Related topics: •  Clearing the Air: A Smoke-Free Workplace •  Dangers of Smokeless Tobacco

Two strangers' eyes meet over the brief flare of a freshly lit match. A jazz chanteuse croons through a haze of smoke. Around midnight, a bartender clears away the islands of empty cocktail glasses and lipstick-smudged cigarette butts left in the revelers' wake. For generations, immortalized in Edward Hopper paintings and Humphrey Bogart movies, inseparable from the sounds of Miles Davis and Sarah Vaughn, smoking was synonymous with nightlife glamour and romance.

But for musicians like Bill Arnold and tavern owners like Carol Brookman, smoking is also synonymous with red eyes, scratchy throats, and racing hearts. When the last phase of the California law banning smoke in workplaces went into effect on January 1, 1998, Arnold and Brookman were finally free of the smoking culture that threatened to smother them in secondhand smoke.

For the past 17 years, Brookman has run Heinold's First and Last Chance, an Oakland, California bar once favored by Jack London. Until the workplace smoking ban, working in a smoky haze was a way of life. "I've never had a job where people didn't smoke, even when I worked in an office," Brookman said. "But the bar was the worst. I'd stand outside and look in and sometimes I couldn't see the back of the room for the smoke."

Brookman, who has never smoked, said she often wished she'd had the courage to ban smoking in her bar before the law passed. Besides worrying over the effect those eight-hour shifts behind a smoky bar were having on her health, she feared another consequence of allowing smoking: fire.

"This is a wooden building, almost 120 years old. I used to go home at night and lie awake thinking about the garbage. That's where bar fires start -- in the garbage. I started sleeping so much better when the (smoking) ban started. I wasn't inhaling all that smoke, and I didn't have to worry about cigarette fires anymore."

Arnold, the drummer and lead vocalist in a band based in Chico, quit smoking more than nine years ago. Like many former smokers, he has realized over time how sensitive his re-pinked lungs are to secondhand smoke.

"I was literally sick and tired of playing in smoke-filled rooms," Arnold said. "I was becoming super sensitive to secondhand smoke and would have heart palpitations whenever exposed. My voice was always sore and raspy."

Since 1989, California has led an aggressive antismoking campaign, one that includes numerous media ads like the one pictured above. In 1995, the first phase of California's antismoking law banned smoking in restaurants and most workplaces. The tobacco lobby's opposition led to postponement of the ban in bars and nightclubs from 1997 until 1998. The law does allow smoking in parts of hotel and motel lobbies, hotel meeting rooms, warehouses, and properly ventilated workplace break rooms. Before the phase covering nightclubs and bars took effect, Arnold was afraid to complain to club bookers. "It was a very touchy situation with the band because getting gigs is very competitive. For a band to make a complaint or ask the owner to not allow smoking would be economic suicide. Without the law on our side, we were out of luck."

According to the California Department of Health Services, inhaling secondhand smoke ranks behind smoking and alcohol abuse as the third most preventable cause of death. The agency also reports that for every eight smokers who die of tobacco-related causes, one person dies of illness from exposure to someone else's smoke.

Since the ban, Brookman and Arnold have seen dramatic improvements in their health. Brookman no longer suffers from chronic flu-like symptoms. And in the first year after her bar went smoke free, none of her staff called in sick. Arnold had considered giving up music rather than continue trying to sing in smoky venues, but after the ban his voice improved and his heart stopped racing.

"My lung capacity feels much better, and I don't have any phlegm to deal with," Arnold said. "Overall, I don't feel like I've been dragged through a rat hole after every gig."

Arnold and Brookman's experiences echo the findings of a 1998 study by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco. A team led by Dr. Mark Eisner, an assistant professor of pulmonary medicine, looked at the lung health of 53 bartenders before and after the smoking ban. The study was designed to measure the effect the law might have on workplace health. Researchers surveyed the bartenders about incidences of respiratory irritations; they also measured their lung function and capacity.

"About eight weeks after the workplaces became smoke free, we saw a small but significant improvement in lung health," said Eisner. "There was a reduction in respiratory symptoms, coughing, wheezing, irritation to eyes, nose and throat."

After two smoke-free months, 59 percent of those who'd complained of respiratory problems no longer had any symptoms. Lung function also improved after just two months.

Interestingly, about half the bartenders in the study smoked. But even the smokers saw an improvement in their health when they were no longer subjected to inhaling secondhand smoke during long shifts.

Although most studies have looked at the effect of secondhand smoke in the home, Eisner said that a handful of other researchers around the country are studying the influence of smoking bans on workplace health. For instance, in a 1995 study of 25 Massachusetts work sites, Dr. Katherine Hammond found much greater concentrations of nicotine in the air in workplaces that allowed smoking on the job than in those that banned it.

California's is probably the most wide-ranging state law, according to Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine and a member of the Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California at San Francisco. "It has, to some extent, been a model for laws in other states," said Glantz, one of the most outspoken anti-smoking crusaders in America.

In fact, Californians have passed hundreds of local ordinances in the past 15 years banning smoking in public places such as workplaces and restaurants. Now California is leading the way in passing laws that prohibit smoking in areas such as entryways, playgrounds, multi-unit housing facilities, and college campuses. As of June 2006, there were 25 California beaches banning cigarettes.

Initially, Glantz had opposed the law, fearing there would be problems with compliance. In fact, cooperation can be spotty. Although the workplace smoking limits cover the entire state, local health departments are responsible for enforcement. How vigilant those departments are depends on the local administration.

"I have had some bad experiences with a few non-compliant bars, and there are still some out there," Arnold said. "Some bars slip in and out. It is very annoying when I show up for a gig and people are smoking. I want to turn around and leave, but I am outvoted by the band. It is still awkward to complain to the management, but I always file a complaint with the local authorities. Those wheels grind very slowly. But overall, within the two-and-a-half years, I've seen a steady improvement."

Bar owner Brookman said despite dire predictions by smoking ban opponents, she hasn't seen any drop in business. "My old customers didn't leave and I actually got some new customers. "Smoking in a bar is not a right," Brookman continued. "As far as I'm concerned, the smoking section is outdoors."

-- Teresa Moore is a media studies instructor at the University of San Francisco. A former reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Moore has also written for the Family Therapy Networker, the Washington Post, New York Newsday, and Parenting.

Further Resources

Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights

http://www.no-smoke.org

BREATH (not an acronym, just the way they write it)

http://www.breath-ala.org

American Heart Association

http://www.americanheart.org

American Lung Association of California

http://www.californialung.org/support/tobaccocontrol.shtml

References

First published September 28, 2000
Last updated January 30, 2007
Copyright © 2000 Consumer Health Interactive

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