By Michael Swanger

Bar owner Alex Banasik is tired of the government running his business. Tired of being taxed. Tired of paying increased licensing fees. Tired of Iowa legislators passing bills like House File 2212, the “Smokefree Air Act,” which he says will hurt his and other bars. Enough is enough, he says. Butt out.

“Business is down all over, and if they throw this smoking ban at us it’s going to make matters worse, and a lot of people will go down,” said Banasik, director of the Iowa Hospitality Association and owner of Down Under Bar & Grill in Clive and Big Al’s Roadhouse in Waukee. “Last year they poked us in the eye with a minimum wage increase, and the result was letting people go and raising prices for the customers. Then they poked us in the eye by increasing inspection fees by 30 percent. That’s a lot of eyes.”

Butting out, however, has a different connotation to proponents of House File 2212, those determined to extinguish smoking in most public places in Iowa in an effort to increase workplace safety and improve public health. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Des Moines Democrat who voted in favor of the proposal last Tuesday when it passed the Iowa House 56-44, said he and others who support the smoking ban wish it didn’t include exemptions for casinos, private clubs like VFWs, some hotel rooms, tobacco retail shops and semi-private rooms in long-term-care facilities. but they believe it is a step in the right direction.

“It’s the biggest health measure we’ve passed, even though it’s not perfect,” he said. “We’ve never been able to get a consensus on a perfect bill that wouldn’t have exemptions, but protecting 99 percent of Iowans is better than nothing. Smoking is the leading cause of death in Iowa and the nation, period. Everybody knows that. And each year about 440 Iowans die from cancer caused by secondhand smoke.”

Those and other arguments define the conundrum that is House File 2212. Though few people on either side question the medical data that proves the adverse health effects caused by smoking or being exposed to secondhand smoke, a number of highly charged political issues fan the flames of the hotly contested proposal now in the hands of the Iowa Senate. Among them is the government’s hypocrisy in telling private businesses they can’t allow smoking while providing an exemption for government-operated casinos out of fear a smoking ban would be bad for business and therefore decrease the revenue they rely on from casinos. There are other issues at hand, too, opponents say, including the loss of citizens’ property rights and a potential $230 million state budget shortfall stemming from the loss of money generated by tobacco sales taxes when factoring in the recent $1-per-pack excise tax increase.

“How do you say you’re going to allow smoking in a casino, but not in a bar across the street? This bill is riddled with inconsistencies,” said Christopher Rants, Iowa House Republican Leader. “It’s part of a pattern developing up here [in the Legislature] this year by the Democrats. We give a giant tax break to Microsoft Corp., but don’t seem to care about small business owners.”

Last week’s House vote mostly followed party lines with the Democrat majority and a handful of Republicans voting for the smoking ban measure, though Rants said there were some Democrats who “had some concerns about the bill, too.” That same majority ignored two Republican proposed exemptions including one allowing venues — mostly bars — whose customers are 18 and older the right to allow smoking, and one that would allow farmers to smoke in their own tractors, upholding the bill’s ideal of prohibiting smoking in enclosed areas that are places of employment where violators could be fined up to $500.

“Most people think of restaurants when they think of this bill and how they want to come out of one without being exposed to secondhand smoke,” Rants said. “If this was a proposal to ban smoking in restaurants it would be one thing, but this goes far beyond that. For me, it’s a property rights issue, which is why I’m opposed to it. Business owners should be able to do what they want with their property as long as it’s legal. This is imposing the state’s will.”

Banasik, 65, agrees, noting people choose to frequent or work at bars. “My customers come in here because it’s a smoking bar. If they decide not to come in here, they have plenty of choices including non-smoking bars. Let’s leave it up to the customers to decide. No one is forcing them to go in,” he said. “The marketplace will dictate what we provide.”

Banasik, who bought his first bar about 14 years ago, said he is aware that some customers are sensitive to smoke, which is why he installed air handlers to help eliminate the smell. “There is a little smell on your clothes when you go home, but it’s not the smoke haze hanging in the air like you see in the old western movies,” he said.

Blues On Grand in downtown Des Moines, for example, allows smoking but has a non-smoking section. Manager and longtime smoker Jeff Wagner, 51, said he has considered hosting more smoke-free shows despite the fact the one he hosted a few months ago tanked.

