12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, June 17, 2008

By DAVE LEVINTHAL / The Dallas Morning News
dlevinthal@dallasnews.com / The Dallas Morning News
Dan X. McGraw contributed to this report.

Smoke 'em while you can, as lighting up in a Dallas bar could be illegal by year's end.

That's because top Dallas City Council members, including Mayor Tom Leppert and two key committee chairmen, have confirmed they're prepared to back a yet-to-be-drafted ordinance banning smoking in bars and taverns - among the city's final public havens for tobacco lovers. They cite health factors as an overriding reason.

A formal ordinance proposal should come before the council's quality of life and government services committee by August, with a full council briefing to follow, said council member Pauline Medrano, the committee's chairwoman.

Enactment of a comprehensive smoking ban would bring Dallas in line with Texas cities such as Houston and Austin, as well as entire states such as New York and California, which have outlawed smoking in most public places.

"I'd like us to move forward," Mr. Leppert said of expanding the city's smoking ordinance. "I think there's good support on the council. It's probably the appropriate time we do something."

Said Ms. Medrano, "Dallas is ready. We were on the forefront five years ago, and now you see Houston and other cities with stronger laws than us. It's time for us to go forward."

Since last year, interviews of City Council members have long indicated a willingness to expand Dallas' current smoking ordinance. Approved in 2003, it outlaws the practice in public buildings, restaurants, bingo halls and most workplaces, but exempts bars, taverns, pool halls and tobacco shops.

But to date, no council member had been willing to force the smoking issue, instead focusing on a bevy of others, such as economic development initiatives, the Trinity River Corridor project and public safety.

In January, Mr. Leppert suggested area cities should together pass similar smoking ordinances - a de facto regional law - although the idea got little traction.

So while the mayor intends to encourage nearby municipalities to strengthen their smoking ordinances, Dallas shouldn't wait for them, he said. Mr. Leppert and his council colleagues weren't immediately certain if a Dallas smoking ordinance expansion proposal would affect pool halls, tobacco shops or bars that specialize in smoking, such as cigar bars and hookah lounges.

For Jamee Green, executive director of the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association, Dallas should simply put a smoking law expansion on hold.

A Dallas smoking ordinance that includes bars and taverns could create inequity among her members because some municipalities' smoking laws are more restrictive than others, she argued.

"We don't see it as a good thing for business unless it's a statewide policy," Ms. Green said. "We're still thinking we'll support legislation for a statewide ban next year."

And if Dallas decides to move forward with an expanded ban, officials should expect pushback, said Gary Nolan, spokesman for the Citizens Freedom Alliance, a New Hampshire-based organization that lobbies nationally for smokers' rights.

"No one is compelled to go into a bar or restaurant, either as a customer or an employee," said Mr. Nolan, who said his organization would campaign against an expanded Dallas smoking ordinance.

Some bar patrons said Monday they were skeptical that a smoking ban would be enforced, but said it could seriously damage bar business.

"It would kill this place, or people would be walking outside every five minutes," said Jamie Nicodemus, a smoker sitting at the bar at Lakewood Landing on Live Oak Street.

At the Lakewood Tavern, a nonsmoking bar, manager Vicki LaGrange said most of her customers come into her bar because they don't like the smoke elsewhere. Still, she disagrees with a citywide ban.

"Business owners should have the right to choose for themselves," she said. "Then let the market decide for itself what the public wants."

At least for now, North Texas on balance remains a relatively free market for smokers, municipalities together composing a patchwork quilt of laws governing where, when and how people may smoke in public.

To Dallas' north, for example, Addison's smoking laws are among the area's most permissive, as diners are still allowed to puff away in restaurants. Neighboring Plano, meanwhile, features some of the area's toughest anti-smoking laws.

Even so, council member Ron Natinsky, chairman of the body's economic development committee, says he doubts many Dallas bars or taverns would lose business if City Hall strengthens its smoking ordinance.

"I don't think it'll have any economic effect much at all," Mr. Natinsky said. "There will be some squawking, and some people who say it will. But it's time we do it."

Even Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway, who months ago advocated against expanding Dallas' current smoking ban, says he's changed his mind.

"Once you've been educated, and look at the cancer-smoking causes, you see the problem," Mr. Caraway said Monday. "I'm ready to move on this."

Staff writer Dan X. McGraw contributed to this report.