument. Those arguments were heard October 2, we've been
checking with the City Attorney in Ames, we checked most recently late this
afternoon and there is no ruling in that temporary injunction. The temporary
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injunction remember will not resolve the eraire lawsuit, that just decides what
happens during the, while the lawsuit is (can't hear).
Pfab/Ernie.
Lehman/Yes.
Pfab/I would propose that what we do is move forward in a not in a negative way or a
defensive way but in a positive way and say this is what we want and let's proceed
to and see what we can put together.
Lehman/I think that's where we are.
Pfab/But I mean rather than won'ying about what bump in the road we may hit, what is
it we really want? Look at the goal. Okay so I believe that somebody mentioned I
don't remember who it was that stated what they felt the ordinance they were
ordinance. Was that person that spoke here person. Okay would you?
Lehman/No we're discussing that with ourselves now.
Pfab/Okay I was just saying she, she gave us a, it sounded like a good formula to proceed
on. That was my only comment.
Lehman/Well I don't know quite how to do this. Eleanor there are certain things that
obviously we have to determine. First of all we have to define a restaurant, we've
got to define, I'm sure we're going to have some discussions as to the differences
between restaurants and bars, how do we make that distinction. Are we interested
in bans that are 24 hour bans that there's no smoking at all. Ames obviously has a
red light green light which is an option. I think we need to go, we need to
establish certain things whether or not first of all, well I think we need to define
restaurants. And I, the ordinance that I have a copy of here I think uses a state
code definition that if51 percent or more of the revenue comes from the sale of
food it's a restaurant. Is that correct?
Dilkes/Are you talking about CAFE's ordinance? Which ordinance do you have in from
of you?
Lehman/I don't see anyone's name but I think it is yes.
Dilkes/Well if you remember back when we first started discussing this in April and
went through a series of questions with you abom what you wanted to see in the
ordinance, I can do that again if you want. Should we start? It's really up to you
all. You know we can, I think there are different ways that restaurant is defined,
one concern I had about the CAFE ordinance and I think I talked to Dan Ramsey
and Dr. Ballinger about this is that it had two, it had the 50 percent exemption
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 33
which I think is really although I think it can pose some difficulties is about the
only way your going to do that is come up with some percentage and deal with
that that way. Irvin.
Pfab/I was just going to, make it, put something on the table.
Champion/Well let her finish.
Pfab/Okay.
Dilkes/The state code exempts bars, the state smoking code provision exempts bars
those that define alcohol but only if they have if they don't have seating for more
than 50 people so I don't think you want to deal with that, I think we want to stick
to the percentage exemption just by itself, it gets too complicated to use them
both.
Lehman/Right, so we will be at this time will be trying to define what a restaurant is.
Dilkes/Well I think I can do some drafting of you know where meals are sold, I mean we
have to work on that but that's for me I think to do. I think what you all need to
do is tell me the relative amounts of liquor sales and food sales that you know I
think the idea is the more food the more important the ban, the more alcohol the
less important, that' s been kind of the discussion I need to know from you all
what percentage your talking about.
Champion/Something else I wanted to keep in mind although I support a smoking ban, I
think it is the right thing to do, I think it is choice but I think it also might
discourage young people from smoking and it amazes me the number of young
people in this town smoking, it totally amazes me. But I do have problems since
it's not an overall ban we're talking about, the problems I have are with places
that are restaurants but are certainly bars after a certain amount of time. We have
several (can't hear) that I think would be hurt by this ordinance, for instance The
Sanctuary, The Mill, Vito's, Mondo's, not Mondo's, the place by my store,
Mickey's. Some of these restaurants like 126 and Atlas and the Sanctuary have
put in very expensive circulatory systems, heating systems, air conditioning
systems, to make their smoking areas really separate from their non smoking
areas, I agree that Village Inn your sitting in one booth and five booth's over
somebody is smoking, that's not a smoking ban so these are concerns that I have, I
didn't know, there must be some way we can address these, I don't know how. I
know CAFE doesn't want any exceptions, but I think we just need to discourage
specific circumstances where exceptions might be necessary since it's not an
overall ban so there would be people who would be adversely affected because
they don't fall into this category of bar or restaurant, they're really both and
they're all long term establishments or good establishments that run really good
businesses, not that I can really differentiate between that but I have concerns
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about these particular businesses and I just want us to keep in mind if anyone
could come up with some way we could eliminate what I think will be a negative
impact on these businesses. I don't think most restaurants will have a negative
impact at all I totally believe that they won't. I think people prefer non smoking
restaurants, I'm a smoker, I prefer non smoking restaurants. So I don't think
they're going to have a negative impact but I do think because the bar is excluded
and these people do a big bar business that they're business will be adversely
affected. And that's a concem that I have voiced from day one about this
ordinance.
