Area officials fume about Virginia smoking ban

Virginia is on its way to tighter regulation against smoking in restaurants, and local politicos and tobacco supporters are not happy.

With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will restrict lighting up in eateries to those with separate, ventilated rooms and to private clubs. The House and Senate passed House Bill 1105, and it’s headed to the governor’s desk for his quick signature, while an identical bill, House Bill 1703, seems destined for General Assembly approval as well.

But local delegates and an area state senator voted against the measure. They and tobacco-industry insiders say smoking strictures should be left up to restaurant owners and managers. Government has no business telling business what to do, and smoke-averse patrons can vote with their dollars by dining elsewhere, they said.

“It’s a freedom issue to me,” Delegate Danny Marshall, R-Danville, said Friday. “It’s taking the choice away from managers and owners of those businesses.”

For Delegate Donald Merricks, R-Pittsylvania County, the no-smoking issue is also an economic one. Some restaurants can’t afford to revamp their interior to accommodate smokers, he said. Restricting smoking should be left up to restaurateurs and their customers, he said. Merricks, a non-smoker, said many restaurants across the state have already banned the practice when their customers demanded it.

“That’s how the free market works,” Merricks said.

Chain restaurants will be able to handle the expense of upgrading their establishments, but the mom-and-pops will suffer or be forced to go non-smoking, Sen. Robert Hurt, R-Chatham, said. The Southside region has at least 10 percent unemployment and the prohibition will hurt already struggling small businesses, he said.

“Who’s going to be able to afford a separate smoking room?” Hurt said.

Hurt said he supports discouraging smoking and keeping children away from tobacco products “but this is not the way to go about it,” he said. The legislation was never about smoking, he said, but about government dictating what private-property owners can and can’t do at their business.

“I just don’t support that philosophically,” he said.

Harry Lea, a former tobacco warehouse operator and co-owner and former president of the past Danville Tobacco Association, said the government crackdown on tobacco has gone too far. Lea, who is retired, said he cannot believe how much money has been made off litigation, regulation and taxation surrounding a legal product.

“The whole situation has gotten totally out of hand,” Lea said.

Lea, a non-smoker, said if he’s in a place where the cigarette smoke is bothering him, he leaves.

The legislation will have a detrimental effect according to one local tobacco grower. Clarence Emerson Jr., a fourth-generation tobacco farmer in Dry Fork, said he will grow less tobacco in the coming years because of it.

“People are going to quit smoking; they’re going to quit buying cigarettes,” Emerson said. “That’s going to affect us.”

For Emerson, who grows a little more than 100 acres of the leaf, the anti-tobacco measure could sound a death knell for his livelihood.

“Tobacco is my main cash crop,” he said. “If I lose that, I have to get out of farming.”

The smoking ban law takes effect Dec. 1.

• Contact John R. Crane at or (434) 791-7987.