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by Badger Herald Editorial Board

Thursday, February 23, 2006

When Madison's smoking ban was introduced, reasonable people disagreed about whether banning cigarette smoke from bars and restaurants might prove a wise course of action. But the ban contained one particularly draconian provision that would set this city aside from many other cities taking similar measures: cigar bars were not given an exemption.

To compare a cigar bar to an ordinary pub is to compare a Long Island Iced Tea to a Shirley Temple. These are not establishments where people go for just a drink — tobacco is an integral and inseparable part of the cigar bar experience. The clientele is not like that of other taverns, and those in attendance have no reasonable expectation of a smoke-free environment.

Moreover, the smoking ban was pitched to the City Council largely in the name of employees who did not wish to be around lit tobacco. Such is not a problem in the case of cigar bars because those seeking employment do so with the inherent understanding that aside from aged scotch and dry vermouth, they, too, will hawk Padrons and Montecristos. In fact, there is no choice in the matter because the reality remains that a cigar bar cannot much exist without tobacco. Essentially, the choice is between employment in a smoking environment or a small business being forced to fold and offer no employment opportunities at all.

Ald. Mike Verveer, District 4, has wisely introduced a new exemption to the smoking ban that would allow cigar bars and their hookah-reliant cousins to exist. The provisions are airtight and offer no apparent loopholes. An establishment would have to demonstrate that 10 percent of its business derives from the sale of tobacco to become eligible for the exemption. And cigarettes would still be off limits.

At least one Madison business would be saved by this provision, but the proposal does not establish a monopoly, either. Mr. Verveer has built in a clause that allows new bars to open as smoke-free establishments and later convert to cigar or hookah bars provided that 10 percent of their sales for the first six months are derived from tobacco. As a result, the competitive marketplace will continue to thrive.

Finally, the proposal also allows the reintroduction of chewing tobacco into Madison bars that do not elect to ban the substance on their own (something all bars are free to do). That chewing tobacco was banned in the first place is certainly among the most incomprehensible of measures ever taken by the City of Madison. No one has ever become ill from secondhand dip, and there is not a single public-health argument to be made for the banning of this substance.

Indeed, when it comes to cigar bars, hookah establishments and chewing tobacco, the reality is that the City of Madison gains nothing by imposing these anti-business restrictions. These are steps taken in the name of over-regulating a legal substance and nothing more. They are absurd on their face, and it is high time that they be overturned.

Arguments will doubtless be lodged by members of this city's radical establishments that this proposal is somehow contrary to the best interests of Madison. But, in this case, it seems rather safe to assert that Freud has it right: a cigar is just a cigar.

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Anonymous (February 23, 2006 @ 8:46am):

Good article. Sometimes the left needs to stop for a second and think about how crazy it is to tell a bar that is there for smoking, that it cannot have patrons who smoke. If you don't like the smoke, get out. Why are you in a cigar bar to begin with then?

Anonymous (February 23, 2006 @ 10:46am):

I'm a big fan of the smoking ban...but I'm also a big fan of hookah bars. Everybody wins under this clause.

Anonymous (February 23, 2006 @ 3:12pm):

Ban the Ban.

Anonymous (February 23, 2006 @ 4:11pm):

I agree with this editorial. Let's keep the smoking ban, but allow the cigar bars to survive.

Verveer and King are good on this issue, but Webber and Konkel are not, from what I hear.