Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
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204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
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| Restaurants preparing for law to change |
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Monday, November 30, 2009
By DEBBIE HALL - Bulletin Staff Writer
An era will go up in smoke Monday at Garfield’s Place as patrons light up their last after-dinner cigarettes at the more than 60-year-old restaurant.
A new law championed by Gov. Tim Kaine will take effect Tuesday that will ban smoking in restaurants unless there are structurally separate smoking rooms with separate ventilation systems.
John Arnold, manager of Garfield’s Place on Appalachian Drive near Fieldale, said the restaurant that has been in his family for generations will be among those going smoke-free.
It will mark the end of an era, he added.
Arnold’s grandfather founded the restaurant in the mid 1940s. “We’ve never had separate sections” for smokers and non-smokers, the current manager said.
For most of those years, there were no complaints, he said, but recently, that has changed.
“I guess we’ve had more and more people complain” about eating in a restaurant that allows smoking, Arnold said.
Based on feedback from his patrons, Arnold said he thinks a majority of them support the ban. Only a “few have said they don’t like it,” he said.
With the new legislation, “they don’t have a choice anymore,” Arnold said.
When the ban takes effect Tuesday, Virginia will be the 28th state to restrict smoking in restaurants. The District of Columbia also has a similar law, and on Jan. 1, a law that bans smoking in North Carolina restaurants will go into effect.
Virginia’s law differs somewhat from North Carolina’s ban because some private clubs and restaurants with designated smoking rooms in the commonwealth are excluded.
Bronco Billy’s in uptown Martinsville may be one of the few area restaurants to permit patrons to light up after Dec. 1, according to owner Pam Prater.
The dining room always has been off limits to smokers, but they can light up in the bar that includes nine tables for dining in addition to bar stools, Prater said.
“Our bar is secluded from the dining area. We have door entrances” and a separate exhaust system, she said. “We have had no complaints” from patrons in the dining area.
Prater said she is waiting on health officials to determine — possibly on Monday afternoon — whether smoking will continue to be permitted in the bar.
“I couldn’t afford to build a whole new room on for smoking,” Prater said. But she will allow smoking if health officials allow it.
Alternatives to the smoking ban were considered at Clarence’s Steak & Seafood House in Ridgeway, but adding a separate room would have meant extensive renovations, according to Peggy Upchurch, manager.
Renovations were ruled out at the restaurant, which has a long history of allowing patrons to smoke. It has been permitted for at least the 38 years it has been under its current ownership, she said.
But on Tuesday, that will change.
“We’re going to be all non-smoking” then, Upchurch said, adding there are plans to wash the walls and clean the blinds soon after the restaurant goes smoke-free.
If there is any change in the number of customers, Upchurch thinks it will be negligible.
“I don’t think we have a lot of smokers. Most of our clientele are non-smokers,” she said. Even if there is some resistance at first, “once everybody gets used to it, I think everything will be fine,” she added.
Applebee’s Neighborhood Bar & Grill manager Michael Burton said he thinks there will be little if any effect on business when smoking is extinguished on Tuesday. |
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