Pfab/Connie at one point you suggested a different number and at first I didn't
understand where you were going, I'm a lot more inclined to support the different
number you had, was it 60 or 70 percent?
Champion/It was 60 or 70 percent.
Pfab/I would say let's try 70 percent and see how that goes.
Karmer/What I heard tonight and throughout the year there' s concern by business
owners, that's the major thing that we heard. There's concem for worker's rights,
there' s concern for children, there' s concern for business going to Coralville
possibly. I think the answer to be fair to the business owners and for workers
fights and other folks in our community is a total ban and I think if we take that
leap as a city I think that puts us ahead actually, I think that's something that
attracts people to our city, I think conferences, if we're going to try to attract
conferences, I think we'll get more business that way being smoke free. And I
think it's time for us to take that leap in leadership and say we're going to make
the whole place, any commercial venue smoke free.
Champion/I don't think the town is ready for that. I think that would be easier to deal
with than what we're dealing with but I think even CAFE doesn't think the town
is ready for that, so (can't hear) I think eventually that will happen.
Pfab/And I support the concept but at the same time politics is the art of the possible and
the sense.
Kanner/I heard that somewhere else.
Pfab/In a sense that, I mean that so it's studies and experience states that worked at this a
lot more than this group does is that it's very very difficult to get that (can't hear)
with nothing.
Kauner/Well I think what I hear from CAFE is the art of the possible for the City
Council, I think they would be happy to have a total ban and I think it's something
that the City of Iowa City would accept, I think it's a matter of us showing the
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leadership and taking that next step. And that would solve a lot of problems, I
think there' s still the problem of businesses possibility going to Coralville and I
would look at that some more but I think overall it's a win, win situation, it
addresses a lot of the concerns.
Champion/We'd have to go back to ground zero (can't hear).
Lehman/Well wait, why don't we, I'd like to see how many of us are willing to exhibit
the leadership and go for a 100 percent ban.
Pfab/I would if we'd do it.
Vanderhoef/100 percent ban on bars and restaurants or any public places.
Lehman/Any public places.
Pfab/Any public place.
Lehman/That's what your saying isn't it Steven?
Kanner/Yea for.
Lehman/It would be bowling alleys, restaurants, bars the whole works.
Pfab/Stores, you know any public places.
Lehman/And we have, how many folks are going to, we have two so I think perhaps we
won't spend our time discussing that so now let's talk about the restaurant issue.
O'Donnell/CAFE has asked specifically for restaurants, and I think we need to determine
the difference between a restaurant and a bar that sells burgers. I think the 51
pement is a little bit unrealistic, I do agree with 70 percent, and for restaurants and
perhaps I think 70 percent is a good starting place so any comment on that?
Lehman/Do we have any idea? And I do not have any idea of the relative volume of
food and alcohol and I do have, obviously one of my real concerns was that I
really felt it would be so much better for all of us if we had an ordinance that was
shared by our sister city in Coralville but that obviously isn't going to happen up
front but I don't know, don't have a clue what constitutes, your talking about 70
percent of, if70 percent or more of the volume comes from food they are
restaurants.
Champion/Well they certainly are a restaurant.
Lehman/Well no, no, but I mean, that's the, is that the percentage?
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Kanner/Well I think Ernie, I think it might be easier to look at it more than let' s say 30
percent, look at from the other side, more than.
Lehman/Okay either way.
Kanner/30 percent is from food then you would qualify as a restaurant, that means.
Dilkes/More than 30 pement from alcohol.
Lehman/No, if more than 30 pement is from alcohol.
Dilkes/I think is what, 70 percent food, 30 percent alcohol.
