Backers Aim to Keep Smoking Ban Airtight

The District's smoke-free proposal is similar to New York's ban. It would include exemptions for outdoor areas, cigar bars, hotel rooms, retail tobacco outlets and facilities that research the effects of smoking. The measure would affect all restaurant eating areas immediately but would give bars, clubs, taverns and the bar areas of restaurants until January 2007 to go smoke-free.

Both sides are looking to New York's experience. Among the exemptions approved there include 13 for veterans halls and organizations such as the Loyal Order of Moose #1048 in Canandaigua. No exemptions have been approved for New York City venues, according to Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Health.

Council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large), the fiercest opponent of a smoking ban on the council and the only member to vote against the measure, said a waiver would probably not save too many businesses.

"Most restaurants don't have that much of a profit margin anyway," she said. "By the time you recognize any economic hardship, you'll be out of business."

And she described the prospect of a business's successfully applying to the District government for relief as almost laughable.

"How many years will that take?" she said. "Please."

Trista Hargrove, a spokeswoman for the Cancer Action Network, part of the American Cancer Society, said her organization believes a waiver process is unnecessary.

"The waiver is based on the assumption that smoke-free laws hurt, when in fact the opposite is true, and we have dozens of scientific studies that show smoke free laws do not hurt or harm," she said.