Orange Beach bans smoking

ORANGE BEACH -- In a long-promised move, the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to ban smoking from all public places, including bars, restaurants and all enclosed places of employment.

Effective 90 days from its approval, the ordinance does not regulate smoking on beaches -- both public and private -- or in hotel rooms designated for smoking, private residences, specialty tobacco shops or outdoor areas at restaurants and bars.

With Tuesday's vote, which was received with an ovation, Orange Beach becomes the fourth Baldwin County municipality -- along with Foley, Fairhope and Robertsdale -- to enact some sort of a smoking ban.

Orange Beach officials have worked with their peers in Gulf Shores to create a uniform smoking ban on Baldwin County's beaches. Though Gulf Shores has yet to enact a ban, Mayor G.W. "Billy" Duke III said that the City Council may discuss a no-smoking law at its Monday meeting and could vote on a change as early as May 14.

"I think you've got to do it across the board like (Orange Beach) did," Duke said Wednesday. "If you're serious about it as a health issue, you can't exempt anybody."

The two resort cities have studied and debated different versions of a smoking ban since last fall. Among the considerations were whether to include the beach, perhaps an impossible place to enforce a ban, and whether to include establishments that primarily functioned as bars -- and if so, how to define a bar.

Recently leaders in both cities, responding to concerns from some restaurant owners, considered an ordinance similar to one in place in Montgomery, which allows restaurants and bars to choose whether to allow smoking. Under that set of rules, however, businesses that opt to allow smoking must do so throughout the entire establishment and can only serve patrons who are 18 or older, Orange Beach Councilwoman Tracy Holiday said.

Eventually the Alabama Restaurant Association weighed in.

"The Alabama Restaurant Association and our own restaurant association said, 'That's not fair, that gives bars a competitive advantage over us because then, if we're a restaurant that has a football crowd at our bar, we're going to lose a certain portion of our clientele that smokes. We have to choose nonsmoking to cater to families,'" Holiday said.

Both the Montgomery-based state association and the local group favored a total ban on smoking, Holiday said. Citing long-standing laws in Florida and California, Holiday disagreed with claims made at previous public hearings that not allowing smoking at restaurants in a resort area would scare smoking visitors away. Local restaurateurs, she said, have already begun to prepare for the switch to non-smoking.

Councilman Ed Carroll said that while a more stringent statewide ban on smoking in public places -- which has been proposed by state Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, D-Mobile -- may be in the offing, there are benefits to enacting a city prohibition now.

"In my opinion the best thing we can do is move it forward and get people accustomed to it," he said.Leonard Kaiser, a real estate developer and a board member of the Greater Southeast American Heart Association, said that banning smoking in public places is similar in its aim to putting speed limits on roads in that it's not meant to impose restrictions on anyone who wants to drive 100 mph as much as it is to protect other drivers.

"This is not a private rights issue, this is a health issue," Kaiser said. "Don't think about if you're eliminating rights -- you're protecting the public because it is clearly a health issue."

Smokers who violate the law can be found guilty of a misdemeanor and fined up to $50.

Those who manage or otherwise control a public place or place of employment face an escalating scale of fines should they flout the law, according to the ordinance. The first offense delivers a fine not to exceed $100. For a second violation within a year of the first, the fine can grow to up to $200. A third violation, and any beyond that number, that occur within a year of the first can carry fines up to $500 apiece.

Police in both cities have said that the smoking ban will be a challenge to enforce. In previous meetings law enforcement officials said it falls on business owners to keep customers from lighting up, but if someone refuses or gets rowdy, the police would respond.

Also, the law allows the city to revoke business licenses or operating permits for establishments that allow smoking.

"I think you've got to do it across the board like (Orange Beach) did. If you're serious about it as a health issue, you can't exempt anybody."-- Gulf Shores Mayor G.W. "Billy" Duke III