Lehman/Yes, that's the number that was thrown out is if70 percent of the volume is from
food or more it's a restaurant, if it's less than 60 percent it's a bar, is that what I'm
hearing?
Champion/(can't hear) restaurants that would certainly cover all family restaurants where
people are not drinking large amounts of alcohol or even restaurants that don't
tum into bars really you go there you have dinner you might have one, the
maximum two glasses of wine, and I love wine but I never have more two, when
I'm out at a restaurant, so I mean I might be able to be very comfortable with that
and totally support it. I don't know if it's enough I mean maybe we can try it or
at least put it out there and see what kind of response we get to that. It may not
be exactly what CAFE wants but it's a strong beginning and I would have no
problems totally supporting that, I would not have any problems in the future
banning smoking in every public place but we're not at that point, we're really not
at that point, I've been to towns where smoking is not allowed inside any public
building where the public can go. I was just in Provincetown, the bars were
jammed packed, you couldn't smoke in the bars, you couldn't smoke in the
restaurants, you couldn't smoke in the bowling alleys. I mean I think eventually
it doesn't hurt business but when you make small steps like we need to do I think
you can effective people's business. So I'd like us to start there, I'd like to maybe
just ask Woody if that, how, what do you think, is that going to protect you people
that are really restaurants that become bars with music and?
Woodson/Yea I can't speak for everybody but that number in that range would probably
be you know probably safe us and at the other places.
Champion/And maybe we can look at it a year from now and maybe we can ask these
restaurants to keep track so maybe we need to go down, you know maybe it needs
to be 60 percent I don't know, but I have to start at a place that I'm comfortable
with so that I can totally support the ordinance, I've got to be comfortable where
I'm starting.
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Woodson/It would certainly, it would certainly go towards solving a difficulty defining
between a family restaurant and a restaurant that is more towards a bar or
entertainment but also serves food too.
Pfab/I lost what I was going to say, I'll catch you next round.
Kanner/So, let me get this straight, 70 percent, if you sell 70 percent in food there' s a
smoking ban.
Lehman/Right.
Kanner/Okay.
O'Donnell/Because your a restaurant.
Champion/Because you are definitely a restaurant.
Kanner/See what I think what we need to do is to say that there's a ban in almost that
serves food and any place that serves over 30 percent in food is banned.
Champion/Well then your going to have bars, that serve bar food.
Kanner/Right.
Champion/Serving food and then your going to have people drinking especially young
people drinking without eating, I can't support that law.
Karmer/I think we want to get to the place where it's just a bar that serves alcohol with
maybe a few chips or something and that I would say would be a 30 or 20 percent,
I'm not sure what the exact level would be, instead, I think there are too many
exceptions with 70 percent the other way. I think that doesn't get to our point, I
think we need to.
Champion/I think it starts and then we can look at it again, let's see how effective it is, it
includes all family restaurants, it really does include restaurants that are really
restaurants. It doesn't include restaurants that stay open for bar business and
become bars, I agree with that.
Pfab/My point is my understand is that the idea of restaurants not being able to compete
with that serve liquor and restaurants, business would go from a restaurant, an
establishment that is really a strong restaurant that would maybe would go to a bar
and I think this pretty much makes the playing field relatively level.
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Champion/You know that's a good point Irvin I hadn't thought about that, it would be
very easy to manipulate 50 percent, 51, 52, you could manipulate that very easily,
charge less for drinks, more for food, that' s a valid point.
Pfab/Okay there' s another thing, I think the idea of the state's, I think I'm old enough, I
don't know ifthere's anybody else here in this room that's old enough to know
that the 51 percent serving food was a restaurant and so that was so you could be
open on Sunday to sell liquor.
O'Donnelt/Ernie's old enough what do you think?
Champion/I'm the oldest one here, I don't remember that.
O'Donnell/Emie's closer.
Lehman/Well I guess I'd like to hear from a couple other council folks who haven't
expressed some thoughts on this definition of what constitutes a restaurant, if
we're going to do it as a percentage of food sales we have a suggestion here that
perhaps we look at a number other than 50.
