On Oct. 1, the Madison City Council will vote on a new smoking ordinance that will redefine which Madison businesses are bars and which are restaurants.

Currently, establishments with under 33 percent of revenue coming from alcohol sales are considered restaurants and are required to be non-smoking, with an exception for businesses that maintain a separately ventilated smoking area.

If passed, the new ordinance will consider all establishments with less than 50 percent of alcohol sales to be restaurants. Regardless of whether they have a separate bar area or ventilation system, these businesses will have to remain nonsmoking.

According to Ald. Tom Powell, District 11, the ordinance is not only for the health of patrons, but that of restaurant and bar employees.

“Patrons can go somewhere else to evade smoking,” he said. “It’s an issue for employees who face serious exposure levels, working eight-hour shifts in a bar every day.”

Powell also identified his concern for student workers.

“When you’re a student, it’s tough to find a good job,” he said. “Bars and restaurants pay pretty well, and if you need the money, it’s sometimes your only option. That’s the reason I’ve been supportive of the ordinance.”

He added some personal experience with the problem of second-hand smoke.

“This ordinance is long overdue,” he said. “When I was an undergrad, I was in a band, and we played in bars on the weekend. I remember very well blowing my nose and seeing black from the smoke I had inhaled over the course of several hours. For bar employees, this is a constant problem.”

Ald. Dorothy Borchardt, District 12, said she is strongly opposed to the ordinance.

“Just a few years ago we told restaurant owners that they could have a separate ventilation room, and smoking there would be okay,” Borchardt said. “Employees have choices where they work. If they don’t want to work in the smoking area, they can work in the nonsmoking area”.

However, Dr. Katherine Vedder, Madison’s city health director, said the ventilation systems are ineffective.

“Unfortunately, even a separate area, unless it has completely negative pressure, you don’t open the door at all, and all air is going outside, does not work,” Vedder said. “Even with this, employees leaving or entering the room are still exposed to the smoke. Ventilation systems make the room smell better, but they don’t reduce the damaging things, such as carcinogens, in the air.”

Borchardt stressed the idea that bar and restaurant patrons should choose whether they can smoke or not.

“I think that eventually they want all bars to be smoke-free in Madison,” she said. “Some day it may be your own home. I don’t smoke. I’ve never smoked. My husband is allergic to smoke. But people need to have choices.”

In order to pass, the ordinance needs 11 of the 20-member city council members to vote in favor of the ordinance.

Powell said he believes the council will pass the ordinance with a tight vote.

“Almost all the downtown aldermen are in favor, though that’s where the highest concentration of bars is. Currently, it’s vacillating between 11 and 13 aldermen in favor of [the ordinance]. I think it’ll just squeak by,” Powell said.

“It will be very close,” Borchardt said. “I certainly hope this is not an election issue, and that since it’s not after the first of the year, that voters will forget.”

Assistant to the mayor Ryan Mulcahy said the most recent legislation to come through the city-council meeting is part of a trend toward elimination of smoking in bars.

“Over recent years, the city has enacted pieces of legislation on this issue,” Mulcahy said, who is uncertain how the votes might fall next Tuesday.

“It certainly is a controversial issue. I don’t know which way it’s gonna go.”