Baltimore County legislators are seeking an exemption for the new state smoking ban for restaurants and bars that have outdoor decks and patios that they temporarily enclose during winter months.
The state health department, the American Cancer Society and the Maryland Lung Association are opposing the exemption in order to support the uniform implementation of the anti-smoking law across the state.
Democratic Del. Sonny Minnick, lead sponsor of the exemption along with a bipartisan dozen county delegates, said the smoking ban, which he strongly opposed, “was bad enough for certain bars and restaurants.” But when the health department wrote regulations that “as soon as you drop the flaps, they consider that indoors ? I thought that was a ridiculous interpretation of the law,” Minnick said.
Minnick will offer amendments that would ban service by waitresses or bartenders in these outdoor areas so that they will not be exposed to secondhand cigarette smoke ? a key aim of the anti-smoking law ? and also would apply the exemption only from Dec. 1 to April 1.
The new law “is not going to hurt restaurants, it?s going to hurt local bars,” said Minnick, who runs his family?s bar in Dundalk. “My customers are complaining. They?re upset, they don?t like it.”
Other bar and tavern owners from Baltimore County testified for the bill.
“The smoking ban has hurt,” said Harry Cohen, owner of the Firehouse Tavern on Joppa Road. “Why should [customers] have to stand in the wind and the snow” to smoke?
Peter Sybinsky, director of the state Community Health Administration, said the regulations were drafted “to make sure there will be fair and uniform enforcement throughout the state.”
Customers in an outdoor facility with three walls and a roof “can smoke,” but not with four walls, Sybinsky said. “We think this [bill] will be a step backward.”
Several delegates at the House Economic Matters Committee hearing raised problems they had witnessed with the new law. Many smokers are now gathering outside the front door of bars and restaurants in Annapolis, said Del. Rick Impallaria, a Baltimore County Republican. He and Minnick suggested a tent or enclosed space next to the bar might be a better solution.