Vanderhoef] Well I was just looking at the list of the folks who chose to answer our
request on whether they had more than 50 percent and as I read through here two
of the concemed restaurants that have been mentioned they would be classified as
bars at the 50 percent level, now what happens when we move them up but The
Mill and The Sanctuary both would, I take that back.
Dilkes/No I think.
O'Dormell/I think you've got it reversed.
Vanderhoef/It's one and one.
Lehman/Yea.
Vanderhoef/One is and one isn't, sorry about that. I have a feeling that 70 percent is a
little high, I wasn't sure that I was comfortable with 50 and I guess I would be
looking more in the 60 and I want to be very sure that when we write this that it
will be on gross receipts of the establishment not on the retail wholesale of food
that comes in the back door, so.
O'Dormell/I think that 70 percent clearly establishes a restaurant and I would support 70
percent. It's not the intention, I mean places that were bars now put in a fryer
basket and a grill and they can serve hamburgers and that in my mind is not a
restaurant, a restaurant is where you go out with your family and sit down and eat.
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Wilburn/I would agree with Dee and again this is based on the self reporting (can't hear).
Champion/Can I see that Dee?
Vanderhoef/Sure can.
Champion/I don't know how to retrieve these.
Vanderhoef/No, Mickey's did not respond on this survey and 126 was not open at that
time that we did the survey if I'm correct.
Dilkes/Just so you want me just to remind you what survey we're talking about here, at
your request we sent out to all establishments that hold a liquor license and ask
them respond to the following questions. Do sales of alcohol beverages sold on
premises account for 50 percent or more of your total receipts for food and
beverages sold on premises. And we had, we sent out 83, we received 49
responses and I think that's what Dee's been looking at, those responses.
Champion/Well see Givanni's would be a restaurant, there's no question, they're a
restaurant.
Vanderhoef/There are several of those on the list that are already smoke free.
Champion/Right.
Pfab/Dee a number of nambers that floated around were higher than 70, and that was.
Vanderhoef/Higher.
Pfab/Yes that was, when you listen to the community a number of people felt it maybe
should have been higher and 70 1 felt was kind of a compromise. The 50 really
had nothing to do with, it was just an old state law that said you could open up
your tavern and if you sold over 51 percent and of course every bartender wanted
to open up their tavern on Sunday, that was how that was, when liquor by the
drink came into Iowa.
Vanderhoef/Well that's long gone.
Dilkes/I think we need to be clear when we're talking, are we talking 70 percent food.
Lehman/Yes.
Dilkes/Or 70 percent.
Vanderhoef/Yes.
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Dilkes/That' s right, is that you understood it Irvin?
Pfab/Right.
Lehman/That's right.
Pfab/So I think it's the idea so there's a more level playing field for the rest of them,
amongst themselves. Is it okay Emie, somebody would like to make a comment
that knows probably more than I do.
Lehman/Yea we'll do it, you know actually I think if we can define, well go ahead.
Dr. Ballinger/I'm Dr. Ballinger and I'm from Iowa City and just to give you a little bit of
history about this whole thing where the 50 percent number came from when we
initially submitted a model ordinance to you, after having thought about this,
talked about this, hashed about this, argued about this for literally years we settled
on the 50/50 or 51/49 number based on a couple different things. First of all we
didn't want to be seen as a group because we knew that we would become sort of
the face of this ordinance. We did not want to as a group be seen as trying to
single out certain types of businesses or single out other ones, we were strictly
looking for something that sounded logical that if you explained to it somebody
on the street. Well what is a restaurant? Well they make more of their money
from food than alcohol, that it would be simple for people to understand that we
specifically didn't want to single out places like The Sanctuary or The Mill or
anything like that, we didn't want to go anywhere near that issue and also there is
information in the state code where they use the 51 percent thing to define this so
we thought that when we were anticipating a potential court challenge that maybe
because it was defined that way and this was some of the legal advice that we had
that since it was defined that way already in state code in another place that it
might potentially be easier to defend.
Dilkes/Them are two, in talking to the, your talking about regulations of the Public
Health Department over restaurants I thing is what Dr. Ballinger is talking about
and they call them a type 11 and a type 21 and it depends on what their relative
alcohol sales are in alcohol and food sales and they do use the 51 percent figure
and they rely on self reporting for that as you remember we tried to get statistics
on establishments from them and those aren't available from them. I don't, I
don't concur that 50 percent because of that connection is going to be more
supportable than something else so I.
