It doesn't. Sekula Gibbs rejected it, saying it wasn't harsh enough. She wants it banned everywhere, including the concourses and "smoking sections" at stadium events. In other words, she wants it banned outside as well. Glad you did your due diligence before posting this thought out question.
Doesn't answer your question...but by way of background: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/page1/3075794 Council approves ban for restaurant smoking, but not bars By RON NISSIMOV Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle RESOURCES CITY SMOKING LAWS • Existing: Restaurants and other enclosed public places that permit smoking must provide for ventilation that provides a complete air exchange every 15 minutes and exhausts the air to the outside of the building. • Approved today: Smoking would be prohibited in dining areas of restaurants but permitted in properly ventilated, separate bar areas or in outdoor dining areas. Smoking would be permitted in free-standing bars. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW THEY VOTED Where City Council members fell on the smoking ban: Yes: Mayor Bill White, council members Carol Alvarado, Mark Ellis, Carol Mims Galloway, Adrian Garcia, Ronald Green, M.J. Khan, Toni Lawrence and Shelley Sekula-Gibbs No: Council members Michael Berry, Gordon Quan, Addie Wiseman and Pam Holm Absent: Council members Mark Goldberg and Ada Edwards Houston City Council voted 9-4 today to ban smoking in restaurant dining areas but not bars, accepting Mayor Bill White's compromise between anti-smoking forces and economic interests. The council rejected a proposal to ban smoking throughout restaurants but permit it in free-standing bars. The ordinance approved allows smoking in restaurant bars and in outdoor dining areas. The council did not consider any measure for an across-the-board ban on indoor smoking in all public places, although that had earlier been proposed by two council members . Nine council members voted for the mayor's ordinance, four voted against it and two were absent. Council members Shelley Sekula-Gibbs and Gordon Quan had offered amendments to ban smoking in virtually all public indoor spaces, but withdrew that today in favor of the measure to ban smoking in restaurants and bars in restaurants, but not free-standing bars. That proposal was rejected 10-3. The city's existing ordinance allows all businesses to establish indoor smoking areas, as long as they are clearly marked and properly ventilated. City Council had been besieged by interest groups as it considered various proposed smoking bans. The city's top convention promoter warned this week that millions of tourism dollars could go up in smoke if Houston enacted a total indoor smoking ban. Health activists said the dangers of secondhand smoke demanded a total ban. Anti-smoking groups say studies prove total indoor smoking bans do not hurt businesses, while the hospitality industry cites studies showing smoking bans can decrease business by 20 percent to 30 percent. Jordy Tollett, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the city would lose the annual convention of the Retail Tobacco Dealers of America in July 2007 if the council passed a total ban. The convention would pump as much as $10 million into the local economy and fill as many as 12,000 hotel rooms, he said. "We're not a No. 1 tourist destination," he told the council's Neighborhoods, Housing and Redevelopment Committee earlier this week. "We're fighting for every convention we can. ... A total ban is going to cause us hardships. It's economics for me." Tollett said the city also could lose other prominent conventions under such a ban because convention organizers sometimes want the option of providing separate smoking areas for those who attend. The Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Greater Houston Restaurant Association are advising the council to approve White's measure because of the potential loss of business with a total ban. The Berkeley, Calif.-based anti-smoking group Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, however, contends studies have shown that restaurant smoking bans have not hurt business in the popular tourist destinations of New York, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Closer to home, one year after El Paso in 2002 passed the strictest smoking ban in Texas, banning smoking in all restaurants and bars, the Texas Department of Health concluded that sales taxes and alcohol taxes had not declined compared with the previous 12 years. According to the ANR, a 1992 survey of 40 convention groups in San Diego said that only one group, representing the tobacco and candy industries, would not have come to that city if it banned smoking in all restaurants, as California did statewide several years later. Tollett noted, however, that San Diego has year-round pleasant weather, tourist attractions and other amenities that Houston lacks. Joe Rowe, executive director of the Cockeysville, Md.-based Retail Tobacco Dealers of America, said the organization is in final contract negotiations to bring its 2007 convention to Houston. He said the contract that is being negotiated would allow the organization to pull out of Houston if the city enacts a total indoor smoking ban. "Being able to smoke is paramount to our group," Rowe said. "These businesses are driven by cigars, smoking pipes and tobacco. We have the need to be able to sample products." Tollett said a complete smoking ban likely would dissuade a small percentage of conventions from coming to Houston. But he said this could still hurt the city's hopes to double its convention business in the wake of renovations to the George R. Brown Convention Center and the opening of the city-owned Hilton Americas-Houston convention center hotel. Sekula-Gibbs told Tollett that a complete smoking ban would bring four conventions to the city for every one that would be lost. Tollett disagreed, saying he would support a total ban if that were true. John Zotos, vice chair of Houston's Downtown Entertainment District Alliance and owner of St. Pete's Dancing Marlin restaurant downtown, said a restaurant he owns in Dallas lost 15 percent of its business after that city enacted its restaurant ban because patrons went to nearby communities that have looser restrictions. Several Houston restaurants, however, have said they did not lose business after voluntarily banning smoking in their establishments.
