Restaurants officially have an extra month before they have to tell guests to take their smoking outside, as the Baltimore City Council recently approved delaying the indoor smoking ban until Feb. 1, 2008.
The city?s smoking ban, originally scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, will now coincide with the state?s smoking ban date.
Still at issue for businesses are concerns with the process restaurants must follow to obtain a temporary “economic hardship waiver” of the smoking ban, said Melvin Thompson, vice president of government relations for the Restaurant Association of Maryland (RAM).
“We?re not arguing the merit of the ban ? that train has long left the station,” Thompson said.
The RAM has suggested that the proposed process a restaurant must follow to obtain an economic hardship waiver takes too long and could cause restaurants to go out of business.
Currently, to obtain a waiver, a restaurant would have to show its local health department that the smoking ban has caused sales over a three-month period to decrease by more than 15 percent compared with the same three-month period two years prior. The health department then has three months to approve the smoking ban waiver.
The RAM has asked that the process be changed to a two-month sales period and a one-month consideration by the department.
“In six months, a restaurant could go out of business,” Thompson said. “I can?t imagine it would take more than 30 days to render a decision.”
Baltimore business officials have studied other cities with smoking bans ? such as New York and Boston ? and determined businesses haven?t suffered from the ban.
“Ultimately, we think this is going to be a good thing for the city,” said Mike Evitts, spokesman for Downtown Partnership. “We?ve had tourists say they?re shocked the city still allows smoking indoors.”
Restaurant sales in Maryland are predicted to total about $8.1 billion in 2007, according to the National Restaurant Association.
The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene could not be reached for comment Thursday.
