Celebrating smoke free

Do you remember what the debate about anti-smoking ordinances sounded like in 2012?

That was when the issue came to Palmer.

Bar owners worried that money would flow out of their establishments and into nearby watering holes like Four Corners Lounge on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway and Del Rois in Butte, both of which reside outside city limits in unincorporated areas of the Mat-Su Borough.

Bar owners said it would be a double-whammy as they would be forced to spend money to set up a place for people to smoke and then they would lose money as smokers departed.

That smoking ban in Palmer went into effect right after the start of the new year in 2013.

January 2015 is probably a good time, then, to take a look at how those predictions panned out and, from this vantage point, it’s not looking so good for the prognosticators.

We don’t, obviously, have access to their books, but all outward signs seem to indicate that the bar scene in Palmer is doing just fine.

There are bars expanding and renovating there. Klondike Mike’s morphed into Klondike Mike’s Saloon and Roadhouse BBQ, a change that reflected expanded food offerings and a remodeled interior. The Moosehead Saloon also was the site of much construction activity this summer.

The Eagle Hotel, Restaurant and Lounge reopened in September 2012, just before the smoking ban took effect.

We mention these businesses because they are all in downtown Palmer, all forced to go smoke free by the public smoking ban, and all still in business.

Meanwhile, Del Rois may or may not have benefited from an exodus of smokers but, it has since gone out of business.

We’re happy to say the sky didn’t fall. And no businesses closed their doors in the wake of the Valley’s first public smoking ban.

We hoped this would be the outcome. But there is more than hope at work here. We also were among those Valley residents who showed our support for these establishments by joining our friends and neighbors in sharing a meal and enjoying a few drinks at the businesses specifically impacted by the ban. And we made new friends and found new favorite watering holes in the process.

Palmer was not the first community in Alaska to ban smoking in bars. Bars there weren’t even the first in the Valley to go smoke-free. Tailgaters and the Windbreak in Wasilla and the Caboose in Palmer made the jump well before voters banned smoking in Palmer. Though outside city limits, the Palmer Elks Lodge on Finger Lake went smoke-free voluntarily through a vote of its members after the ban went into effect.

Palmer, it seems, is part of a greater trend. Other communities are likely to go smoke free. In fact, the very first bill for the 2015 session of the Alaska Legislature has to do with smoking. Senate Bill 1 would be, in effect, a statewide ban on smoking in workplaces.

As we consider this statewide rule change, we think Palmer’s experience should help inform the conversation. Smoke free ordinances do not squelch business. They do quite the opposite.