Photo by andertho.

Michael Neibauer reports in the Washington Business Journal this afternoon that business owners and property managers in the District of Columbia will be free to post “no smoking” signs within 25 feet of their property’s outer walls, starting tomorrow.

The real question is, of course: how many businesses will actually do so?

Our guess is not many. As Neibauer frames it, the real complication with the law is enforcement — or a total lack thereof:

In a message to its members ahead of the D.C. law’s implementation, the Apartment and Office Building Association (AOBA) of Metropolitan Washington spelled out what the measure means — little more than subtle discouragement of the smoker, or often the pack of smokers who crowd a building’s entryway. There are no fines associated with violating a “no smoking” sign, no mechanism for a police officer to write a ticket and no authority for a security guard to move a smoker along.
“Thus, a property owner may elect to post a sign prohibiting smoking outside its building but, by law, the District could not impose any fines or penalties on persons found smoking in the designated no-smoking area — clearly presenting an enforcement problem for owners,” the AOBA message states. “Compliance will be difficult, if not impossible, if the District is unable or unwilling to enforce the law.

Just so I have this straight: there’s no penalties to speak of for ignoring these no smoking signs, but people — never mind those who need a nicotine fix — are supposed to see the signs and obey them without any kind of disincentive to the contrary? (While you’re here, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.) It seems unlikely that a business — even one who would love to see smoking completely eradicated from anywhere near its entrance — would risk alienating potential smoker-customers when they can just break the rule anyway.

With this piece of legislation, the Council has basically told D.C. businesses that if they want to conduct a small-scale referendum on the social acceptability of smoking cigarettes in this town, the Council is more than happy to oblige them with the necessary tools. They just shouldn’t expect the city to extend a warranty should those tools not work.