With an Anne Arundel smoking ban shelved until legislators debate a statewide ban introduced Thursday, county bar and restaurant owners said such a move would hurt their businesses.
Severna Park bar owner Scott Marx counted 13 of his 15 customers at Shooter?s Sports Bar & Grill as smokers Thursday. He said customers have told him, “if there?s a smoking ban, they won?t go out.”
“If there?s a ban, I?d be opposed to it,” Marx said. “I?d probably have to build an outdoor deck for everyone to sit on and smoke.”
Smoking ban proponents such as Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold have said bans don?t affect business in the long run, and instead attract families and nonsmokers who would normally avoid smoke-filled establishments. Leopold proposed Wednesday that the County Council ban smoking in bars and restaurants.
Dave Cogott, a Laurel bar owner whose business stands in Prince George?s County about 500 feet from the Howard County line, said after Prince George?s recently banned smoking in bars and restaurants, many of his customers drifted to bars in Howard and Anne Arundel, where they could still smoke.
Meanwhile, the nonsmokers never showed up.
“If people don?t want to come in smoke-filled bars, they still aren?t coming. You made it smoke-free, and they still haven?t been here,” Cogott said. “What they should do is give little taverns like me a choice” of whether to be smoke-free.
Melvin Thompson, a Restaurant Association of Maryland spokesman, said disallowing small business owners from making that choice “is a slap in the face of free enterprise.”
Cogott suggested that if any ban exists, it should be statewide so that all businesses are “on a level playing field.”
Jack Buck, a bartender at Buck Murphy?s Place in Odenton was more blunt about how a county ban would affect his workplace.
“It?d probably shut us down,” Buck said.
