Peninsula News Review

Vancouver Island, British Columbia

CRD MOVES TO SNUFF OUT BUTTS

(Capital Regional District)

June 25, 1999
by Mark Browne, Weekend Edition staff

Bar owners who've been defying the Capital Regional District's indoor smoking ban are headed for a legal showdown with the CRD.

The CRD Board of Directors voted Wednesday to pursue civil injunctions in B.C. Supreme Court against six of the Capital Region's watering holes.

Following an in-camera meeting, CRD chair Geoff Young said the Horizon West Hotel, Old Bailey's Pub, Thursday's Sports Bar, the Gorge Point Pub, Selkirk Pub and Esquimalt Inn are being targeted for legal action to butt out.

"The decision's been made, it's just a question of filing the papers," Young said.

While it's up to a judge what penalties could be handed out to the bar owners if civil injunctions are successful, Young said those facing injunctions could simply face an order to comply with the bylaw.

But if they continue to defy the smoking ban they could face fines or even jail.

After the decision to seek the court's help in forcing compliance with the ban on smoking within public facilities, Young faced representatives from some of the bars involved and one bingo hall who says the decision by the CRD will hurt their businesses.

"Our objective is not to punish people. Our objective is to ensure they comply with the bylaw," Young told the pub operators. Thursday's Sports Bar owner Stuart Logan responded by questioning the rationale for having a smoking bylaw in the first place. While there may be an argument for the rights of non-smokers there is also a good case for smokers having the right to light up in the Capital Region's drinking establishments, he told Young.

Young agreed there's more than one way to look at the issue.

"I'm not saying it's an open and shut case, there's arguments on both sides," he said.

But at the end of the day peoples's health, including those who work in bars and restaurants, outweigh smokers' rights, Young said.

Brian Mayzes, manager of the Esquimalt Inn and chair of the Victoria Freedom of Choice Coalition, said he plans to approach other bar owners affected by the decision and fight the CRD in court.

In the meantime, he has no intention of complying with the bylaw.

"I'm certainly not prepared to throw out any customers who light up cigarettes," Mayzes said.

During the past week, CRD bylaw enforcement officers issued three warning letters to each of the six drinking establishments that are now facing civil injunctions.

In addition, the owners of those bars also received a letter from CRD lawyers explaining how and why bylaw enforcement officers concluded that the clean air bylaw was being broken in their establishments.

Rick Telford, owner of the Old Bailey's Pub, told the Weekend Edition Tuesday he believes the bar owners can defeat the CRD in court.

"We think we'll probably win in court," he says.

Telford questions the way CRD bylaw enforcement officers handled the issue when they sent him the warning letters.

First of all, he says, the bylaw enforcement officers didn't deliver the letters to the Old Bailey's Pub.

Instead, the letters were sent to the front desk of the hotel that's in the building where Old Bailey's is located.

And he says he also has a problem with the letters themselves. Telford says the letters are short of detail about the specific incidents where people were smoking in his bar.

However, he admits he hasn't "been pushing" people to comply with the no-smoking edict from the CRD.