Articles of the Month

Youth approve of smoking bans

Smoking has become a social pass time, particularly among Canadian youth. So, as more Canadian cities pass by-laws that ban smoking in public places, such as bars and restaurants, controversy can be expected.

Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, and Burnaby are four of more than four dozen cities across Canada that have passed some form of anti-smoking legislation. Some cities, like Ottawa and Burnaby, ban smoking in all bars and restaurants. Others, like Toronto and Vancouver have decided to take a more gradual approach to the introduction of a ban. In the case of Toronto, smoking is no longer allowed in restaurants, but will be allowed in bars until 2004, at which time they, too, will be required to ban smoking. In Vancouver, restaurants will be permitted to serve smoking patrons, provided that smokers are seated in a room with its own ventilation system.

Many restaurant and bar owners are unhappy with this type of legislation, particularly in cities where smoking is still allowed in certain establishments. . Some restaurant owners in Vancouver cannot afford the tens of thousands of dollars it takes to install new ventilation systems, and have seen dramatic drops in the number of customers they serve, as a result. According to a March 2000 edition of The Gazette, a student newspaper at the University of Western Ontario, "Vancouver bars lost millions of dollars in business as smokers refused to frequent them and many establishments were forced to close".

Despite the complaints of bar and restaurant owners, it appears that the public's positive response to the bans in Toronto, Ottawa and Burnaby may be influencing other municipalities to introduce legislation of their own. Two other Ontario municipalities York and Kitchener have introduced anti-smoking legislation of their own. The city of Calgary is set to introduce a by-law in September that "prohibits children from areas where smoking is allowed, and enforces restaurants and other licensed premises to post warning signs that members of the public entering a smoking area".

The bans have met with tremendous approval from the general public, particularly from young smokers, who say the bans have motivated them to quit. In fact, a poll conducted on the youth.gc.ca website showed that 85% of respondents are in favour of such a ban being enacted in other major cities. Although the number of responses to this poll was admittedly small, the positive response to this idea has been echoed is similar polls in newspapers form across the country. As more and more cities adopt these bans, it is quite possible that a national smoking ban could be introduced. For now though, the tendency to smoke in public is being extinguished one city at a time.