Martin Austermuhle
Only three days old, and the District’s smoking ban for bars and restaurants may soon get just a little tougher.
WTOP is reporting that D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has hinted that he may seek to make it harder for bars to apply for an exemption to the ban. Currently bars that lose 5 percent of their sales due to the ban can apply for an exemption; Fenty would like to see that raised to 15 percent, the same standard applied in New York. While this may not make much of a difference to smokers, Washington Times Metro columnist Tom Knott is fuming mad at what he sees as an attack on independently owned businesses:
[Fenty] has trotted out New York City’s threshold of a 15 percent drop in business as a potential barometer. The 15 percent threshold, or a similar figure, will be small solace to mom and pop. A precipitous decline in gross revenue won’t be a cue to seek an exemption. It will be a cue to either attempt to sell their business or close it.
Fenty was one of the main proponents of the smoking ban while serving on the D.C. Council.
