Madison restaurants faced with elimination of indoor smoking may be shifting numbers to avoid an amended Madison smoking ordinance, according to a report by Tommye Schneider, Director of Environmental Health and Laboratories for the Madison Public Health Department.

The smoking-ban ordinance, which took effect Jan. 1, 2003, allows restaurants with less than 33 percent alcohol sales to have a smoking area until 2005, after which they must become smoke-free. Restaurants with 33 to 50 percent total alcohol sales can wait until 2006 to become smoke-free.

According to state law, any establishment with more than 50 percent alcohol sales is classified as a tavern under state law, and therefore patrons under 21 cannot be admitted without a parent or guardian. However, according to the Health Department’s report, some restaurants may be trying to buy time by inflating alcohol sales on paper.

Schneider’s report also states that when the new ordinance went into effect in 2003, five well-known local restaurants resubmitted higher alcohol numbers for 2002-’03, putting them above the 50 percent mark.

After it became apparent that new status as a tavern would force these establishments to restrict admittance to customers over 21, all five shortly revised their numbers to indicate total alcohol sales below the 50 percent level, citing calculation errors.

Though the ordinance allowed some leeway for economic hardship, many restaurant owners were very upset with the new regulations.

“One State Street operator told us he was going to put up no-smoking signs that were written with a tiny font in white ink, so no one could see them,” Schneider reported.

City Council President and District 4 Alder Mike Verveer said he did not necessarily agree with the ordinance when it was passed because of the difficult spot that it put restaurant and bar owners in.

“A lot of these places like State Street Brats and the Great Dane are in a Catch-22 situation,” Verveer said. “I frankly think that smokers should continue to have the opportunity to smoke. I see bars as their last refuge.”

Though Verveer does not currently support a universal ban on smoking in all establishments, he acknowledges that since recent trends show a movement away from tobacco use, such a ban may eventually happen.

District 11 Alder Jean MacCubbin, a leading anti-smoking voice in local government, felt that Schneider’s report was not critical enough.

In an interview in the Wisconsin State Journal, MacCubbin said that the report was too “middle of the road” to be useful for further restriction of smoking.

“It appears that the new law didn’t have any effect,” MacCubbin said.

However, Ald. Verveer said the new ordinance has been anything but ineffective, especially for restaurants that opened after Jan. 1, 2003. Those establishments are required to be completely smoke-free unless net alcohol sales exceed 50 percent.

Because the 2002 ordinance was so complex and easily misinterpreted, some city officials have worried that the ordinance will be relatively impossible to enforce.

One factor inhibiting regulation is that inspections for evidence of smoking violations are only to be done during general inspection and upon complaint.

Verveer said that he has only received one public complaint since the new ordinance took effect more than nine months ago.