Life, smoking go on after ban

Life, smoking go on after ban

By BILL RODGERS Tribune Chronicle
With near-freezing weather and flurries Friday, it was a lousy night to be a Trumbull County smoker out on the town.

Unless they were in Pennsylvania or a place that wasn’t complying with Ohio’s indoor smoking ban.

About a year after voters passed the ban and about seven months after fines could be issued, five county businesses have been fined $100 each for violations under the law, according to the Trumbull County Board of Health.

Standing outside the Cabaret Lounge on North River Road, Tim Biedenbach smoked with some of his friends, one of whom dropped a cigarette from his numb fingers. It wasn’t the cold or that five fines had been issued in a half-year of enforcement that bothered Biedenbach.

‘‘It’s just the hassle of it all. I think if it’s past 9 o’clock and if you’re over 21, it shouldn’t matter,’’ he said.

Biedenbach said he didn’t know anyone who quit smoking just because of the ban, when one of his friends told him he did.

‘‘He wasn’t a smoker-smoker,’’ Biedenbach argued.

Closer to the border with Pennsylvania in Orangeville, Fisherman’s Cove Bar and Grill owned by Kirk Cusick still had a full lot despite Cusick’s prediction a year ago that the ban would drive him out of business. Ohio’s no-smoking sign was taped to the front door, right at eye level as customers walked in.

He said business was slow since the ban, but it’s helped that the Cove is part restaurant.

‘‘Now that it’s colder, I’m sure we’ll hurt that way. But we’ll ride it out,’’ he said.

But less than a mile down the road in Pennsylvania, the only sign on EZ’s Orangeville Tavern states that patrons have to be 21 to drink. Customers lining the bar smoked, another lit a pipe.

‘‘We’ve gotten a lot of new faces,’’ said owner Sharon Zreliak about the months after the ban.

Though she’s profiting now, Zreliak would be afraid if Pennsylvania was next for a ban.

‘‘I hope not. If it does happen it should be up to the business owners. I think it would hurt us, I really do,’’ she said.

Dino Haidaris, co-owner of the Sunrise Inn restaurant in Warren would disagree, though he acknowledges it could be different because his business is primarily a restaurant.

‘‘The lifespan of my employees has probably doubled,’’ Haidaris said. ‘‘It’s been great, we’ve picked up a lot of customers.’’

One of Haidaris’ happy customers is ex-smoker Linda Yost of Warren.

‘‘I’m happy I can sit here and breathe. I quit a long time ago. I don’t have to breathe other people’s smoke,’’ Yost said.

Neither does bartender Jack Fess, who after working bars and nightclubs since the 1980s, was starting to show signs of being a long-term smoker even though he never smoked.

‘‘This is the best thing that’s ever happened,’’ Fess said.

When asked about the five fines in Trumbull County, Haidaris speculated that could mean bars are complying or that people simply weren’t reporting violations to the state, which is how the ban’s enforcement moves forward.

They weren’t reporting at the Top Hat in Brookfield. The owner of the bar, who spray painted a warning on his front door a year ago that patrons should expect smoke if they go inside the bar, declined to give his name but suggested what the state could do with its smoking ban.

He said he wasn’t one of the five that was fined.

Nick Eicher, who was working the bar at the Top Hat, believed choosing to smoke or not to smoke; to go into a business that allows smoking, or not to go into a business that allows smoking should remain a matter of personal choice.

‘‘Everyone who has smoked in a bar will tell you the same. This is hurting us,’’ Eicher said.
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