(audience, can't hear).
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Dilkes/But I, yea I just wanted to respond to that though in terms of, I'm comfortable
with you, you don't lesson the defensibility of it by picking a different number I
guess.
Pfab/Are you .comfortable with that 70 percent is defensible as 50?
Dilkes/I don't think the percentage you pick is really particularly significant in terms of
(can't hear).
Lehman/The only thing about the pementage is that if the ordinance is going to have any
impact and in fact really influence places not to have smoking it has to affect a
certain number of establishments and the question is does 70 percent, does 70
percent do that? Obviously 50 percent I think is a rather significant impact based
on the questionnaire that we had out and also I think it affects places that, you
'know the bottom line is it's probably just as dangerous to smoke in a bar as it is a
restaurant.
Champion/We all know that.
Lehman/But I guess the question is how restrictive do we want to be? At the same time
do we want to be so nonrestrictive as to not be effective.
Kanner/What does the 70 percent show on this?
Lehman/70 percent, well it doesn't show.
Dilkes/No we only asked a 50 percent question because that's what you'd been talking.
about at the time.
Pfab/I think we're getting to somewhat of a compromise here because I think 50 percent
for a person like The Sanctuary would cause difficulty and I think the same way
with The Mill. And the people from CAFE I understand 70 is not a problem so I
think that' s a pretty decent number, I mean, and that seemed to be where the
objections were when I went around in the community.
Dilkes/I think as long as we're talking about specific businesses we need to be clear, in
response to the survey, do your sales of alcohol beverages account for 50 percent
or more of yonr total receipts for food and beverages? The Mill said no, The
Sanctuary said yes.
Woodson/That' s not correct, (can't hear).
Dilkes/That's what my.
Lehman/Do we want to, we need to pick a number, I mean we're not going anywhere.
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O'Donnell/I'm satisfied with 70 percent and I also think Coralville needs to brought into
this, I think it should be county wide, I've said it all along, I think if we pick a
realistic figure like this it would be more apt to have our adjoining cities step in
and join us.
Champion/Oh I don't know, I disagree with you, I don't think it's important that
Coralville joins us at all.
O'Donnell/I do.
Champion/I think it's nice but I don't think it's important, I mean I'm not doing this
because I want Coralville to join us, I don't think people are going to flock to
Coralville.
Lehman/Right.
O'Donnell/Oh I'm not either, I'm just saying.
Champion/To smoke a cigarette.
Lehman/If, okay, let's, if we choose, let's take another issue. If we're going to ban
smoking in what we ultimately define as a restaurant is that going to be a 24 hour
ban?
Pfab/Yes.
Lehman/Do we agree on that?
Champion/At 70 percent I'd be willing to go to 24 hours.
Lehman/All right, so the ban will be a 24 hour, it will not be a red light, green light.
Pfab/Right.
Vanderhoef/No.
Lehman/Now can we come up with a percentage that we can obviously the 50 percent is
not going to fly, I hear 70 and I've heard 60.
Vanderhoef/Well I had offered 60 as a compromise to the 50 that we had information
on, I would be happy with the 50 but I would go to the 60 is why I put that out
there since there were some people who were strongly in favor of the 70 so.
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Pfab/I would ask this so none of us are bar owners or restaurant owners that I know of,
there are people in the public that have a comment on that that are here I believe
or have worked with them. It's, I don't have a dog in this fight except the health
of the people. Go ahead.
Ballinger/Well it seems like the question here is trying to make the ordinance apply to as
many restaurants as possible and also somehow take into accommodation or into
mind those few places where sort of the hybrid. So you can do that two ways, you
can either make the ordinance go 70/30 in other words, and this is confusing for
me too so bear with me. 70/30 as 70 percent, 30 percent alcohol and that will
include the true family restaurants. Or you can go really almost the opposite way
and what that would end up doing would be including, any in other words that had
more than, if I'm saying this right here Bill, 30 percent food it would be so
restrictive that it would include almost any restaurant that sold very much alcohol.
