Atlanta OKs ban on smoking inside bars, restaurant, airport

[El Presidente]

https://www.apnews.com/79500b888951443daf792921014c7984ealth

Atlanta OKs ban on smoking inside bars, restaurant, airport

July 3, 2019

 

 

 

FILE - In this Oct. 13, 2016, file photo, a Delta Air Lines jet sits at a gate at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta. Atlanta's city council on Monday, July 1, 2019, has approved a far-reaching ban on smoking and vaping in restaurants, bars and potentially inside one of the world's busiest airports. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport has been one of the few major U.S. hubs where people can still smoke inside designated rooms. The ban, if signed by the mayor, it will take effect in January. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta’s city council has approved a far-reaching ban on smoking and vaping in restaurants and bars — and potentially one of the world’s busiest airports.

City council members approved the ban Monday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported . It covers cigarettes, cigars and electronic cigarettes. If signed by the mayor, it would take effect on Jan. 2, 2020.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is one of the few major U.S. hubs where people can still smoke inside designated rooms.

Most of the busiest airports in the U.S. ban smoking in all indoor areas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a 2017 report .

Denver International Airport last year closed the last of its indoor smoking lounges and is now smoke-free indoors. Others with total bans on smoking indoors include O’Hare International Airport in Chicago; Los Angeles International Airport; Dallas Fort Worth International Airport; and Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina.

As of Jan. 2, 2019, all but five of the 35 busiest U.S. airports were completely smoke-free indoors, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation . Those still allowing smoking in designated places inside included Dulles International Airport near Washington D.C., along with airports in Atlanta; Las Vegas; and Nashville, Tennessee.

In Atlanta, some tobacco and vape stores, private clubs and cigar bars would be exempt from the ban, the Journal-Constitution reported. So it wasn’t immediately clear whether the ban would apply to all of the businesses inside Atlanta’s airport.

Atlanta’s airport will fully comply with the ordinance, and the current smoking rooms inside Atlanta’s airport “will be converted to other spaces,” airport spokesman Andrew Gobeil said in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

In 2016, Atlanta city officials solicited bids for a project to convert nine of the airport smoking rooms into cigar shops. The shops would be designed so that people could smoke cigars and cigarettes inside the shops for an entry fee or minimum purchase price, according to city documents. However, that bidding process was later canceled, the city’s website shows.

[MD Puffer]

I have avoided ATL Hartsfield like the plague long before this...

[bmf30180]

It may surprise some to know that Atlanta is a very, very liberal city, especially inside the perimeter (I-285).   It's only when you're outside the perimeter (OTP) that you'll find the conservative, stereotypical South. 

[Habana Mike]

As an ATLien this makes me sad, very sad...

[SCgarman]

The real problem is this whole damn VAPING epidemic. I see people young (teens) and old carrying around those big hand held vaping devices. Most establishments and the like are having knee-jerk reactions to all smoking materials primarily due to the popularity of vapes. 

[Connoisseur Kim]

This is the reason why I prefer puffing cigars and pipes in my house over bars, etc... Sad to see these kind of news.

[Rupe]

I connect through this airport fairly often and I have noticed the smoking lounges in the ATL airport have slowly started to disappear over the past couple of years. There used to be one on every concourse but now it’s just down to 2 or 3. Unfortunately it’s just another (sad) sign of the times. 

[Habana Mike]

The Terrapin Taphouse, Local microbrewery, opened a cigar bar on Terminal D couple of years back. Has a humidor!

Entire spot was smoker friendly. Last year they glassed in the back third and lately you choke on the cigarettes.

Seems it’s all going away now. Damned nannys!

 

[MountainMilG]

Nooooooo, time to move from ATL I suppose.  Not just this reason, but there's nothing like going in one of those little smoking lounges, no ceiling tiles, janky seats, filthy walls, the rush of the air cleaners trying to keep up and failing miserably.

Always surprised me the biggest airport still allowed it.  Figured it would end sooner or later, but I'm sort of unclear why.  Keeps it all contained, doesn't it?  People can't stand walking by and seeing smokers?

[CaptainQuintero]

12 hours ago, NYgarman said:

The real problem is this whole damn VAPING epidemic. I see people young (teens) and old carrying around those big hand held vaping devices. Most establishments and the like are having knee-jerk reactions to all smoking materials primarily due to the popularity of vapes. 

