Felix tries A BILL banning smoking in Oahu restaurants will once again be aired before the City Council.
to resuscitate
smoking ban
Opposers fear that the bill
would harm the local economyBy Gordon Y.K. Pang
gpang@starbulletin.comBill 78-01 was introduced yesterday by Councilman John Henry Felix. It would not apply to nightclubs, bars or the nondining portions of restaurants.
The bill is designed to protect restaurant workers, Felix said.
"It is said that a restaurant worker inhales the equivalent of one to four packs of cigarettes a day," he said.
The bill will also help children, he said, who have no say on where their parents take them to eat.
While the places where smokers can light up have been curtailed greatly in the last decade, efforts to ban smoking in restaurants and bars have failed.
Felix said he is hoping that recent legal victories by federal and state governments against tobacco companies will convince colleagues once opposed to a restaurant smoking ban to change their minds.
Council Chairman Jon Yoshimura said he continues to oppose smoking curbs in restaurants and notes that many eateries have adopted no-smoking policies on their own in recent years.
"I do not think government should be dictating business policy," he said.
Councilman Steve Holmes, who introduced the 1995 version of the bill along with Councilman Andy Mirikitani, said he will support a restaurant smoking ban. He noted, however, that he is dubious Felix will be able to muster enough votes to approve the bill, much less survive a likely Harris veto.
"I, frankly, would have moved the bill before myself if I thought the votes were there," he said.
He added that the political timing for the bill is also bad since there is an election next year.
Patrick McCain, president of the Hawaii Restaurant Association, said his organization remains opposed to an outright ban.
"What we're afraid will happen is, we'll be running off our Asian visitors," he said, noting that many of them smoke.
He said he will talk to Council members in an attempt to "come up with something that doesn't cause the economy to get any worse."
Felix said he is not surprised by opposition from the restaurant industry.
"But if they're concerned about their employees, they'll support the bill."
City & County of Honolulu
