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E-mail This StoryOwners from several local bars will be at Monday’s Plano City Council meeting to ask for an addendum to allow more time to adhere to a smoking ordinance they say is having a negative impact on their businesses.
“We are going to ask the city council to allow us a time period to phase this in,” said Bryan Capps, owner of Austin Avenue Grill and Sports Bar in Plano.
Capps is one of five bar and restaurant owners in Plano who are planning to petition the smoking ordinance so it can be sent to a public vote. The petition group, which includes Bullwinkle’s Bistro and Pub, Varsity Club Wings and Sports, End Zone Sports Bar and Grill and Kelly’s Eastside, says it will be ready to start collecting the 1,600 signatures they need in the next two weeks.
“We would like to have the public vote on this instead of having this shoved down our throat,” Capps said. “It’s my business. It’s not the city’s. I should be allowed to decide.”
Mayor Pat Evans said overturning the ordinance would make Plano a haven for smokers and health hazards.
“I really hope they don’t try to overturn the ordinance,” Evans said. “I just want people to really think about it before they turn our city into an unhealthy oasis for smokers. They don’t have the right to ruin people’s health, and that includes the employees.”
Evans called the possibility of a public vote “a very expensive and divisive process.”
According to Diane Zucco, city secretary, a city-wide vote would cost about $64,285.
Capps said his business has been down $82,000 in June, $74,000 in July and is on track for being $75,000 down in August from what he made in those same three months last year.
Mike Brignole, owner of End Zone Sports Bar and Grill in Plano and Reetz Pub and Grub in Richardson, said his Richardson bar has had 20 to 30 percent more business the past few months, while his Plano bar has suffered.
City officials told local bar and restaurant owners their businesses would suffer an initial decline in sales, approximately 10 to 15 percent for the first two months of the ordinance, that would eventually return, according to Brignole, Capps and O.B. Barsh, owner of Bullwinkle’s Bistro and Pub.
“I haven’t seen one of the non-smokers that the city council told us we were going to get,” Brignole said.
Evans and city council member Loretta Ellerbe argue that the health hazard of second hand smoke to the public is too great to allow smoking in public places such as bars and restaurants.
“For me, it is a public health issue,” Ellerbe said. “Most of the arguments I have heard from people in favor of smoking have said you don’t have to go into the restaurants if you don’t want to. That is true. But, I think we need to consider the employees.”
The bar owners say it is not an issue of health, but an issue of city council members “overstepping their boundaries.”
“This is not about smoking,” Barsh said. “This is about the city infringing on the rights of the
small businessman. We are not forcing anyone to work in a smoke environment.”
Councilmember Harry LaRosiliere said the public should have the right to express their opinion on the smoking ordinance, even if it means a costly voting process.
“This process provides citizens with an opportunity to air their views,” LaRosiliere said. “It is emotionally charged for people who feel their rights are being taken away. They should have their right to express their opinion.”
Meanwhile, all three owners say smokers are leaving their bars and heading to bars in Richardson, Addison, Allen and McKinney.
Capps said he is expecting the city council to “snub” the group and their request for more time at the city council meeting.
“I have been to a lot of city council meetings,” Capps said. “I have seen a lot of people come up and talk about a lot of things. I think (the city council) will snub us.”
The group of five says they are also worried about any future repercussions from the city for speaking out against the smoking ban.
“We have a major concern about the city retaliating against the small businesses that oppose the smoking ordinance,” Barsh said.
Contact Josh Hixson at jhixson@acnpapers.com
