Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify Smoke-free’s East Baton Rouge’s position on the revisions to the proposed smoking ordinance and to add comments from Reagan Carter, a spokeswoman for the group.
Smoke-free East Baton Rouge is supporting a revised smoking ban proposal that gives bars and casinos until next summer to comply with the ban, the group’s spokesman says ahead of today’s Metro Council vote on the proposal.
“We’re not happy about it at all,” says Randy Hayden, Smoke-free EBR spokesman of the delay. “But if that’s what it takes to pass the ordinance, the members of our group are going to bite their tongues and let it pass.”
Metro Councilman Matt Watson, a key swing vote, announced changes this week aimed at making the ordinance more palatable to the business community and giving local police the authority to enforce the ban, among other things. Watson’s proposal would give bars and casinos until June 1, 2018, to ban smoking.
Today’s vote comes months after a renewed push to ban smoking in bars and casinos looked almost certain to pass, but was delayed earlier this summer over questions about who would enforce the ban and when it would go into effect.
Smoke-free EBR’s Raegan Carter says the group “wholeheartedly” supports the revised effort but notes the “public health concern” with delaying the implementation.
Watson says the revised ordinance comes after months of meetings with local officials and other council members, and adds the proposal up for a vote today is likely as far as he’s willing to compromise.
“If somebody wants to go off the rails and not vote for it,” he says, “it certainly won’t be because I didn’t put in a lot of time working on it.”
Watson and others on the council believe they have the seven votes needed to pass it. It would likely take all five Democrats on the council—who have long supported the proposal—to agree to the nine-month delay in implementing it. Plus, both Watson and Metro Councilwoman Barbara Freiberg, who has said she will support it in the past, would need to vote ‘yes’ to get the ordinance to the seven votes needed for approval. Metro Councilwoman Chauna Banks was still undecided as of yesterday evening.
Originally, bar and casino owners asked for a year or possibly two-year delay in implementing the ban so they could have time to go through the permitting process and build outdoor smoking areas, while smoking ban advocates wanted the ordinance to be implemented 30 days after it passed.
“We don’t want it so watered down so it becomes ineffective,” says Councilwoman Tara Wicker. “We know we’re not going to be able to make everyone happy.”
The Metro Council meets at 3:30 p.m. on the third floor of City Hall, 222 St. Louis Street. See the full agenda.
—Sam Karlin