In other words it would include The Mill, it would include, and again I don't want
to get into this trap of singling places out but since they're the ones that have been
mentioned, any of these places that are sort of a hybrid it would include all of
those, so in other words the only places would be left would be the true bars that
had beer nuts and chips. In other words what Mr. Kanner said.
Champion/I don't want to encourage that, I don't want to encourage them to have just
beer nuts and (can't hear).
Ballinger/But that would be a true.
Champion/That would be a true bar.
Ballinger/That would definitely include all of these places and keep them on an even
footing that the people at The Sanctuary and The Mill are concemed about.
Pfab/Can I ask you just to stay there a second? I think Dee, Dee.
Vanderhoef/Yes.
Pfab/Eruie I think the model ordinance that CAFE came to the City with was that food to
a bar, a bar was an establishment where food was incidental to the operation.
Ballinger/Yes, which is sort of logical.
Pfab/So aud that's quite a bit, so that would get pretty high in the amount of the 70/80
you'd go up there pretty far.
Ballinger/Yea.
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Pfab/See so that's why I proposed the 70 and it seems like the people who are most
affected are and Woody is probably the one that.
Ballinger/50/60 people.
Pfab/The one that's most difficult to work with because of the situation, no, no, because
of a good established business that' s working and so I mean, I don't think it
makes a lot of business to a lot of other people because they're not here.
Ballinger/Well what would they think about having it go so far the other way that they're
not in competition with the people who have beer nuts and chips in the back but
that really almost all of those places are the same, treated the same then, Vito's is
the same, The Mill is the same, The Sanctuary is the same, The Airliner is the
same, Mondo's downtown is the same, all of those are on the exact same footing
and their not competing with let's say The Q bar, The Deadwood.
Karmer/And you put.
Pfab/That's, and that seems to be where 70 percent is.
Ballinger/Is that?
Woodson/Yea see what you have and the kind of hybrid businesses, the night clubs, is
that you have a significant portion of your revenue from alcohol sales and you
can't really afford to lose that and continue to operate at the same level that you
do, okay. After 10:00 at night roughly is where we see the rumaround where the
occupancy demand is in the smoking building as opposed to the non smoking
building, all right. If we then have to ban smoking 24 hours what we do is we
throw away that after 10:00 demand for the smoking building, okay that smoking
demand then goes to the bars, most of that business is bar business at that time of
night. They're coming in, splitting a bottle of wine and maybe their having an
appetizer but they're primarily there for drinking where the drinking is ancillary.
Champion/And you close your kitchen at 10:00.
Woodson/Pardon.
Champion/Don't you close your kitchen at 10:00 or is it open late?
Woodson/No our kitchen is open until midnight on weekends, we just started cutting
back on Monday and Tuesday to 11:00 but it's been midnight every night because
we try to provide something for people after Hancher and things like that. But no,
it's the fact that you lose that bar revenue to places where people can smoke
where your food sales at that time of night are ancillary for the bar revenue, but if
you take away that bar revenue your taking away a significant portion of your
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 45
income. Be at 40 percent, or 30 percent, or 50 percent or whatever, your going to
have to adjust for it, the more it is the more your going to have to adjust your
business for it, it's not an easy thing but if your trying to hit on family restaurants
and you know you can hit a percentage that' s going to do that, if you don't want to
do the red light green light thing there's definitely reasons not to do that, it
becomes confusing to the customers. Or you can set you know the separate room
thing and do air quality standards and then you know then places might have to
spend some serious cash remodeling and that could be done but you know your
putting them at a financial burden on some places that don't have the benefit that
say we and Fitzpatrick's, I can't think of anybody else offhand that actually
occupies two building, they expanded and so they do have two physically
ventilation systems. And that can get a little pricy to put those things in.
Dilkes/There are ordinances in other places you know such as Wisconsin that do provide
exemptions if you have the separate ventilation system.
Lehman/Well what is our pleasure folks?
Vanderhoef/Separate ventilation and separate room that can be separated off is one that I
would listen to.
Lehman/Can we decide on the percentage that makes a restaurant first I mean.
Karr/Mr. Mayor if I may.
Lehman/Yes.
Karr/50 percent aside, I've got three people, Champion, O'Donnell, Pfab for the 70
percent food and the 60 percent food Vanderhoef, Wilburn, okay so just as a basis
for.
