New Legislation Could Limit Smoking Habit in Oklahoma City Restaurants

It seemed most ranchers, oil barons and other folks smoked when some of Oklahoma City’s historic restaurants opened decades ago.

But now, a new law could snuff out smokes in more eating establishments. And the whole idea is lighting up some restaurant owners even though they don’t happen to smoke Virginia cigarettes.


"We’ve probably had one or two legislators who came in, smoked a cigar and probably went down and voted against me,” Jim Shumsky, owner of the ritzy Junior’s, said with a big laugh. "I guess I’ll never know. Maybe I don’t want to know.”

Restaurants with smoking rooms will get a rebate if they close the rooms and go smoke-free, under a bill recently signed into law by Gov. Brad Henry. About 120 Oklahoma restaurants have smoking rooms with separate ventilation systems and would qualify for a rebate of up to 50 percent of the cost of a smoking room, minus depreciation.

It’s unlikely Junior’s or Cattlemen’s Steakhouse will shut down their smoking rooms, said Shumsky and Cattlemen’s owner Dick Stubbs.

"We get a lot of comments from smokers saying thank you for having a place for them,” Stubbs said. "The motivation remains the same. We want to take care of all our customers.”

He said probably fewer than 10 patrons have objected to the smoking room. Both restaurateurs said patron satisfaction is key and the rebate is small compared to the smoking room investment of about $40,000 for the 100-year-old Cattlemen’s and nearly $200,000 for Junior’s.
Restaurant rebates will come from the tobacco settlement fund, which totals about $1.3 million yearly. That should more than cover one-time reimbursement costs for restaurants to go smokeless by 2013, said Mark Newman, Office of State and Federal Policy director. He said there is no cap but restaurants will have to document costs of ventilation and closing off smoking rooms.

"We think this is an important thing to do to get to smoke-free restaurants across the state,” he said.

How many restaurants will close their smoking rooms is hazy but some probably will, declared Jim Hopper, Oklahoma Restaurant Association president.

Concerns about second-hand smoke and heart disease, cancer, strokes, high blood pressure and other health factors prompted the latest smoke-free measure, said Rep. Kris Steele, author of the new rebate law.

Second-hand smoke is estimated to cause 700 non-smokers’ deaths yearly in Oklahoma, said Breathe Easy OK.

A study revealed unhealthy to hazardous environments because of smoke particulates present in state restaurants and bars. The Oklahoma Tobacco Research Center, OU Cancer Institute study found:

- Non-smoking restaurants in the state had moderate levels of the dangerous substances in the air.
- Non-smoking dining areas of restaurants with smoking rooms had three times more particulates, or levels termed unhealthy by Environmental Protection Agency standards.
- Smoking rooms in restaurants averaged 1.5 times the EPA hazardous level.
- Bars averaged 2.6 times the EPA hazardous level.

Second-hand smoke claims an estimated 50,000 Americans yearly from heart disease-related illnesses, cancer and sudden infant death syndrome, according to the U.S. Surgeon General’s report.