DeKalb kills proposed smoking ban

Four of the commissioners present agreed with owners of DeKalb’s eight adult clubs and 20 other nightclubs, that the ban would hurt business.

Commissioners Jeff Rader and Kathie Gannon dissented, and Commissioner Lee May was absent.

“I don’t want us going down a slippery slope where we end up telling people what they can do in their own home,” said Larry Johnson, the commission’s presiding officer. “You start in the business realm and we could have some unintended consequences.”

The vote drew out more than 100 supporters and opponents, who have battled over the proposal since the county Board of Health first unveiled it four months ago.

Opponents cited expected business losses – customers of some clubs could travel just a few miles into Fulton or Gwinnett counties to smoke at bars there – as well as the right for clients and customers to make their own choices about smoking.

But supporters argued that second-hand smoke costs every DeKalb household $548 in direct healthcare charges each year.

“We keep hearing about choice, and I wish we did have a choice,” said Gordon Draves, a member of Live Healthy DeKalb. “I would like the choice of not having to pay the medical bills for smokers.”

Compromise appeared a possibility, when some club owners asked not for an outright rejection of the ban but for the chance to install air purifiers and filters in smoking establishments.

Rader also tried a substitute bill, which would have given club owners two years before the ban took effect, to adapt to a new business model and also encourage neighboring counties to adopt similar bans.

That effort failed 4-2, with only Gannon voting with Rader in support.

“I (was) hoping we could move ahead to establish DeKalb as a leader in this area,” Rader said. “DeKalb’s future depends on health, biotech and science industries that take this kind of ordinance very seriously.”

The commission did not discuss some of the less controversial parts of the proposal, such as banning smoking in parks. The board of health did not separate those elements from its overall recommendation, though some expected commissioners to break those items out in order to approve at least part of the proposal.

Johnson said that the commission may elect on its own to revive those pieces, possibly by year’s end.

DeKalb adopted its current smoking ordinance, which bans it in all enclosed workplaces but exempts bars and restaurants where people under 18 cannot work or enter, in 2003 . Georgia adopted a statewide version of that law, the Smokefree Air Act, two years later.