Restaurateurs statewide say smoking bans didn’t snuff business

HARLINGEN — While many restaurant owners in Harlingen were stomping their feet over a potential ban on smoking in eateries, Las Vegas Restaurant owner Julio Charles stomped out butts in his establishment on his own.

Unlike many other restaurants in the city, Charles decided to go smoke-free without any legal pressure a full year before an ordinance passed and the city prohibited lighting up.

“We had a separate section at that time for smoking, but a year before the ordinance came out we did it on our own,” said Charles, who has run his downtown Harlingen Tex-Mex restaurant for more than 40 years. “We decided that it was the best thing for our employees.”

In late April, the McAllen City Commission passed a restaurant smoking ban that still allowed smoking in bars, similar to the ban passed two years ago in Harlingen. In McAllen, the ban upset many restaurant owners who claimed regular customers would desert their restaurants and flee to neighboring smoker-friendly cities.

Saturday was the first day of that ban and restaurant owners are still assessing exactly what the impact is, crossing their fingers and hoping the city ordinance won’t hurt sales.

McAllen is only the second city in the Rio Grande Valley to ban smoking in restaurants, but across the state more than a third of all municipalities, from Harlingen to Houston, have enacted restaurant smoking bans, some far stricter than McAllen’s, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

And experts say smoking bans have little impact on restaurant financials. Some, like Charles, say the ban on butts boosted business.

“The people responded well. They could smoke outside while they waited for their meal,” he said. “We had no loss. We had an increase of maybe 5 or 10 percent in business.”

In time, restaurant owners across Harlingen adjusted to the ban and now there is little opposition, said Ruthie Ewers, president of the Harlingen Chamber of Commerce.

“Chili’s (Grill and Bar) and some of the chains were very concerned that it was going to hurt their business,” Ewers aid. “But about three months later, everyone said that their business was so much better.”

Ewers said smoke-free restaurants in Harlingen are friendlier to families and draw in more nonsmokers, while most smokers are content to light up outside.

In a way, the border has actually led Texas in the smoking ban movement. El Paso was the first major Texas city to enact a smoking ban in 2002, said Phyllis Gingiss, a professor of health education at the University of Houston.

Four of the six largest cities along the state’s border with Mexico now have moderate to heavy smoking restrictions. Brownsville is now the only large city along the border that allows smoking in restaurants. City leaders there have waffled on whether to push smoking ban legislation.

Laredo passed a bar and restaurant smoking ban last year.

In El Paso, another border city, the restaurant and bar community was skeptical about a smoking ban that passed in 2002, said Leo Duran Sr., owner of the L&J Café in El Paso and president of the area’s restaurant association.

“Initially the restaurant association was opposed to it. I was concerned that it would affect business,” Duran said. “Specifically with our business, it was well received. Customers appreciated the fact that they could come into a smoke-free environment.”

Since the ban took effect and food revenues have continued to grow, he said most restaurateurs have accepted that city’s smoke-free ordinance.

A study by the state health department showed that the El Paso smoking ban in bars and restaurants barely registered as a blip on the revenue radar screen for local establishments.

“A lot of the information that has been perpetuated in the past about businesses losing money has been disproved,” Gingiss said.

In total, about 34 percent of all Texas municipalities have bans on restaurant or bar smoking. Major cities like Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin have bans on restaurant or bar smoking, or both.

“McAllen has made a big move in the right direction, and hopefully soon the whole state will be that way,” Gingiss said.

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Kyle Arnold covers business, the economy and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4410.