Vanderhoef/We have two that haven't spoken.
Lehman/I've heard, I did catch that.
Pfab/I'm not married to 70 percentage, I'm willing to compromise but I think it's
accommodates certain well established businesses here that might be a courtesy.
Lehman/65 percent, 65 and a half, that is one third, that means two thirds of the volume
comes from food and 1/3 comes from alcohol.
Champion/That' s (can't hear).
Pfab/I move that we recommend a restaurant is one that has 65 percent of the food.
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Lehman/Thank you, would you go with 65 percent? Thank you we have 65 percent, we
have a 24 hour total ban. Okay what else do we need to decide?
Champion/That's a compromise I guess.
Vanderhoef/One of the other things that Eleanor brought up as a question to us was do
you wish to prohibit minors from being in smoking areas?
Pfab/I'm sorry, I didn't. Would you repeat what you said?
Vanderhoef/Okay, do we want to restrict minors from being in smoking areas? And we
were addressed previously by one restaurant owner or bar owner really that talked
about parents bringing children in after ball games and stuff in the summer and
then we heard from the young woman tonight that said we don't have a choice, I
mean those of us who are younger. And I throw it out for consideration, we're
working very hard to enfome the law of those persons not old enough to pumhase
cigarettes so my question is why then are we allowing persons in smoking areas if
they are not old enough to purchase the cigarettes? This is where the choice
comes in for children.
Wilburn/I believe we were going to talk, and I believe that would have to be a separate
issue because if we take this up, this is, we're talking about restaurants and if you
don't meet the definition of restaurant it doesn't apply. If you are a restaurant, it
would be the ban, 65 percent is a moot point because you can't smoke in.
Lehman/Right.
Vanderhoef/So that is correct, I don't disagree with you but it's still something that's on
our table as something to consider.
Pfab/Dee.
Champion/It could be step number 2 after (can't hear).
Vanderhoef/That's a good possibility.
Lehman/Well is there something more. Eleanor in the process of drafting an ordinance if
we are able to define restaurant which we apparently have defined, and if are able
to say that we do expect that ban to be a 24 hour day ban what more do we need in
order for you to draft an ordinance?
Dilkes/I can pretty much do that.
Lehman/I think we've done our job for tonight folks.
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Dilkes/There was some mention of the separate room, separate ventilation, is that
something that your interested in?
Vanderhoef/That' s something that I would look at if you could draft something that
would be enforceable number one and make sure that they are totally separate
areas and have separate ventilating systems. I can consider that.
Lehman/Would it be wise for us to see how this applies because it may not be necessary
to do that sort of an ordinance, we may not find that we have enough areas where
that' s even a factor if it' s.
O'Donnell/It's a good point.
Champion/But if you applied that though, I mean if you use that as a possibility then you
could lower your percentage of food.
Dilkes/You want to just start with.
Chumpion/I mean I think it's worth looking at that too.
Pfab/I would speak very much, I would be very much opposed to that although that's not
what Woody wants and I understand that.
Dilkes/If we're just going to do, am I suppose to look at the separate ventilation and the
separate room and come back to you (can't hear)?
(All talking)
Vanderhoef/I'm interested.
Pfab/I was just going to address that.
Dilkes/Or should I draft the 65 percent and the 24 hour ban one.
Pfab/Eleanor I was just in the process of addressing that and that I thought you wanted to
stop. Okay my point is if you have people walking through that have smoke, now
somebody made a comment in the audience tonight that watching people smoke is
what bothers people. No, I, whenever I'm in an area where there is smoke I know
it, I don't have to see anybody smoke, I just smell it right away, and I'm not, I
don't have asthma, I don't have any health problems.
Champion/(can't hear).
Pfab/Yes, I do, my sister council person mentioned that I do, and I accepted at that so my
point is it's really impossible to keep separate places if you have people walking
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October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 48
through, you have joint restrooms, you have air moving back and forth unless you
have an outside entrance and you come in that might be in separate bars and a
separate serving people and then, so I can not support.
Lehman/This may be a moot point.
Pfab/Okay.
Champion/Okay.
