D.C. restaurants and bars have suffered since the city’s smoking ban took effect in January, according to a survey released this week, though the results of the study are strongly disputed by anti-smoking activists.
More than 35 percent of members in the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington claim declining revenue since Jan. 2, when the indoor-smoking prohibition kicked in, the association said, with one respondent reporting a 50 percent receipt crash.
“These are real people on the ground who are hurting,” said Andrew Kline, the association’s general counsel.
Angela Bradberry, co-founder of Smokefree DC, scoffed at the survey. The association represents 12 percent of D.C. restaurants, Bradberry said, and it was unwilling to say how many of those responded.
Not to mention, she added, that February was bitter cold and new federal laws restricting lobbying likely took a toll on Capitol Hill establishments.
“They didn’t name any people,” Bradberry said. “They didn’t name any businesses. They didn’t explain any numbers. It just seems pretty flimsy. We need to wait for six or eight months and see what the sales tax trends are and see what the employment trends are.”
The survey results weren’t released because the association promised respondents confidentiality, Kline said.
“It will be unfortunate if any one of our local entrepreneurs, each of which have worked hard to make D.C. a great nightlife city, become a casualty to this government mandate,” association president Lynne Breaux said in a statement.
As of this week, restaurants and bars can apply to the Department of Health for a temporary hardship waiver, an explicit loophole in the ban.
Waiver criteria, however, is extremely difficult to meet: Owners must show a 15 percent decline in receipts over three consecutive months compared with the same three months from the previous two years. Before leaving office, Mayor Anthony Williams sought waivers after a 5 percent drop in revenues. But Mayor Adrian Fenty rewrote the rules soon after his inauguration.
