No Smoking Restrictions for Private Clubs, Misunderstanding

Published on November 19, 2009 5:00 AM

The new legislation, smoking ban in public places especially bars, makes an exception, but only for country clubs or nonprofit organizations. Thank to this exception some bar owners and managers across North Carolina think they have found an escape clause in the state's new smoking ban. In North Carolina, bars that do not serve food practically have to be named as a private.

But state officials are about to extinguish their plans. For example, Ann Houston Staples, the Charlotte-based communications director for the state's anti-smoking efforts, said health officials are combating bar directors who think that, as a private club or by becoming a private club, they can still let customers smoke.
Ms. Staples explained: "I'm getting frighten, because everybody I talk to said the place they go to is going to become a private club."
Ms. Staples gathered an information packet that will go out in the coming weeks to businesses affected by the ban, including bars. The mailing will include a letter that demonstrates the law and offers other signs, such as "No Smoking".

As it is known, the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants that the legislature passed this year takes effect on January 2nd, and does contain an exemption for private clubs, but it characterizes them as country clubs or nonprofits. But unfortunately it's not clear in some people's minds, said Paul Stone, president of the N.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association.
For example, Katrina O'Shields, the office manager of the club Onyx, argued: "As I understand it if you're a private club in which everyone is over 21, you don't have to worry about the smoking ban."

After discussing it further, she searched the Internet for more specifics and found a more precise definition. Jeff Shelffo, owner of The Other Woman private sports bar in Charlotte, initially thought the smoking ban would bring an increase in his business. "We were under the sensation that our business would pick up, because people around us, restaurants and bars, would ban smoking, and the smokers would come to us," declared Shelffo.

Eventually he claimed information about the law from the health department that showed that the ban referred to his bar, too. The guilty of this misunderstanding is the media, because it has helped confused the understanding by not spelling out what the law means by a "private club." For example all the publicity was that all private clubs are exempt.