ONE THE AVENUES: Smoke rings and political hypocrisy, again.

ON THE AVENUES: Smoke rings and political hypocrisy, again.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

There are so many exemptions in the Orwellian “smoking ban” approved yesterday by the Indiana Senate that it is difficult to discern whether any single enclosed location in the entire state that doesn’t already outlaw smoking might be faced with the looming of forced compliance.

After all, the vast majority of workplaces already are smoke-free by choice or previous governmental fiat. Perhaps a few lonely greasy spoons without alcohol permits would be affected by this toothless “ban” if it is enacted, but the relevant points remain these:

When is a “ban” genuinely worth referring to as such, without running the twin risks of hypocrisy and absurdity – and speaking of both, how unbearably strong are the twin cravings for nicotine and cold, hard lobbying cash when these miserable addictions compel our fumbling collection of lawmakers to ignore the stated wishes of the state’s single most venerated political idol, Governor Mitch Daniels, who’d requested a bill with as few exemptions as possible?

Indeed, the Senate has littered this year’s “ban” model with more exemptions than spent butts on the sidewalk just outside the doorways of the smoke-free Statehouse. Now there’ll be attempted reconciliation with a slightly less watered-down measure approved by the House, and a Frankenstein regulatory monster will emerge amid rampant disgust.

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Last week, the Courier-Journal’s Harold Adams posted a video of his chat with Sam Anderson, founder and operator of New Albany’s venerable Sam’s Food and Spirits.

Listening to Sam’s comments, and generously conceding that it took quite a few years for my own restaurant business to convert to 100% smoke-free status (at the beginning of 2011), it seems to me there are a few unexamined premises therein.

Sam’s main point is that during hard economic times, a restaurateur cannot afford to alienate a single customer. I’ve always questioned how far this way of thinking really goes, especially when it comes to the invasive act of public smoking.

Sam seems to be suggesting that his restaurant’s smoking area is essential, because the smokers accustomed to using it might go away at a time when every dollar matters to his operation. However, the converse is just as likely a scenario: Those who object to smoking actually might visit Sam more frequently than before if the smoking previously annoying them no longer is permitted.

I’ve experienced this phenomenon personally. As noted, NABC’s original location on Plaza Drive went smoke-free during the recession, and yet business demonstrably increased, even during the bridge closure. By Sam’s logic, this outcome was impossible, but it happened, and I can prove it.

Also, Sam notes the proximity of the county line to his establishment, and posits that any ban must be statewide and not subject to messy local autonomy, because there would be a distinct competitive disadvantage to any no-smoking policy in a geographical sense unless there are no exemptions to the policy within easy commuting distance.

Really?

When’s the last time you saw an all-smoking restaurant created for the express, stated purpose of providing alternatives to the proliferation of smoke-free venues? It plain doesn’t happen. Furthermore, as already noted, the converse to Sam’s viewpoint is equally plausible: Clark County residents might cross the county line in greater numbers, and more frequently, to visit Sam’s and have an accessible smoke-free dining place.

To his credit, Sam is willing to say aloud what most bar owners and restaurateurs won’t: As long as there’s someone else to blame (the state legislature), then it’s all good; until then, individual operators cannot possibly accept the existential burden of being pro-active about banning smoking on their own initiative.

Unfortunately, this is the weakest argument of all, and I respectfully disagree with it. I strongly suspect if Sam were asked whether in other conjectured regulatory instances, allowing state legislators such a degree of participation in his business decisions would be a desired outcome, he would express considerably more doubt about their ability to regulate effectively. My hunch is that he would decry legislative interference -- but in the case of smoking, he welcomes it, because fingers can be pointed at “big government,” and it lets him off the hook.

My words to Sam: You are a giant among local establishments; a legend. We did it, and you can, too. It’s far easier than you think.

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Unsurprisingly, the rumors we kept hearing to the effect that this year, at long last, a statewide smoking ban with few exemptions would pass through the legislature have been duly negated by the gutted legislation, as currently riddled with the usual lobbyists’ caveats. I must oppose such conceptual Swiss cheese, precisely owing to the tilted-playing-field favorites it cynically enables, especially Indiana’s loftiest of sacred cows, the casino industry.

Non-smoking legislation only makes sense if employee health is the objective, and if employee health is the objective, exemptions simply cannot logically be made – if exemptions are in fact illogically made, then Indiana lawmakers are implying that workplace safety matters more at a solitary breakfast-only diner with twelve employees than at a casino with two hundred.

Not only is this sort of non-thinking pure drivel from the get-go; given the Indiana Senate’s recent record, it’s impossible to believe it is populated by officials capable of arbitrating matters that require the application of science, logic and ethics in roughly equal measure without inducing grand mal seizures in the general populace.

Since tobacco remains a legal product, albeit it one very heavily controlled, there is only one exception I can imagine sanctioning – and even then, it’s a tough call. Perhaps tobacco purveyors should be let off the non-smoking hook, but in this instance, I believe they cannot also be in the business of food and drink, so as to preclude their conveniently ceasing to be tobacco emporiums and becoming de facto taverns instead, which would fulfill Sam’s fears of competitive disadvantage.

Because retailers like New Albany’s Kaiser Tobacco and Billow are not licensed for alcohol sales, they would ease through such an exemption.

But in truth, as much as I appreciate and patronize both these businesses – I remain a cigar smoker, albeit one who cannot puff in either of my company’s two buildings – the mere thought of rationalizing exemptions for them and not others transforms me into a drooling hypocrite.

Alas, in the end, perhaps hypocrisy is unavoidable whenever the talk turns to topics like to tobacco use, personal responsibilities and societal freedoms.

But for the love of Lucky Strikes, does the discussion really have to be as hypocrisy-ridden as the Indiana Senate has made it?