Exactly one decade ago, Orleans Parish passed a city ordinance banning smoking in the last remaining holdout establishments: Bars, music venues, and casinos. Brad Wellons with the Louisiana Public Health Institute joined WWL First News with Tommy Tucker to recap how it's changed the city over the past 10 years.
“They banned smoking in public places in 2007. But from 2007-2015, there were no laws that outlawed smoking in bars, casinos, and music venues,” Wellons says.
It was musicians, bartenders, croupiers, and many other service industry workers who led the charge in getting the ordinance passed. Wellons claims that New Orleans going smoke-free yielded huge momentum to prove smoking bans can happen anywhere.
“New Orleans going smoke free convinces me that other places can go smoke free,” Wellons says. “No one ever thought this would happen in here. But the reason it did was for musicians, people who work in bars, casino workers — we actually had a casino worker who died of lung cancer despite never smoking.”
Some might claim that banning indoor smoking is an infringement on one’s liberties. Wellons disagrees.
“It's unfair,” says Wellons. “Why should they have to breathe someone else's smoke? You talk about individual rights, but why do you have the right to smoke and have to breathe your unhealthy air? You should have the right to breathe healthy air.”
Wellons explains that ever since the ban, there’s been broad support to sustain and perhaps even enhance the smoking ban.
“The health department did a poll this year. They found 75% of New Orleanians are in favor of this (Smoke Free Air Act),” Wellons says. “77% are in favor of expanding it, like making people step a little further away from the establishments to smoke.”
Although business owners initially objected to it, Wellons says the outcome is quantifiably positive.
“The ten years have shown three things," Wellons says. "A - people support it… B - There’s been a 91% increase in air quality… C - You’ve had people in certain groups, like musicians, who've seen increases in their quality of life, increases in their health, and decreases in tobacco-related illness. New Orleans Musicians Clinic has shown this.”
Although the attempts to curb smoking have been largely successful, Wellons says there are still challenges. “We’ve seen a decline in the prevalence of smokers in Orleans… However, we are seeing an increase in vaping.”
Is there anywhere in Orleans Parish you can go to smoke? Wellons confirms there is. “There are 5 cigar bars that were grandfathered in," he says. "You can smoke inside those bars, but it's cigars only.”
Find the full interview here or by clicking player at the top of the article.
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