At Bars, Anti-Smoking Advocates Toast Ban

Cheering on their leaders and drinking with friends, local anti-smoking advocates took to bars last night to celebrate the first day of Cambridge’s new smoking ban.

“This is a wonderful moment for us here in Cambridge,” said Cambridge Chief Public Health Officer Harold Cox, who addressed a packed crowd at Toad, a Porter Square nightclub. “We’ve been working on this in incremental steps since 1975...I know how hard this was.”

Although limited restrictions on smoking in city restaurants have existed since 1984, the blanket ban on smoking in all Cambridge restaurants and bars was only passed in June after nearly a year of heated debate.

Somerville also put a similar smoking ban into effect yesterday.

Cambridge and Somerville now join 90 other communities in the state that have banished smoking from their restaurants and bars.

The Toad event was sponsored by Clean Air Works, an umbrella group of local health boards and organizations that campaigned for the two cities’ smoking bans.

“I’m thrilled that the only smoking in Cambridge bars tonight is going to be on the TV as Pedro Martinez smokes it past home base,” said Cambridge City Councillor Brian Murphy, referring to last night’s Red Sox playoff game against the Oakland Athletics.

“This is a victory for public health and workers’ rights in Cambridge,” Murphy said. “We’ll look back on this in a few years and say, ‘Why did it take so long?’”

Murphy concluded his remarks by encouraging people to “eat, drink and be merry.”

His recommendation was not ignored. After the gathering at Toad, smoking ban supporters spread out to local bars to enjoy a smoke-free dining experience.

Not all Cantabrigians were as enthusiastic about the ban.

Four protesters stood outside Toad carrying signs that read “Resist the Smoking Ban” and “Tobacco Control is Out of Control.”

Stephen Helfer, the protest organizer, called the ban the product of an “elitist movement of petty despots.”

Helfer, who said he works at the Harvard Law School library, said he is the co-founder of Cambridge Citizens for Smokers’ Rights.

“I think it’s cancerous,” he said, referring to the ban.

Brad Dakake, a coordinator for Tobacco Free Mass., a coalition of state and national organizations that support the prevention of tobacco use, e-mailed supporters asking them to join him for a night of smoke-free dining.

Sipping a beer at Johnny D’s Uptown in Davis Square, Dakake said that a year ago he had to stop going to the bar, previously one of his favorite night spots, because he “didn’t want to breathe in cancer.”

University Health Services (UHS) Director Dr. David Rosenthal ’59, along with his wife, met up with Dakake at the Joshua Tree, also in Davis Square.

Rosenthal said he has been a long-time advocate for curbing smoking in communities, and UHS is a member of Tobacco Free Mass.

“One reason we’re so happy in celebrating is because we have had a lot of defeats,” he said.

The supporters who gathered at Toad said they are intent on seeing Massachusetts pass a statewide ban on smoking in the workplace, a measure currently being considered by the state legislature.

State Representative Rachel Kaprielian, D—29th Middlesex, told the Toad crowd that “the tsunami is coming to stamp out smoking.”

“Today, Cambridge and Somerville. Tomorrow, the state,” said Kaprielian, who is co-sponsoring the proposed bill to ban workplace smoking. “It is only right. It is only just. It is only time.”