Starting Sept. 17, when a citywide smoking ban takes effect, Springfield restaurant patrons won’t have to choose between a longer wait for a table in the nonsmoking section and being seated immediately — but risk smelling like an ashtray later — in the smoking section.
Objectors to the smoking ban, which was authorized by the City Council in January, concede that although most folks do want to dine in a smoke-free setting, socializing is a different story.
Shortly after aldermen approved the ban in January, Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards submitted an ordinance to exempt private clubs [see Bruce Rushton, “Smoke gets in their eyes,” Feb. 15]. Edwards’ ordinance remains tabled in the public-affairs committee.
Ward 3 Ald. Frank McNeil, who voted against the ban, also said at the time that he would also seek to exclude taverns from the ordinance.
“I agree that restaurants should be smoke-free, but a bar is a place where people go to relax and have fun,” McNeil says.
Though neither is sure there’s enough council support to get their ideas passed, both Edwards and McNeil still want the exceptions made.
In an attempt to keep the ban from going into effect, the Illinois Licensed Beverage Association recently filed a lawsuit against the city, asking a circuit-court judge to throw out the part of the Springfield ordinance that bans smoking in bowling alleys and taverns.
“There’s no reason for it to be all or nothing. Nothing in life is all or nothing,” says ILBA executive director Steve Riedl.
Riedl’s organization holds that the Illinois Clean Indoor Air Act excludes bars and bowling alleys from the definition of a public place and, therefore, the city can’t restrict smoking there.
Mayor Tim Davlin responded to the ILBA suit by proposing an ordinance to reenact the Clean Indoor Air Ordinance of 2006, which, because of changes to state law since the city’s ban was passed, he says, should clear up any “perceived differences” between Springfield’s ordinance and state statute.
Davlin’s ordinance went on first reading Tuesday night and could go up for a full-council vote on Tuesday, Aug. 15.
Ward 10 Ald. Bruce Strom, the architect of the original no-smoking ordinance, says reenacting the measure is “more of a pro forma move, restating what the city has already said it wants.” Strom doesn’t anticipate a need for additional public hearings, and hopes his fellow aldermen don’t use it as an opportunity to weaken the ban.
Right now, Springfield’s smoking ban excludes only hotel rooms, private vehicles, and residences that aren’t used for child or adult daycare or for health care, stores that sell tobacco, and stage productions that include smoking scenes.
Edwards says he doesn’t plan to offer any amendments to the new ordinance but thinks that much of the confusion could have been avoided.
In November, state Rep. Raymond Poe asked Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan for an official opinion on whether bowling alleys and bars are considered public places under the Illinois Clean Indoor Air Act.
“There has been a lawsuit filed [in Springfield]. We’re sitting back and watching and seeing what happens there,” Poe says.
A spokeswoman for Madigan, Cara Smith, says that Poe’s request is “under review at this time.”
The Sangamon County Board is considering a measure to ban smoking in unincorporated areas. Buffalo Grove, Naperville, Bloomington-Normal, and Champaign-Urbana have also proposed or implemented bans of their own.
According to Edwards, “We wouldn’t be going down this road if the attorney general would just interpret the law. With all the smoking bans, you’d think they’d act on it quicker.”
This article appears in Jul 27 – Aug 2, 2006.
