The Baton Rouge Metropolitan Council’s final vote denying the Caterie owners’ request to rezone the business caused business owners and two councilmen to storm from the room in disgust at Wednesday’s meeting.  The Planning and Zoning Commission approved changing the Caterie’s status from a restaurant to a bar Feb. 16, but the Metro Council as a whole rejected the rezoning Wednesday. The vote failed after six councilmen voted yes, three no, two abstained and one member was absent.
The council’s split vote means the 1973 establishment located on Perkins Road still cannot allow customers to smoke inside their building. John Hill, co-owner of the Caterie, said when the state changed the smoking laws, it destroyed the restaurant’s night business.One of the main reasons the owners asked for the council to change the status was to keep up with the competition from other bars that can allow smoking within the business. The American Heart and American Stroke Associations and the Cancer Society Association opposed the zoning change and advocated the council should protect the public from second-hand smoke. “No one should have to risk their health for cigarettes,” said Berry                                   
Trascher, Louisiana advocacy director for American Heart Association. Allowing the customers to smoke inside the business would not be in the best interest of the public, Trascher said. “The Caterie got caught in a trap,” said Rodney Bourgeois, District 12 Councilman.  “The Caterie was doing fine until the state … decided to reinterpret the law.” Bourgeois said the restaurant received its license before the other bars in the area were in existence, and zoning requirements were different.  The issue isn’t about second-hand smoke because the law allows other bars to have smoking inside their buildings, Bourgeois said. Ritnuy Castine, who attended the meeting and opposed the rezoning, said he enjoys visiting the Caterie without worrying about smoke. “Supporting the measure would endanger the life of all that go there,” Castine said.Chandler Loupe, District 3 Councilman, said it is unfair to turn the issue into a public health cry for smoking. “I don’t see this as a public issue,” Loupe said. “[I] see it as a business that is trying to survive.”
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Contact Joy Lukachick at [email protected]