Sep 12, 2008 5 min read

Simple and to the point, those words, printed in black ink on a white sheet of paper attached to the front door of Meloni’s Restaurant in Uniontown, were meant as a friendly reminder that smoking is no longer permitted in the building. A state law prohibiting smoking in most public places, including restaurants and workplaces, went into effect Thursday.

Joseph Georgiana, co-owner of Meloni’s, said he went one step further than posting the no-smoking sign. He also ordered the ashtray that sat outside, next to the front door, to be removed.

“I told them to get rid of it,” he said, adding that non-smokers shouldn’t have to walk through smoke to get in the restaurant since smoking is no longer allowed within.

Prior to Thursday, smokers who dined at Meloni’s were permitted to smoke anywhere in the building and were not restrained to a smoking section.

However, Georgiana said the new law, known as the Clean Indoor Air Act, prohibits smoking in any establishment that nets at least 20 percent of its profits from food sales.

Meloni’s sells more food than alcohol, Georgiana said, which means no-smoking signs were posted and about 100 ashtrays were packed up and stored away.

Georgiana said some customers, the majority of them smokers, grumbled about the change while others said they were happy they can now enjoy a meal without sitting in a hazy cloud of smoke.

As for himself, Georgiana said he’s happy the law went into effect and thinks it will help his business in the long run.

Georgiana, who has owned the restaurant for about five years, said diners have told him several times that the food was great but that they wouldn’t be back because the smoke bothered them too much.

“I think we’re going to do more business because of the new law, maybe not right away, but people will get used to it,” Georgiana said, noting that he doesn’t think smokers will stop going out for lunch and dinner just because they can’t smoke.

Georgiana said Thursday’s lunch and dinner crowd was down some but said it was probably just coincidence.

“People used to be able to smoke in the mall, and when they were no longer allowed they didn’t quit shopping. This is the same thing. People are still going to go out and eat. It’s just going to take everyone a little bit of time to get used to it,” he said.

Georgiana said he doesn’t mind if smokers go outside in the parking lot to smoke, and even said he has employees go out every hour or so to sweep up any cigarette butts that may have been thrown on the ground since the ashtray was removed.

“If they want to smoke they can come out here and smoke,” he said.

Ben Venick, owner of Rizz’s in Uniontown, has had a no-smoking policy since he opened the restaurant in December.

Venick said the ban hasn’t had a negative effect on business, noting that the restaurant, located on West Main Street, attracts a good-size lunch and dinner crowd and is packed on the weekends.

If people want to smoke they go outside, he said. A planter full of sand sits outside the door for smokers to throw their cigarette butts in.

Although Venick chose to make his restaurant a non-smoking establishment, he said he doesn’t necessarily support legislation banning smoking in all public places.

Restaurant and bar owners should be able to decide for themselves whether or not they want to allow smoking in their establishment, he said.

“It’s a decision the owner should be allowed to make,” he said.

Georgiana said his only problem with the legislation is that the state Department of Health never sent out notification or information regarding the new law.

“We received no notification from the Department of Health. We read about it in the newspaper and saw it on the news, so we looked the information up ourselves on the Internet,” he said.

The smoking ban is an initiative from the Governor’s Prescription for Pennsylvania, a comprehensive health care reform plan that strives to make health care more affordable and accessible while improving quality.

According to The Associate Press, a 2006 report from the U.S. Surgeon General documented the serious and deadly health effects of secondhand smoke on healthy non-smokers, which include developmental effects in children, heart disease in adults and cancer in sites beyond the lungs.

The Centers for Disease Control argues that non-smokers are not the only ones to benefit from clean indoor area and state that smoke free laws prompt more smokers to quit, increase the number of successful quit attempts, reduce the number of cigarettes that continuing smokers consume and discourage children from ever starting to smoke.

For more information regarding the Clean Indoor Air Act, go to www.health.state.pa.us.