"I just hope they don't take smoking out of bars," says Jim Bollard as he smokes and plays video poker Wednesday at the Instant Replay bar and restaurant in Las Vegas. Nevada voters passed Question 5, which won't allow smoking in restaurants and bars that serve food. Photo by John Locher.
Restaurateurs, bar owners and convenience-store operators struggled Wednesday to understand how the passage of an initiative banning smoking in most public places would affect their businesses.
Question 5, which passed Tuesday with 54 percent of the vote, outlaws smoking in convenience stores, supermarkets and establishments with food-handling licenses, including restaurants and bars. The proposition, scheduled to take effect Dec. 8, exempts gaming areas of casinos from the smoking ban.
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The ballot question's approval has fired up controversy among local proprietors whose businesses rely on a combination of small-scale gambling, affordable food and smoker-friendly confines.
Bill Devlin, owner of the Stake Out at 4800 Maryland Parkway, said he's considering abandoning food service at his restaurant and bar. The move could result in dismissal for the 12 food workers at his 17-employee eatery.
"I'm going to do what is necessary for me to remain in business," said Devlin, who noted that 80 percent of his customers smoke. "I do not make money on my food business. I only make money from my gaming operation (which includes 15 video-poker machines). I can't tell someone who loses $500 not to have a cigarette if they want it. If you're going to go out and spend money on gambling, drinking and eating, do you want to be regulated in what you can and can't do?"
Devlin said trying to circumvent new regulations by, for example, partitioning off part of his restaurant and opening a separate nonsmoking business wouldn't work because his 4,400-square-foot tavern isn't configured properly.
"I'd have to tear it down first," he said.
Frank Vento, owner of the Instant Replay Sports Pub at 2940 S. Durango Drive, said he didn't expect his restaurant business to suffer too much under the new law. He's set aside about 10 percent of the tables at his 380-seat restaurant for smokers, and he said the smoking section is seldom full.
"People just don't smoke the way they used to," Vento said.
It's a different story at the eatery's bar, however.
The Instant Replay's bar, which Vento said is separated from the restaurant by six walls, is nearly always full, and 30 percent of the patrons at the counter smoke.
The income from the video-poker machines can amount to half of Vento's monthly revenue.
"The people who drink and gamble in this city want to smoke," Vento said. "For them to get up every 15 minutes, walk outside, smoke and come back in -- that will probably be an issue."
Vento said he didn't think he'd lose too much business to casinos because his customers prefer a quieter bar atmosphere. Nor does he plan to stop serving food.
For hundreds of bar managers across Nevada, though, food will be off the menu.
Geno Hill, president of the Nevada Tavern Owners Association and owner of several Rum Runner restaurants in Las Vegas, said his trade group's research found that pubs across the state would shed nearly 3,000 food-service jobs in a bid to preserve on-site smoking.
Hill's organization backed Question 4, a less-restrictive measure that would have largely maintained current limits on smoking in public. Question 4 failed to pass, collecting 48 percent of the vote.
Hill said up to 20 Rum Runner staffers -- about a third of his work force -- could lose their jobs if his operations close their dining components.
He also decried the "completely uneven playing field" that allows smoking inside casinos. Taverns near neighborhood casinos in particular could sustain big declines in business, Hill said.
It's not just bar and restaurant owners who are eyeing the possible effects of Question 5. Peter Krueger, state executive of the Nevada Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association in Reno, was fielding calls Wednesday morning from members concerned about Question 5's consequences.
For some convenience-store owners, Krueger said, slot machines deliver nearly half their revenue.
Krueger said he's especially concerned about stores in rural areas. Convenience stores in big cities such as Las Vegas and Reno can adjust their business models to compensate for lost gaming income, perhaps by bringing in fast-food outposts, for example. Shops in smaller communities have fewer options for adding new sales streams, he said.
"We're not concerned about losing out to casinos because our clients are generally not people who game at the major properties," Krueger said. "They may come in (to a convenience store) and pull the handle a few times, but when they get up to go smoke, do they leave? Do they just go outside? Those are some of the issues that have to be worked out."
Consumers say it's too early to tell whether Question 5 would alter their habits.
Jeth Snyder, an iron worker who lives in Las Vegas, was sitting inside PT's Place on Rancho Drive on Wednesday afternoon, smoking and playing video poker at the bar.
Snyder said he's not certain how the new rules might modify where he chooses to gamble. But he also said neither a smoking ban nor halted food service would keep him from PT's.
"(The smoking ban) kind of sucks. This is a grown-up environment, and it should remain a grown-up environment," said Snyder, who stops in at PT's about three times a week. "But if they made a designated area for smokers outside, I'd be OK with it. I don't eat here, so if they stopped serving food, it wouldn't affect me."
Representatives of Golden Gaming, which operates PT's, didn't return a call seeking comment on how they would adjust to the ban.
Casino companies hesitated to predict whether the smoking restrictions would translate into additional business for their local operations.
"It's just too early to understand the impact, so we're taking a wait-and-see approach," said Lori Nelson, a spokeswoman for Station Casinos, which owns 13 neighborhood casinos in Southern Nevada, and has a 50 percent interest in Green Valley Ranch Resort.
Experts who have studied the repercussions of smoking bans say such prohibitions have little long-term effect on restaurants and bars.
William Evans, an economics professor at the University of Maryland, said overwhelming evidence suggests smoking bans in restaurants don't eat away at taxable revenue or employment levels in the food and beverage industry as a whole.
That's because most people aren't smokers, Evans said, and while restaurants might lose smoking patrons, they could also pick up nonsmokers lured by the cleaner air. Plus, consumers have grown accustomed to smoking bans, and have learned to adjust to regulations that curtail lighting up.
"That's not to say everyone will be free and clear," said Evans, who studied the fallout from a smoking ban in suburban Washington, D.C. "A restaurant with a heavy smoking clientele can be adversely affected. There are some winners and losers, but on the aggregate, these bans appear to be a wash."
Murray Sabrin, executive director of the Center for Business and Public Policy at the Anisfield School of Business at Ramapo College of New Jersey, agreed that smoking bans can both deter old customers and attract new business.
As important as the fiscal results of a smoking ban, though, are the constitutional implications, Sabrin said.
None of the trade groups or businesses that spoke with the Review-Journal about the ban on Wednesday said legal action is planned to overturn the referendum.
But Sabrin said lawsuits are inevitable, thanks to the provision that excludes the gaming areas of casinos from the initiative's reach.
"Any time you exempt individuals or a group of individuals from a regulation, you have an unequal application of the law," Sabrin said. "This is fundamentally a property-rights issue. Who sets the rules regarding the use of private property? It's a Fifth Amendment issue of a taking (of private property under eminent domain). Anyone who believes in property rights and equal protection under the law will see this as an infringement of their right to set the rules for their own establishment."
However, courts have ruled that smoking bans do not violate property rights.
Sabrin said businesses could argue in court that the loss of customers to operations that allow smoking is an unequal tax because owners are losing revenue to competitors based on an inequitable law.
Devlin said he doesn't have the money to go to court against the initiative, but he hopes someone will sue to overturn it.
"Inside casinos, people can still smoke and gamble," he said. "Why is it that the small-business person like myself is being put in this situation? I'm put in a position where I have to make a choice (between allowing smoking and serving food)."
For PT's regular Snyder, at least, choosing cigarettes over food might not be a tough decision for much longer.
