Oklahoma Smokers

A ’smoking police’ double-cross is taking place primarily in Tulsa but it may extend statewide before long. It is a double-cross intended to force those restaurants that opted to spend the money to provide ’smoking rooms’ for their tobacco using customers to eliminate smoking completely.

The ’smoking police’ at the Oklahoma State Department of Health, arguably the most scandal prone agency of state government, have decided a new interpretation of the statewide smoking ban is in order.

This ‘new interpretation’ of the smoking ban, evidently one snatched from thin air, holds that the smoking ban prohibits any form of entertainment in ’smoking rooms’ of restaurants in Oklahoma. Nowhere in the law authorizing the smoking ban or in the Oklahoma State Department of Health regulations implementing the ban does the word ‘entertainment’ appear. But that has not stopped the ’smoking police’ for acting as if such a prohibition does exist.

A Tulsa World report titled, “Smoking Ban: New Interpretation: Stubbing out fun”, dated 6/18/06 reveals a lot about the health department’s ‘tinkering’ with the rules. That report revealed that as soon as the restaurant smoking ban went into effect on March 1st some at the health department began discussions about whether entertainment, including pool tables, karaoke and live music should be allowed in restaurants’ smoking rooms.

The referenced report quotes Nick Slaymaker, deputy general counsel for the Oklahoma State Department of Health as stating:

“Although the law does not specifically mention entertainment, it was enacted to protect the rights of employees to work in a smoke-free environment. The law only allows for workers who serve food and drinks; other employees such as entertainers cannot work in a smoking dining room.”

The report further quotes Slaymaker as stating:

“It is the state health department’s opinion that the law limits what goes on in a smoking dining room. If the entertainment, such as live music or karaoke, is a substantial part of the operation, that is contrary to the purpose of a smoking dining room, and it would not be legal. Other types of entertainment such as video games would be considered on a case-by-case basis.”

Several Tulsa restaurants with ’smoking rooms’ although approved by the health department now find themselves under fire from the ’smoking police’.

Cowboy Sharkies, a family owned restaurant in Tulsa, spent $20,000 to construct a ’smoking room’ which was certified as meeting all the requirements of the smoking ban by the Tulsa City-County Health Department, which contracts with the State Health Department for restaurant inspections. The restaurant attributes much of its business to live musicians and karaoke in its ’smoking room’ and owner Chris Caughron says if he is forced to eliminate the entertainment or go totally non-smoking his business will suffer greatly.

Elizabeth Nutt, division director for consumer protection for the Tulsa City-County Health Department was quoted in the Tulsa World report as stating:

For the several weeks after the ban went into effect, restaurant inspectors were not told to look for evidence of entertainment when they checked out smoking rooms in local restaurants. Therefore, restaurants that have entertainment in smoking rooms passed the inspection. In hindsight, it would have been nice if we had had that information when we began inspections”

Nutt did not indicate whether she thought ‘it would have been nice’ had the restaurant owners who were considering spending thousands of dollars to construct ’smoking rooms’ also had that information. Of course sympathy for restaurant owners is the last thing demonstrated by the ’smoking police’ intent on intimidating those few restaurant owners with the courage to provide for their smoking customers.

Abdul Alhlou, owner of the Silver Flame Steakhouse says he spent more than $35,000 to build a smoking room in his restaurant. The smoking room, which was inspected and found to comply with the smoking room requirements, includes a piano bar. Alhlou indicates he was never told he could not have entertainment in his ’smoking room’.

Gary Mitchell, the owner of the Elephant Run Restaurant and Club in Tulsa is yet another victim of the ’smoking police’. Mitchell who says he spent more than $25,000 to build a smoking room in his establishment and was then told that he could not have entertainment in a restaurant smoking room. As a result the business went smoke-free on April 6th. The restaurant saw its business decline 33 percent in May compared with the same time last year. Further costly renovations are planned for the business, renovations which will permit it to be classified as a stand-alone bar and therefore able to have smoking and entertainment. That is of course unless the ’smoking police’ decide a new interpretation of the rules are in order again.

Owing to this blatant double-cross of Oklahoma restaurant owners by the ’smoking police, it is obvious that there is no limit to the number of ‘new interpretations’ of the smoking ban that will be thrown in the way of those wishing to provide for their smoking customers. Equally obvious is the fact that restaurant owners and their customers simply can not trust anything coming out of either the Oklahoma State Health Department or the Tulsa-City County Health Department, as they have a demonstrated track record of changing the rules to fit their fancy and whenever they desire.

It is truly unfortunate that those make the decisions and who are creating ‘new interpretations’ from thin air at both the state and local health department levels are appointed as opposed to elected officials. Were they elected official, the voters could hand them a ‘new interpretation’ on election day.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 19th, 2006 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Smokers Info. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.