 They'll be some real problems coming along. My friend spilled his liquid onto a worktop when we were chatting and the stuff stripped the tabletop down to the chipboard..

[Cigar Surgeon]

That's really sad news and unfortunately I'm reading multiple daily reports during the week of municipal and county smoking bans all across the United States.

Once California enacts a flavored tobacco band I fear it's going to be 'Canadian-rules' for the US in only a few short years.

[SCgarman]

4 hours ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

That's really sad news and unfortunately I'm reading multiple daily reports during the week of municipal and county smoking bans all across the United States.

Once California enacts a flavored tobacco band I fear it's going to be 'Canadian-rules' for the US in only a few short years.

Compared to Canada there are surely thousands of cigar retailers/smoking lounges across the US that businessmen have millions of dollars invested in. Going to be very hard to shut down all these cigar lounges as it would look like the nanny state eliminating thousands of jobs. Not good optics by any means. Sure the liberal areas like Beverly Hills have banned tobacco sales, but places like this are the exception rather than the norm. 

[Cigar Surgeon]

16 hours ago, NYgarman said:

Compared to Canada there are surely thousands of cigar retailers/smoking lounges across the US that businessmen have millions of dollars invested in. Going to be very hard to shut down all these cigar lounges as it would look like the nanny state eliminating thousands of jobs. Not good optics by any means. Sure the liberal areas like Beverly Hills have banned tobacco sales, but places like this are the exception rather than the norm. 

It absolutely isn't going to happen overnight, it happens incrementally until you wake up one day and there's a complete ban in place. If you follow halfwheel's posts, you'll see weekly posts about new or expanded smoking bans. Look at the state of Texas:

https://halfwheel.com/?s=texas+ban

Once you've banned smoking in public, restaurants, bars, patios, and just provided an exemption for cigar retailers, it isn't hard to eliminate that exemption.

6 years ago people would have said you were insane if you thought New Orleans would enact a smoking ban.

[SCgarman]

6 hours ago, Cigar Surgeon said:

It absolutely isn't going to happen overnight, it happens incrementally until you wake up one day and there's a complete ban in place. If you follow halfwheel's posts, you'll see weekly posts about new or expanded smoking bans. Look at the state of Texas:

https://halfwheel.com/?s=texas+ban

Once you've banned smoking in public, restaurants, bars, patios, and just provided an exemption for cigar retailers, it isn't hard to eliminate that exemption.

6 years ago people would have said you were insane if you thought New Orleans would enact a smoking ban.

I can confidently give you 3 places there will NEVER be a ban on cigars. 

1. My front porch. 2. My back porch 3. My garage    The inside of my house is non smoking out of respect and health to my family. 

[dowjr1]

Lefties are trying to take over everything.

 

[SigmundChurchill]

Honestly, I am more surprised that it was not already banned.  It has been banned in every major city up here in the Northeast for years.

At least they have the cigar bar exemption.

[crasmith]

12 hours ago, NYgarman said:

I can confidently give you 3 places there will NEVER be a ban on cigars. 

1. My front porch. 2. My back porch 3. My garage    The inside of my house is non smoking out of respect and health to my family. 

Exactly!  Me and my cigars are ALWAYS welcome in these same places. ?

[Edward7]

On ‎7‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 7:33 PM, Habana Mike said:

The Terrapin Taphouse, Local microbrewery, opened a cigar bar on Terminal D couple of years back. Has a humidor!

Entire spot was smoker friendly. Last year they glassed in the back third and lately you choke on the cigarettes.

Seems it’s all going away now. Damned nannys!

 

I didn't know Terrapin used to allow it in the whole bar. I go to ATL quarterly for work and once I did smoke a D4 I had brought along. You're right. Probably 12 people cycled in and out or just stayed and I was literally the only one who had a cigar, and not cigarettes in the whole place.

Oh well about the cigarette thing. Cigarette smoking is not a medical necessity and it really doesn't have much of a place in a municipal development to be accommodated with sq footage that could be used for other purposes that serve everyone. I just have a problem when private establishments operating specifically with the purpose of serving this product, are threatened with closure due to the govt. trying to enforce a ban on a legal product.