“I don’t force people to come through my door, but I do what I can to make it smoke friendly for everybody. I have twice as many smoke eaters as necessary for a club my size, and I have a non-smoking section,” he said. “Even though it doesn’t get rid of all the smoke smell, at least you don’t have to sit next to someone smoking if you don’t want to.”

Customers aren’t the only ones affected by smoking. Wagner said some of his employees are non-smokers, yet they realize that working at a blues club sometimes means enduring exposure to secondhand smoke. “They don’t necessarily like it, but they choose to work here because it’s a fun place, and they know that smoke is part of the environment,” he said.

Dan Ramsey, project director for the Central Iowa Tobacco-free Partnership (CITP) and a lobbyist for the American Lung Association, said that isn’t good enough. The CITP was established as part of the nation’s 1998 landmark $246 billion settlement with the tobacco industry, and it focuses on preventing tobacco use among young people and eliminating nonsmokers’ exposure to secondhand smoke. Its Web site [www.tobaccofreepartnership.com] lists hundreds of smoke-free restaurants, bars, entertainment venues and hotels in Greater Des Moines, and includes testimonials from some of the business owners who operate them.

“The worker who works in a restaurant has no control over the smoke they breathe. Everybody has a right to breathe clean air,” Ramsey said.

The American Cancer Society estimated that of the approximately 560,000 Americans who died of cancer in 2007, about 160,000 died of lung and bronchus cancer, including some 1,750 Iowans last year. Lung cancer, the American Lung Association of Iowa reports, is the leading cancer killer in both men and women. Among non-smokers in the U.S., secondhand smoke is estimated to cause 35,000 to 45,000 deaths from heart disease and 3,000 deaths from lung cancer.

In addition to those findings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that secondhand smoke contains at least 250 chemicals known to be toxic, including more than 50 that can cause cancer, and that nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke increase their heart disease risk by 25 to 30 percent and their lung cancer risk by 20 to 30 percent. Secondhand smoke can also cause sudden infant death syndrome, acute respiratory infections, ear problems and more frequent and severe asthma and allergy attacks. In short, CDC officials say, there is no risk-free level of secondhand smoke exposure and that even brief exposure can be dangerous.

“Thirty years ago, people used to be able to dump anything in landfills,” Ramsey said. “When people got sick, the government stepped in to protect the public. It’s the same with smoking. Thirty years ago we didn’t have the information we have today about how harmful smoke can be.”

But do proponents of House File 2212 share the same concern for the health of employees and customers at Iowa’s 17 state-regulated casinos? Bar owners say their only concern seems to be money.

“If it’s a health issue, then apply it across the board,” Banasik said.

Wagner said he wonders whether lawmakers considered the potential legal liability involved with exempting casinos. “Exempting any class of business is asking for a lawsuit,” he said, “which our legislators are good at creating and asking taxpayers to pay for. Just look at TouchPlay.”

State officials last month reached a $1.8 million settlement to end a lawsuit over the Iowa Lottery’s failed TouchPlay program. The State Appeal Board approved a settlement with Camden Inc., which owned 6,700 machines, and includes a decision by the Iowa Lottery Board to drop a claim for $497,963 that Camden allegedly owed the state when its TouchPlay machines were shut down in May 2006. Still, other TouchPlay businesses have lawsuits pending against the state.

“They took TouchPlay out so we wouldn’t hurt casinos,” Wagner said. “It was casinos protecting their interests in the gambling trade. I’m not allowed to compete with them, but they’re allowed to compete with me with smoking, drinks, food and entertainment. The last thing we need is to give the casinos one more edge over everybody else. People talk about the revenue casinos generate, but small businesses pay sales taxes, too.”

Officials on both sides of the issue point to the Iowa Gaming Association’s powerful lobbyists as the reason why casinos were allowed an exemption. Earlier this month, it was reported, gaming lobbyists shared information with lawmakers that showed that the state would lose as much as $100 million a year in revenue generated from gambling taxes if casinos were forced to go smoke free. Gaming officials said they couldn’t compete with American Indian casinos that are exempt from state bans.

