City Council Weakens Tough Anti-Smoking Ordinance

In a victory for tobacco and restaurant lobbyists, the Cambridge City Council on Monday narrowly approved amendments significantly weakening what was to be the toughest anti-smoking law ever enacted in the city.

The altered ordinance loosens restrictions on smoking in restaurants and bars and removes a requirement that cigarettes and tobacco be located behind store counters throughout the city, allowing them to continue to be placed in open displays.

The tight votes split the council nearly evenly, with some council members voicing health concerns and others warning that city restaurants would lose the business of patrons who smoke if a tough measure were passed.

Opponents of the new watered-down ordinance signalled that they would reluctantly go along with the changes and not try to derail the bill. The council, which will vote on the altered bill next Monday, is expected to pass the new version.

The original ordinance would have restricted smoking to 30 percent of a restaurant's seats in the first year of enactment, and 15 percent of seating after the second year. But the amended version allows restaurants to designate up to half their seating for smoking, with no reduction over time.

Under the current law, passed in 1987, restaurants can reserve 75 percent of seats for smoking, although few designate more than 30 percent.

"It's lost a lot of effectiveness," said Kate Dempsey, coordinator of Cambridge United for Smoking Prevention (CUSP), a program of the Cambridge Substance Abuse Task Force involving city officials and community residents.

"Combating second-hand smoke is one of the most important public-health measures this city council can take," Councillor Francis H. Duehay '55 told the body. "I believe this compromise is wrong."

"We have a tremendous amount of restrictions already, and I think to add any more is a burden," replied Vice Mayor Sheila T. Russell.

The amended ordinance approved Monday night is the result of several revisions of CUSP's original proposal, submitted in March. The key modifications to the original proposal came from the pro-business Cambridge Chamber of Commerce and the Massachusetts Restaurant Association.

In addition, Philip Morris Inc., the New York-based tobacco company, telephoned Cantabrigians in the month before Monday's vote, telling them to voice their objections.

Provisions

A number of clauses in the original measure were left unchanged. Every tobacco vendor will be required to obtain a tobacco sales permit from the city. Vendors will also be required to demand proof of age, with photo IDs.

The ordinance also bans smoking in public workplaces, except where employees have no contact with co-workers. It also proposes to prohibit smoking in retail stores, hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, taxis and limousines.

The amended bill struck the goal of "creating an atmosphere which promotes smoke-free restaurants and strives towards the long-term goal of smoke-free dining throughout Cambridge."

Bars and lounges will be exempt from the restrictions, as well as private homes, college dorms, hotels and bed and breakfasts, private clubs, bowling alleys and even county jails.

The amended bill threw out the complicated system of exemptions for some bars and small restaurants in the CUSP proposal, instead exempting all bars, lounges and restaurants with fewer than 25 seats.

The measure empowers city officers and inspectors from the city's Licensing Commission and Health and Hospitals and Inspectional Services departments to enforce its provisions, and provides for stiff fines for vendors caught stealing tobacco to minors.

Politicking

Council member Anthony D. Galluccio led an effort to remove the requirement that all tobacco products be kept behind cash registers in locked display cases away from customer reach. The provision was intended to curb youth smoking, according to Dempsey.

But Galluccio argued that the provision contradicted another clause requiring that free-standing tobacco displays, which hold cigarettes, be kept within view of cashiers and within 10 feet of registers.

Galluccio also argued that moving cigarettes behind the counter was primarily intended to combat shoplifting, and said youth access to cigarettes can only be solved by strong law enforcement. He successfully amended the provision mandating behind-the-counter cigarettes, angering supporters of a crackdown on juvenile smoking.

"For a small store this is the issue between life and death," said Councillor Michael A. Sullivan, who said tobacco companies pay stores between $2,000 and $10,000 to maintain displays.

Council member Katherine Triantafillou disagreed, arguing that "profit margins" cannot override the health of the city's youth.

"Would we do this with marijuana? Would we do this with coke?" she asked. "If what we're doing as a matter of policy is countenancing these displays by tobacco companies, that's appalling."

"I was disgusted by Councillor Galluccio's amendment," Dempsey said following the votes. "This amendment was primarily about youth access to tobacco, and we were trying to [show] that tobacco is not as prevalent in society as people perceive it" by removing the displays.

The council passed Galluccio's amendment, 5-4, and defeated two amendments proposed by Duehay to restore the force of the original proposal, by the same margin. The vote split along party lines, with Independent councillors siding with the restaurateurs and Cambridge Civic Association members supporting CUSP.

"It's a timid step," Duehay said. "The city council should have gone much farther than they have done."

"This ordinance pales to what New York City's is now," agreed Councillor Kathleen L. Born. "It's astonishing that in Cambridge it has taken so long for us to fall in step with what appears to be a mainstream occurrence" to curb smoking nationwide.

Reactions

The CUSP measure had already been perceived as a compromise. Other communities in the state have enacted tougher restrictions, including a ban in Brookline on all smoking in restaurants.

Born warned that the feebleness of the amended bill would only lead to a reopening of the debate within a few years. Following the votes, Duehay predicted that an even tougher proposal will be submitted "in a lot shorter time than two years."

John R. Clifford, owner of the Green Street Grill in Central Square, said he is satisfied by the amended ordinance.

"It's a good compromise and it will satisfy the restaurants," said Clifford, who spearheaded a petition drive by restaurateurs fearful of losing business to Boston and Somerville eateries.

Clifford said any restrictions on smoking in restaurants and bars should take place at the state or federal level, so that Cambridge businesses would not have to compete with towns with lax anti-smoking laws.

"It's very hard to stay and compete with other cities that have no such laws," said Joseph A. Sater, owner of the Middle East restaurant. "We don't want to see our customers go to Boston."

Helena G. Rees, public affairs director of the Chamber of Commerce, said she was pleased by the votes. "We successfully organized the restaurant community to work out a compromise that we feel benefits both smokers and non-smokers," she said.

But CUSP members lamented the amendments, saying they rendered the bill impotent.

Dempsey said the amendments require that restaurants with bar areas only need to set aside half of the restaurant seats for non-smokers, not half of total seating. Thus, a restaurant-bar could in theory set aside only a quarter of its seats for non-smokers.

"We felt this was an incredibly generous compromise, but it just didn't get looked at," Dempsey said. "The council was predisposed to vote this way because of lobbying."

Russell disagreed, saying the measure would have imposed "too much regulation" on the restaurant industry. But "they'll be back next year," she predicted.