Smoking signs may be in works: Dorchester plan offers alternative to public ban

ST. GEORGE -- Dorchester County Councilman David Chinnis will propose an ordinance requiring businesses to post signs saying whether they are a smoking or a non-smoking establishment.

The proposal is an attempt to defuse a controversy that had council members sharply divided this month at the first meeting with all three newly elected members.

A ban on workplace smoking in all parts of the county that are outside of a town was the first proposal introduced by Larry Hargett after he was voted chairman at that meeting.

Council members, who earlier had informally agreed to try to work more cooperatively, set the issue aside for a month rather than take a vote that almost certainly would have shot down the chairman's proposal. The vote to delay was 6-1.

Chinnis, one of a majority of four members who said at that meeting they oppose a ban, has mixed feeling about his ordinance, he said. He doesn't like the idea of making it a requirement for businesses.

"But ultimately, we would be able to get something," he said. "It's not the Hester Pryne 'Scarlet Letter' " because it doesn't single out individual businesses, but "anybody who shows up at the door would know whether it's a smoking or a non-smoking establishment."

Chinnis has asked John Frampton, county attorney, to draft a proposed ordinance. Other council members said they would wait to see it before deciding.

"It's certainly something I would be more prone to support than the ordinance before us," said Councilman Jay Byars.

"We'll have to see what he's got," Hargett said.

Smoking bans are now in place in 12 Lowcountry municipalities after Summerville approved a ban Wednesday. At least two Lowcountry municipalities have rejected bans. The county would be the first in the Charleston area to approve one.

The bans are proposed to individual council members by representatives of anti-smoking activist groups that are going government-to-government to push for them.

They and supporters of the activist groups turn out in numbers for the votes, arguing for the health and worker safety benefits. Less organized and usually smaller numbers of smoking supporters and business people turn out arguing that it's a property rights decision that should be left to individual businesses.

In Dorchester County, ban supporters have run smack into a council with pro-business members who are pushing for less government and regulation.

As for the anti- and pro-ban groups, they appear to be for and against. Jim Rittinghouse, owner of Kingston Tobacco Co., a cigar bar in Summerville towns limits, said the sign ordinance would have been a more logical approach by the town than an outright ban.

"I think that's the way it should be anywhere, especially for a bar or restaurant," he said.

Martha Dunlap, of the of Smoke-Free Lowcountry Coalition, one of the ban-organizing groups, said the compromise won't satisfy them.

"That is a tobacco industry strategy, and that won't fly with us. That's a deal breaker," she said. While it gives customers some protection, it doesn't protect employees from secondhand smoke, she said.

The next meeting is at 7 p.m. Feb. 7 in the council chambers in St. George.

Reach Bo Petersen at 937-5744.