“These folks want to cut down smoking, but don’t want to do without the revenue casinos bring in,” Rants said.
Ramsey said the prospect of the state losing millions of dollars in casino-generated revenue might pale in comparison to the bill taxpayers already foot for the medical care of some smokers.

“From a healthy employee angle, I couldn’t be happier if they had to make up the $230 million, even if we had to raise taxes. Our goal is to reduce smoking. We probably pay two to three times that amount of money on people who smoke and their Medicare health expenses related to smoking,” he said. “About 40 percent of smokers don’t have high school diplomas, and those people tend to use the government for their health care. For every pack of cigarettes that is sold, it costs taxpayers about $7 in health care. When they passed the $1 tax increase on cigarettes, we recouped about one-seventh of that cost, and it was estimated that about 20,000 Iowans stopped smoking as a result of that tax.”

Ramsey said the two most effective ways to reduce smoking are to raise cigarette taxes and ban public smoking, noting that smoke-free laws are spreading throughout the country. They have been enacted in 23 states, like Illinois, Nebraska and Minnesota, where statewide bans are in effect after giving businesses a year to comply, or states like California where smoking bans are in place for bars and restaurants, but cities are entitled to pass their own smoking ordinances. In San Francisco, for example, city leaders are debating whether to ban smoking on its streets in addition to a ban already in place for its bars and restaurants. In most cases, state and city laws like the one proposed in Iowa don’t allow smoking within at least 10 feet of public doorways.

“Business owners will find their customer base will change and increase,” McCarthy said.

Businesses like the Hotel Fort Des Moines, Java Joes Coffeehouse, B&B Restaurant and the Waveland Café have experienced success and endured the transition of going smoke free. Some have said business spiked immediately, while others confessed it took time to rebuild their clientele.

“I’ve heard legislators say that the first year you go smoke free, business is down, but then it picks up,” Wagner said. “But a small business can’t last during a year’s downturn. There’s no evidence that says banning smoking will help business. I think it’s cavalier of people not in our business to say it won’t hurt us when it’s not their money on the line.”

Some bar owners have talked about converting their businesses into private clubs, looking for a loophole to evade the smoking ban. But state law requires private clubs not to have any paid employees.

Opponents of the smoking ban are also upset that the Iowa Department of Public Health has spent about $600,000 of taxpayer money to run advertisements promoting a smoking ban in Iowa. The ads feature bar and restaurant employees and musicians like The Nadas’ Jason Walsmith. Coincidentally, $126,000 in tobacco-tax revenues were used to help pay for the ads. “Is this the best use of our tax dollars?” Banasik said.

Meanwhile, the proposal has moved to the Iowa Senate, where it is generating even more debate. If the Senate approves the House’s version, it then sends it to Gov. Chet Culver, who has supported legislation that would grant cities permission to pass their own smoking ordinances, but said he would consider a statewide ban. If the Senate makes its own provisions to the bill, it returns to the House for another vote.

“We’re not crazy about the exemptions for the casinos, but we like the idea of a statewide smoking ban,” Ramsey said. “It’s probably the best bill to come down the pike in a long time.”

Sen. Matt McCoy, a Des Moines Democrat, said he thinks the bill will quickly pass the Senate, which is expected to debate it this week. He said Democrats and some Republicans want to pass the House version of the bill that includes exemptions for casinos, whose lobbyists he said possess political clout.

“If we made opponents of the casinos, it would be hard to get the bill passed — their lobbyists are that strong,” McCoy said. “But we’re still looking for votes within our own caucus and sympathetic Republicans who helped us pass the cigarette tax. We want to move on this quickly because the longer we sit on it, the more water it takes on.”

McCoy said a recent poll shows that 80 percent of Iowans support a statewide smoking ban, and proponents of the bill are using that number when talking with constituents. McCoy also said he wished the bill did not include exemptions for casinos, but does rule out the possibility of rewriting the bill in the future to include a smoking ban for casinos.

“I feel badly we needed to accept that exemption, but on the other hand, as people who support improving the quality of air for Iowans, we should take passing it as the first step. When I started pushing for this bill 10 years ago, nobody believed we would be discussing a smoking ban. But people’s opinions have changed over time, which is why I think eventually we could have smoke-free casinos.” CV

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