Once the smoke cleared

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(NATI HARNIK / ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES)

OVER the past five years, there’s been good news and bad news for Robert Jenkinson.

The good news is, the owner of the Creekside Hideaway Hotel in Treherne has seen a steady increase in off-sales through the beer vendor.

The bad news is, those sales are proof fewer and fewer people are coming into his beverage room -- where the hotel makes a much larger profit. That means fewer employees and a less profitable business. How and why this happened is no mystery. "The smoking ban just killed us," he said.

Jenkinson tried to challenge the constitutionality of Manitoba's provincewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. The Manitoba Court of Appeal dismissed his complaint in 2008.

The sting from that defeat, and what he believes has been irreparable damage to his business, still remains.

"We just haven't bounced back from this. I don't think we ever will."

In October 2004, Manitoba became the first province to ban smoking in all indoor public spaces. (The Northwest Territories and Nunavut preceded Manitoba and New Brunswick introduced a ban the same month as Manitoba.) This was followed in January 2008 with a ban on smoking in any indoor workspace.

Initially, the hotel, restaurant and bar industries and Manitoba Lotteries Corp. said the ban would trigger economic apocalypse. MLC suggested there would be tens of millions of dollars less flowing into provincial coffers. Hotels, restaurants and bars foresaw mass layoffs and closures.

However, five years after the ban was enacted, much of the predicted doom and gloom did not come to pass. There were winners and losers, but the hospitality and gambling industries have, on the whole, fared much better than expected.

The hardest hit by far were bar and lounge owners. In 2005 and 2006, the first two years after the provincewide ban was enacted, receipts in these establishments dropped by half.

Jim Baker, president of the Manitoba Hotel Association, said rural hotels in particularly were fatally wounded by the smoking ban. Some have gone under, many have been sold at values much less than were paid for them.

Although the impact of the smoking ban was not as profound as many predicted, Baker said the alarmist rhetoric was justified for this sector of the hospitality industry. "When you are an operator and you see who your customers are, it's a frightening proposition when you realize that half of them are going to disappear," Baker said.

However, drinking places make up a very small part of Manitoba's hospitality industry. Receipts for restaurants have risen significantly since the ban was introduced. Scott Jocelyn, head of the Manitoba Restaurant and Foodservices Association, said most restaurants believe the ban was the right way to go. "I think most establishments realize this was inevitable and that it was really for the best," he said.

And then there was gambling. MLC predicted precipitous drops in revenue. And, as predicted, casinos in particular were hard hit. However, casino profits dropped about $27.5 million, not the $50 million predicted. And lottery and video lottery terminal revenues more than made up for the casino losses.

In 2003-2004, the first year of a partial Winnipeg smoking ban, MLC lost $30 million in revenues from the previous year. But when MLC updated its fleet of VLTs in 2006, it immediately sparked a huge rise in revenues.

MLC profits rose in each of the past five years. From 2004 to 2009, profits rose by more than 30 per cent.

Of course, to understand the real winner in the smoking-ban debate, you have to look beyond the casinos and beverage rooms. Dr. Dhali Dhaliwal, president of CancerCare Manitoba, said empirical evidence being gathered all over the world where smoking bans have been enacted shows significant short-term benefits for the health-care system.

One of the primary lead indicators of the impact of smoking bans is total admissions to hospital for heart attacks, Dhaliwal said. Although Manitoba has not specifically tracked this statistic, jurisdictions such as California (location of the first comprehensive smoking ban in North America) and Great Britain (which introduced a total ban in 2007) show double-digit decreases in heart attack admissions, he noted.

As for smoking-related cancer cases, more time will be needed before any clear evidence comes forward. Oncologists believe it takes 15 to 20 years after significant exposure to tobacco smoke before cancer manifests.

However, it is known the number of people smoking has decreased significantly, he said. Three decades ago, two-thirds of adults smoked. Today, just over 20 per cent of adults still smoke and the majority of those want to quit. And the most recent federal community health survey data shows the number of Canadians exposed to second-hand smoke has dropped by half.

However, Dhaliwal said the success of the smoking ban does not mean the fight against tobacco is over. Many jurisdictions around the world are pursuing "tobacco-free" policies. This is the goal of a recently enacted law in Finland, which banned smoking in public spaces in 2007 but is hoping to eliminate smoking altogether by 2020.

However, it will take a concerted effort on the part of governments to eliminate tobacco use once and for all, Dhaliwal said.

Tobacco companies will not go easily, he noted. The introduction of smaller packages of cigarettes, flavoured tobacco products and intensive product placement in movies and other mass media continue to market tobacco as an acceptable consumer product.

"It's really a matter of continuing to work on all fronts," said Dhaliwal. "There isn't one single policy that will conquer or eliminate the dreadful problem of exposure to smoking."

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca

2001 Winnipeg city council began to look at going smoke-free in restaurants and bars. This prompted the principal opponents of smoking bans -- the hotel, restaurant and bar industries, and Manitoba Lotteries Corporation -- to predict economic apocalypse.

Manitoba Lotteries predicted a 50 per cent drop in gaming tourism visits and a $14-million drop in overall revenues that flow to provincial coffers. Hotels, restaurants and bars foresaw mass layoffs and closures, and vowed to do whatever they could to stop the ban. "I don't see anyone who wants this," said Bob Stevens, then president of the Manitoba Restaurant and Foodservices Association. "Where's it coming from? It doesn't make any sense. I'm going to fight this any way I have to."

Despite this opposition, forces on city council persisted and, in July 2001, council approved a ban on smoking in any enclosed hospitality business that allowed children. Angry restaurant and bar owners immediately found loopholes and some began to restrict children and lay off workers under 18.

The city's major shopping malls, meanwhile, saw the writing on the wall and voluntarily banned smoking on their premises.

2002 Responding to loopholes, city council committed to a total ban at all indoor public places. The city also increased pressure on the province to consider a provincewide ban.

Brandon inadvertently helped expose Winnipeg's folly when it took only 10 months to pass a comprehensive smoking ban in July 2002.

After remaining mostly on the sidelines of the debate, the province ultimately did respond, putting its support behind a private member's bill from Tory backbencher Denis Rocan. In December 2002, then-health minister Dave Chomiak created an all-party task force to forge a smoking-ban law.

Lobbying from rural hotels, restaurants and bars increased. In Roblin, nine hospitality businesses closed for two days to protest the provincewide ban and to show locals what would happen if the ban were implemented.

2003 After much deliberation and polling showing a significant majority of Winnipeggers now favoured a ban, city council voted to prohibit smoking in all indoor public places. The bylaw came into effect July 1, but enforcement was delayed until September because the province, which continued to have responsibility for enforcing public health in suburbs, did not hire enough inspectors.

2004 The province introduced Canada's first comprehensive, provincewide smoking ban in March. The law was enacted in October.

Rural hotel and restaurant owners did not yield on their battle to have the law overturned. They complained a loophole in the law excluded bars and restaurants on First Nation land from the ban.

The rural hospitality industry raised money to help a bar owner in Treherne, Robert Jenkinson, file a constitutional challenge. Jenkinson fought the law all the way to the Manitoba Court of Appeal, which in 2008 dismissed his complaint.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 23, 2010 A6