Pretty much. You gotta admit, though. Banning smoking in the areas of a stadium designed as a smoking section is just damn r****ded.
Damnit. I thought it was going to be another year before this was brought up again. If something is voted down, you don't get to re-vote on it in a month. So now, restaurants are out. I'm OK with it, as long as I can still smoke in a restaurant's bar. This whole thing is stupid.
I'm ok with that I guess... I do like hitting the local mexican bar by my house for margaritas on Fri night happy hour. I don't think I will go anymore if I can't smoke while I drink, since that's the only time I do. It just wouldn't be the same. I heard a radio commercial promoting a owner decided smoke-free bar yesterday. That's great. Freedom of choice is the right way.
Nice job jumping the gun on me you Fat b*stard. I figured every major Houston media outlet was due diligence enough... Anyway - happy about it inside the restaurants, glad theyre keeping it free in the bars.
I know you're being cute, but I don't get this kind of thinking. Stadium smoking sections are sections non-smokers would probably never use regardless of whether smoking was allowed or not. As unlikely as this sounds now, when I was in high school we had an outdoor smoking section. Kids who were over 17 and turned in permission slips signed by parents (most were forged admittedly) could go to an enclosed, outdoor area to smoke. The president of the student council pushed through a rule banning smoking in the smoking area, saying it was unfair that non-smokers couldn't enjoy it too. It passed and the smoking area became a ghost town. Nobody used it. There were other, better, prettier, larger enclosed outdoor areas at the school and the non-smokers went there. Meanwhile the smokers were left to look out the window to the empty space they used to smoke in. In New York, they force the smokers outside in terrible weather and the non-smokers see them huddling in the cold and rain and snow and say, "That's pathetic." It's insult to injury. I'm all for non-smokers never having to experience second hand smoke. I'd be for a ban that required private businesses to make at least 50% of their establishments completely smoke-free if it meant they were also allowed to include smoking sections at their own expense (for ventilation, walls, etc.). But the trend of banning it outright, particularly in places where non-smokers never go (and would never go) anyway, is just petty.
Do you know where these areas even are??? At Reliant, and Toyota Center, they have balconies OUTSIDE the stadium that you can use. Please, please tell me when, during a game, a non-smoker would EVER need, or even want use of this area? There's a reason the INSIDE of the stadium is air-conditioned. We're 10 years away from banning smoking in residential areas. I wish people would fight this hard towards the REAL major pollutants as they do with second-hand smoke.
i do know where they are. the ones in the upper-levels of MMP look nice, actually. like porches with great views of downtown. there was a door to one right across from where i came out of my section onto the concourse at Reliant. how about just a lovely view of downtown..smoke-free??? banning smoking in residential areas??? ok!! people do. with a lot more money and a lot more money at the local, state and national levels of government. we have this whole thing callled the EPA, too.
Smoking at MMP is outside on ground level. Hundreds of places to get a great view of Downtown at your seat inside a game. You did come for the game, didn't you? Not going to bother. Really? Go walk through a parking garage sometime, and then come back to me on the "horrors" of second-hand smoke. Max, I'm not going to bother talking to you about this. You're too irrational to comprise a good argument.
FFB, There's smoking areas in the upper deck as well. Also, he's jerking your chain for the most part, kinda making you sound irrational.
First smoking thread in which i agree with FFB. Designated, outside smoking sections? Can't see anything wrong with that -- except the stench....
this is sig worthy!!!!! i think you should call in to a talk radio show to discuss this issue further.
Yeah, I agree. I'm just touchy on this subject. Especially now that more places are now non-smoking. Let's see... That makes 99.5% of all businesses smoke-free. Whoopie. Give me a break.
Boy, you gotta enjoy those councilman's humor. Councilmember Carol Alvarado picks up a candy cigar and asks, 'Are we voting on something?,' today at the Houston City Council meeting. Council today approved a full ban on smoking in city restaurants, but rejected a more stringent ordinance that also would have banned the practice in bars. Just leave it be, people. At least bars are still OK for another month.