Lehman/Why don't we see how the 65 percent applies and if we have situations where it
does not work then I think that's something we can address.
Pfab/I have no problem with that.
Champion/Okay.
Pfab/I just wanted to make my point.
Champion/Oh I'm so glad it's over.
Lehman/Eleanor.
Dilkes/Do you want to talk just about on premises sales?
Champion/Yes.
Dilkes/Not delivery.
Lehman/Yes.
Dilkes/So you want to focus on what' s happening within the establishment.
O'Donnell/In the building.
Lehman/I think it has to be inside.
Champion/Can you buy a bottle of wine at a restaurant and take it out? No.
Lehman/We're talking about food.
Karr/Some classes you can yes.
Dilkes/Liquor license.
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Champion/In some towns you can.
Karr/No in some classes you can.
Champion/Really.
Dilkes/I think the bigger issue is.
Audience/(can't hear) Separate license.
Karr/Yea separate license.
Dilkes/I think the bigger issue Connie is for.
Lehman/Carry out food.
Dilkes/Carry out food.
Champion/Oh I, sure, right, it never entered my mind.
(can't hear).
Lehman/Yea we can't, no, no, but you have to speak in the microphone because it won't
be recorded.
Kevin Perez/Basis of the 65 pement, trust me in my books, are you going to come look
at my books, you know we sell some expensive bottles of wine and my alcohol
sales are fairly inflated because of it. I just want to know what your basis is it the
trust?
Dilkes/I think it's probably going to have to be by affidavit based on business records.
Lehman/Yea I think you'd probably have to tell us and you'd have to give an affidavit
that the numbers you've given us are accurate.
Perez/Do all that, okay and I'd also like to say that I do have separate ventilation systems
and separate bathrooms and so you'd never have to walk through a smoking
section.
Pfab/But do your people walk back and forth?
Lehman/Okay that's not an issue. Okay Eleanor.
Dilkes/What about outdoor seating areas? Does it apply in outdoor seating areas?
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Champion/No, I don't think we need to.
Lehman/Wait a minute, oh no I do not think, I would not personally feel that we need to.
O'Donnell/I agree with you.
Wilbum/I don't think so because part of the issue is really just talking about ventilation
systems confinement.
Atkins/Emie can I?
Lehman/Yes.
Atkins/Can I kind of restate this because your going to ask, I need to take this back to
the staff because clearly your going to have some questions about enforceability
kind of like the thing that Kevin had mentioned. Annually based if 65 percent of
your on premise sales are food you are subject to a 24 hour smoking ban.
Champion/Right.
Atkins/That' s what you said.
Lehman/That's right.
Atkins/Okay.
Kanner/Excluding take out.
Atkins/65 percent on premise sales.
O'Donnell/On site.
Atkins/Of food you are subject to a 24 hour smoking ban, that's what you have told
Eleanor to draft, we have to figure out enforcement regulations, affidavit,
whatever, okay.
Lehman/Now.
Dilkes/That will be part of the ordinance.
Lehman/Well as with any ordinance, this will have a public hearing, is that correct?
Dilkes/Well not every ordinance has a public hearing, but you simply can have a public
hearing.
This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting
of October 16, 2001.
October 16, 2001 Special Smoking Work Session Page 51
Lehman/Well I am, I would be amazed if there's not an opportunity ifthere's an
opportunity for people to comment on this ordinance prior to us reading it three
times and that, it seems like the 65 percent is a number that we've not arrived at
scientifically, maybe it's a very good number, maybe it is not, but I think we have
to start somewhere and it seems to me that this is the place to start, if it works,
great.
Vanderhoef/I think we'll hear from the folks who change categories by that 65, and I
would welcome it.
Champion/Well I think (can't hear) it's easy to change back and forth.
Lehman/Yea, all right.
Champion/I think this makes it more difficult.
Lehman/Anything you need further from us Eleanor?
Pfab/Dee just in passing here, closing here, I would say the that the original ordinance
said just incidental to the operation of food and versus the 50 percent I think that's
a good compromise.
Lehman/Okay folks thank you very much.
Champion/Thank you.
Adjourned 9:05 PM
This represents only a reasonable accurate transcription of the Iowa City Council Meeting
of October 16, 2001.