Assemblyman Reed Gusciora says he may now abandon his own bill.
By: Jennifer Potash
After shepherding legislation that would ban smoking in most public places in New Jersey through several legislative thickets, state Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D-Princeton Borough) may now abandon his bill.
"I’m not even voting for my own bill," he said Tuesday. The state Assembly’s Health and Human Services Committee voted Monday to send the bill to the full legislative body but first made significant changes to permit smoking in bars and sections of restaurants and casinos.
A comparable bill pending in the state Senate exempts only casinos and owner-operated bars but would ban smoking in restaurants and bars with employees. Mr. Gusciora said the bill "lacks teeth" and would not permit municipalities to enact more stringent bans. He said he has introduced a bill to allow municipalities to establish smoking bans.
Lobbyists for the restaurant, bar and tobacco industries pushed heavily for the changes, Mr. Gusciora said.
Tom Schmierer, owner of the Alchemist and Barrister restaurant in downtown Princeton and a member of the New Jersey Restaurant Association’s board of directors, said the changes represent a fair compromise among all interests.
"We can live with this," he said.
A key objection to allowing municipalities to adopt their own bans was that businesses subject to the ban in one community would be harmed as smokers travel to other towns in order to find a bar or restaurant where they can smoke, Mr. Schmierer said.
The Princeton Regional Health Commission in 2000 adopted a ban on smoking in most public and quasi-public indoor spaces including restaurants, bars, private clubs, hotels and offices. Following a lawsuit by several downtown Princeton bars and restaurants and smokers’ rights group, a Mercer County Superior Court judge overturned the ban, which never went into effect. It was ruled that state law did not permit municipalities to enact such a prohibition on smoking.
Current New Jersey law allows smoking in restaurants that permit it if they post signs informing customers they have a smoking section.
The Legislature has shirked its duty to protect public health through its actions, said Grace Sinden, a member of the Princeton Health Commission, which sent numerous letters and testified at the State House in support of the ban.
"A key question is why New York State and other states, including California and Delaware, are willing to effectively protect employees and residents with progressive smoking laws but New Jersey lawmakers are not," Ms. Sinden said. "Legislative leaders have once against caved in to well-financed lobbies and the governor has not shown leadership on this issue. Citizens should ask why."
Ms. Sinden thanked Assemblyman Gusciora and state Sen. Shirley Turner (D-Lawrence) for fighting for more stringent antismoking legislation.
The hospitality industry claims a total ban would destroy their businesses, causing bankruptcies and layoffs.
Mr. Schmierer disputed the success of the Delaware and New York smoking bans, noting the owners of a New York pub testified before the Assembly Health Committee that his business is off 20 percent since the ban went into effect and three employees were laid off.
"It’s not working very well in New York," Mr. Schmierer said. Also, he noted, employees of the Alchemist and Barrister are not forced to work where smokers are present, he said.
"We have four dining rooms, three of which are nonsmoking, and our policy is no server is required to work in the smoking rooms," he said. "Most of my staff are smokers. In 25 years in business, I’ve only had two requests (by employees) not to work in the smoking rooms."
And many restaurants and bars have ventilation systems that minimize smoky conditions, he said.
"Otherwise, nobody would want to go in there," he said.
Mr. Gusciora disagreed that the decline of the New York owner’s restaurant business was due solely to the smoking ban in effect since late March.
"Hasn’t the guy heard of 9/11?" Mr. Gusciora said.
A University of California at San Francisco study of the effect of smoking bans on tourism revenue in California, Utah and Vermont, and in the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boulder, Colo., and Flagstaff and Mesa, Ariz., found no drop in hotel revenue and in some cases there were increases in revenue.