Gallup businesses support state smoking ban

Don Good, Manager of Goodfellas Sports Lounge, smokes a menthol cigarette on Friday evening at Goodfellas. The state recently passed a law making it unlawful to smoke in public places. [Photo by Matt Hinshaw/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Former City Councilwoman Mary Ann Armijo could be forgiven for feeling a little vindicated lately.

Two years after Armijo's fellow councilors rejected her proposal to ban most public smoking within city limits, the state stepped in and made it a reality.

The New Mexico Legislature approved the Clean Indoor Air Act banning smoking from most indoor work places, including bars and restaurants, across the state early last month. Gov. Bill Richardson signed it into law on the 13th.

"Can I just go, 'Yeah!'"Armijo asked when queried about her reaction to the act's passage.

"I'm so glad it passed," she said. "It would have been nice if the City Council had passed it when it came up two years ago."

The statewide ban that takes effect June 15 is actually stricter than what Armijo was proposing. In hopes of quieting the loudest opponents, her plan would have exempted bars with their own ventilation systems. Also unlike Armijo's plan, the act bans smoking outside near workplace doorways, windows and ventilation systems.

Don Good, owner of Gallup's Goodfella's Sports Lounge, isn't too worried about the ban hurting business.

Good figures that at least half his customers smoke, maybe only 10 percent heavily. Some have said they won't be back when the act takes effect. But unless they want to do all their drinking and socializing at home, he figures they won't have a choice since the ban will be statewide.

"So financially it's not going to be a big burden," he said.

But that's not to say that Good likes what's coming.

"This town already voted that it doesn't want a ban, and what really bothers me is that the state comes along and overrides us," he said.

It's true that the council rejected the idea of a local ban in June of 2005. Touting the health benefits, Armijo and former Mayor Bob Rosebrough voted for a ban. More interested in letting retail establishments have a say in the running of their businesses, Councilors Pat Butler, Frank Gonzales and Bill Nechero voted against.

But the question never faced the voters. Although Armijo vowed to turn the ban into a referendum, and was close to collecting requisite number of signatures, she backed off when she heard the Legislature might do the job for her.

The act is designed to limit the public's contact with second-hand smoke.

Though not as deadly as smoking, it's known to cause cancer in humans.

According to the U.S. Department of Health, second-hand smoke kills 53,000 Americans a year, making it the third leading cause of preventable deaths. In 2006, the U.S. Surgeon General concluded that there was no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke.

Good doesn't buy all the statistics. He doesn't believe second-hand smoke is really as dangerous as they say. In any case, he believes people should have the chance to make up their own minds.

"Anyone who doesn't want second-hand smoke," he said, "they don't have to go to a place that allows smoking."

But attitudes like that, proponents of the ban say, limit the choice of others. Armijo said she was spurred on to propose a local plan by parents who complained about not being able to take their asthma afflicted children to certain restaurants because they allowed smoking.

Of the 130 seats inside Don Diego's Restaurant, Sandra Chavez now sets aside about 30 for smokers. Despite the allowance, she welcomes the day she won't be allowed to.

"We love it," she said.

The restaurant probably would have gone smoke-free when it partitioned the smoking area three or four years ago, she said, if it weren't for fear of driving too many customers away. But with everyone playing by the same rules, that's no longer a problem.

"It puts us on an even playing field," said Chavez.

Not to leave smokers completely out in the cold, or confined to their homes, even the state act makes some exceptions, including retail tobacco stores, cigar bars, casinos and private clubs.