Finance sophomore Aiden Harris worked at Mike’s in Tigerland for nine months as a bouncer, barback and bartender. Part of his incentive to quit the job, he said, was its environment. There was too much smoke in the bar.
“You could taste it on your tongue,” Harris said.
The smell would stick to his clothes and body, and it was difficult to wash off.
He said F&M’s Patio Bar in New Orleans became a more pleasant place to frequent since the city’s smoking ban.
Harris considers himself a healthy person, but when he is around cigarettes for too long, he gets “stuffy.” During his employment at Mike’s in Tigerland, he was asthmatic. After he quit, he said his symptoms went away.
Smoke-Free East Baton Rouge, a campaign group, announced efforts in late January to ban smoking in bars and gaming facilities like casinos. This law would extend the current smoking ban in restaurants and mirror the existing ban in New Orleans bars and casinos.
According to a campaign press release from Jan. 26, 70 percent of East Baton Rouge voters are in favor of the ban.
“If they ban it, that’d be awesome,” Harris said. “I could live with cigarettes never being smoked in a bar ever again.”
Jason Nay, manager of Fred’s Bar & Grill in Tigerland, said the ban will not be a problem for his bar because it has a patio. If Fred’s did not have an outside area, he said he would be more anxious.
But it could affect business elsewhere, Nay said, since most bars do not have outside seating.
Mass communication professor Judith Sylvester has managed the University education program SmokingWords for 15 years and is involved in the Smoke-Free East Baton Rouge campaign.
She stays involved in the campaign because several of her students work in bars and casinos. Whether they smoke or not, she said they are being exposed to carcinogens.
Sylvester hopes the extended, city-wide smoking ban will strengthen the University’s tobacco-free campus policy.
Sylvester said 99 percent of people who stay away from smoking up to age 26 never smoke.
She said the ban made New Orleans more attractive to tourists, and she sees the same thing happening in Baton Rouge.
Sylvester said businesses such as The Spanish Moon and several downtown bars have already banned smoking.
The Greater Baton Rouge Area includes 45 smoke-free venues. New Orleans has 118, according to HealthierAirForAll.org, Sylvester said a University survey on tobacco use showed a strong correlation between students’ smoking and drinking habits because smoking is an icebreaker and drinking lowers inhibitions and the likelihood to say no to tobacco.
The students who are seriously affected and who do not like the smoke, she said, will stay away from bars. But some students are forced to be exposed because of their jobs.
The policy’s implementation will be a battle, she said, but will be similar to the restaurant transition, which she said ended up being good for businesses in the long run.
LSU Health Promotion Coordinator Susan Bareis helps students trying to quit smoking through the Student Health Center. She said she has seen a significant increase in students trying to quit after the tobacco ban’s implementation on campus and expects another slight increase if the smoking ban is successful.
Bareis sees resistance from some students, but said there will be just as many people in support.
She said the tobacco-free trend in bars is nationwide, and Baton Rouge is behind on regulations for venues and establishments. Significant research shows a lack of economic impact on banning smoking in bars, she said.