Smoke-free hours happy for some, not for others

By Laurie Swenson

Pioneer Staff Writer

Happy hour wasn’t very happy Monday night for some local smokers who can no longer light up at their favorite bar while having a drink or two on the way home from work.

On the other hand, some non-smokers were pleased with the smoke-free environment brought about by the Beltrami County ordinance that bans smoking in public places, including bars.

For Bill Bartholomew and Mike Miller, sitting in a booth at Bar 209, Monday was their first night in a bar since the ordinance went into effect Saturday. Bars and restaurants may allow smoking between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m., in an exemption that expires in two years.

“We’re enjoying it,” Bartholomew said.

“It’s nice when you can come in and not smell like smoke,” Miller said.

Miller and Bartholomew both work for the city, in the building department. Bartholomew said one of the reasons he chose to frequent Bar 209 was that the business had installed a new ventilation system.

“They took measures to get rid of (the smoke),” Bartholomew said. “The exchange of air is the key to the whole thing.”

But a good ventilation system is no longer good enough. It must be separate.

The ordinance includes a provision for a bar or restaurant to install a smoking area if it has a completely separate ventilation system from the rest of the business, with walls interrupted only by doors that are closed except when a person is actively entering or exiting the room. The area, which may not constitute more than 30 percent of the seating for the business, must maintain a negative air pressure in relation to the adjacent part of the business.

However, such a system is very costly, Bartholomew said. “You’d have to put in a whole other unit.”

Jamie Friend, a bartender at Bar 209, has had to remind a few customers to put out their cigarettes, but they’ve been amiable about it as they headed outside, he said.

Friend and others noted that smokers were particularly affected during the Vikings game last Sunday, and will be heading outside in droves again as the Vikings face Green Bay in the NFL playoffs Sunday.

A smoker himself, Friend said he has no problem smoking outside, but doesn’t like the government forcing the situation onto bar owners. “It should be a choice,” he said.

A few blocks away, at the Hard Times Saloon, Jason Rylander usually tends bar during the day shift, but on Monday he was putting in evening hours. He’d stopped in the bar earlier in the day and, without thinking, lit up a cigarette and was immediately chastised by one of his fellow bartenders.

Almost all of his co-workers are smokers, he said, adding, “If smoking bothers you, why would you work in a bar?”

Wednesday will be Rylander’s his first day shift since the ordinance went into effect. “It will be my first test of the ordinance,” he said.

Regulars Dawn and Nelson Pickett have been coming into the Hard Times Saloon for years. They even met each other at the bar.

“It’s extremely tough,” Dawn said of the ban. “I think it stinks. I’m a regular. I’m here every day for happy hour.”

The Picketts stop at the bar every night after work to relax and unwind for a bit before heading home. They resent having to stand outside in the cold to smoke.

Nelson dislikes the new ordinance. “I feel it’s an infringement of my rights.”

“There’s got to be a solution out there,” Dawn said. “There’s got to be a compromise.”

She predicted that some smokers will end up going outside the county so they can smoke indoors while they drink, which she said, will mean more drunk drivers on the highway and more money spent outside the county.

Standing outside the American Legion Club, Jerry Carpenter and Fox Myrho shivered as they smoked their cigarettes.

“The people who voted for the ordinance did not listen to people who were for smoking,” Carpenter said. “They just listened to people who were for not smoking. They’re taking away the right from us and that’s all there is to it.”

Myrho complained that county board member Vicki Haugen had sold her house prior to moving to Arizona following the 3-2 vote Aug. 17. “She should never have been able to vote,” Myrho said.

Several bar owners have filed a lawsuit against the county in relation to the smoking ban. One of their assertions is that Haugen was not a resident of the county when she voted and thus not a legal voter on the ordinance.

“I think it’s a travesty,” said Brad Fleahman, arguing about the ordinance with a friend at Slim’s Bar & Grill. “If a person feels that they’re affected by the smoke, they have a right to not come into the bar.”

Fleahman would have preferred allowing bar owners to decide whether to go smoke-free.

“If they want to go non-smoking, I think that’s fantastic,” he said. “Give the owner the option. It’s not rocket science.”