Living Sussex Sun, Posted: May 19, 2009

Village of Sussex – Restaurant and tavern owners interviewed last week are divided on the impact of the new statewide workplace smoking ban the governor signed into law Monday.

The law will not affect the new George Webb Restaurant on Highway 164, whose general manager, Danna Wearing, already enforces a no-smoking rule.

At the other end of the spectrum, the owners of the Sussex Place Sports Bar on East Main Street and the Whiskey Corner tavern on Town Line Road in Menomonee Falls fear major losses.

Dean Babits – who owns, manages and cooks for his customers at his M&M Restaurant on Main Street – doesn't like the new law either, but believes the effect will be "minimal."

"People will learn to live with it," he said in an interview last week. "People on both coasts already have."

Customers at the Sussex Bowl on West Main Street are also debating the issue, according to manager Jessica Goldsworthy, who co-owns the business with two other partners.

While smoking is already banned in the bowling alley, customers can smoke at the bar. Even some smokers, however, say they'll come back after the ban takes affect next year, Goldsworthy said.

"They're the ones who say they plan to quit anyway," she said, "but some of my other smoking customers say (the new law) is unfair to them because nonsmokers have the option to go to a nonsmoking facility."

Goldsworthy said she might gain as many customers as she loses. "Some nonsmokers will start coming here because it will be a safe, nonsmoking environment."

Whatever their assessments of how the law will affect them, these business owners were glad they'll have a year – until July 5, 2010 – to adjust to it.

Babits was also glad the law was statewide, pre-empting local ordinances. "That's the only positive thing about it," he said.

Barb Adler was not as sanguine about her Whiskey Corners' prospects, however. "The law will have a very adverse effect on my business," the tavern owner said.

"If it's legal to use, we should be able to sell it," she added. "The state shouldn't be able to tell you what you can do in your own building. They might as well ban smoking altogether."

Sussex Place owner Jeff Bonaparte said two-thirds of the customers at his bar smoke – and he's one of them. After visiting Colorado, which already has a similar workplace smoking ban, he said, "I couldn't wait to come back to Wisconsin."

Bonaparte does not believe the ban will bring in as many customers as he'll lose. "By the time we start attracting nonsmokers," he said, "it will be too late."

Nor does he agree with Babits that the experience of Atlantic and Pacific coast states – many of which have passed similar smoking bans – holds any lessons for Wisconsin.

"It's just a lot colder here," Bonaparte pointed out. "People are not going to want to put their coats back on just to go outside to smoke, then come back in."

Many of his smoking customers stop by on their way home from work, where most of them are not allowed to smoke, he said. "If they can't smoke here either," he added, "they'll just go straight home and smoke there."

He said Sussex Place already provides a nonsmoking environment in its dining room and indoor volleyball courts and has a smoke removal system elsewhere, including the bar.

Bonaparte hopes the yearlong postponement will help him convert the horseshoes court behind the bar into an outdoor area where he can serve his smoking customers.

The new state law does allow for outdoor smoking areas that have no more than two "substantial" walls and a partial third wall, according to Jeff Kostelic, who works on the staff of State Rep. Jon Richards, co-sponsor of the legislation in the Assembly. The outdoor structure could even have a roof to protect customers from the rain or sun.

Adler scoffed at the idea, however. "What good is it to smoke outdoors, if you can't serve drinks outdoors?" she wondered.

Outdoor liquor service for those who aren't already licensed to provide it will require local government approval, according to Sussex Village Attorney John Macy. It will require a change in the establishment's liquor license; its site plan, plan of operations and, where applicable, its conditional use permit; and compliance with local ordinances covering outdoor establishments, beer gardens and public consumption of alcohol, he said.

"The smoking ban doesn't change the liquor laws," Village Administrator Evan Teich noted.

He said he expected businesses with smoking customers "to look for ways to add appendages to their buildings," and added, "We'll try to help them accommodate to the new law."

Teich said village officials will try to "keep the playing field level" so local businesses can continue to compete with their counterparts in neighboring communities.

Meanwhile, some state legislators want to use the yearlong wait before the new law goes into effect to change it.

State Rep. Don Pridemore – whose 99th District includes Sussex, Lannon, the northern two-thirds of Lisbon and the southwest corner of Menomonee Falls – wants the legislature to consider three major changes.

He said he will propose mandating that the state negotiate the same smoking ban into its contract with American Indian casinos and lowering the fines from $100 on smokers and $250 on business owners to something comparable to Madison’s fines on marijuana smoking (about $15, he said).

Pridemore said he expects another legislator to propose the third change he favors, which would allow hotels and motels to reserve 25 percent of their rooms for smokers. He called that proposal good for Wisconsin’s tourism industry.