Targeting bar owners in smoking war considered

Quote: "They have been openly defiant" - CRD director Carol Pickup

Bar owners - and not their customers - may be the next target of bylaw enforcement officers in the crackdown against smoking in the Capital Regional District. CRD Health Protection manager Les Potter says that's the best way available to eliminate smoking within indoor public places in light of the fact that the CRD's smoking ban is being ignored within many bars and pubs. "We have to make changes to the (clean air) bylaw so that it's more self-regulating," Potter told a meeting of the CRD's finance and administration committee Wednesday. It would be a lot cheaper to go after managers and operators of the Capital Region's drinking establishments, Potter said, adding enforcing the bylaw by targeting bar patrons is a financial strain.

Potter later told the Weekend Edition that only one of CRD's bylaw enforcement officers deals with the clean-air bylaw on a full-time basis. Other bylaw officers who enforce the smoking ban have other bylaws to enforce too, he said. Altering the bylaw to hold bar owners accountable for smokers in their establishments would also be an effective way of "reducing the level of involvement" of CRD bylaw enforcement officers, Potter said. "We need a way to tone things down, especially for the older beer parlours where it can be quite hostile for staff (enforcing the bylaw), " Potter said. CRD director and Saanich Councillor Carol Pickup agrees with Potter that the clean-air bylaw needs to be altered to make pub owners accountable. "They have been openly defiant." she said of some bar and pub owners in the region.

Esquimalt Inn manager and Freedom of Choice Coalition chair Brian Mayzes blasts the notion that bar owners could wind up getting fined by the CRD for violating the clean-air bylaw. "I think it's outrageous, " Mayzes told the Weekend Edition. "If (the CRD) can't enforce their own bylaw they shouldn't expect us to."