Smoking ban has many in mood to quit
| • | PDF: State Department of Health brochure with tobacco cessation services in Hawai'i |
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By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Two months after it went into effect, the state's tough anti-smoking law has prompted a surge of people to consider quitting, health and business officials say.
Calls to the state's stop-smoking hot line shot up dramatically in December, the month after the law banning smoking in most public places went into effect, said Deborah Zysman, director of the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawai'i.
The group's stop-smoking hot line received 1,047 inquiries in December, a fourfold increase over October, Zysman said.
"We know a lot of people might have been thinking about quitting. The new law probably gave them that little extra push to try," Zysman said. The group also stepped up its television advertising for the hot line during November, she said.
"I'm definitely going to try to quit," said Daniel Navarro, a 30-year-old office manager who has been smoking since intermediate school. "The law has been an incentive and given me new awareness."
Navarro said the law and an increasingly anti-smoking culture in Hawai'i may make it easier for people to quit.
"When you go into a restaurant or bar or nightclub, you don't want to have to go outside to smoke. You don't want to walk 20 feet away. You don't want to be known as an alley cat," he said.
The law, which bans lighting up within 20 feet of bars, restaurants, workplaces and most other public areas, went into effect Nov. 16. Since then, state Health Department officials have received more than 900 calls, most of them questions about whether smoking is allowed in specific places and circumstances.
"There's only been a very small number of complaints. We haven't gotten much opposition at all," said Julian Lipsher, the coordinator for the state Health Department's tobacco control section.
Officials said they had expected the mostly subdued reaction to the law, based on an extensive education campaign before its implementation, a dwindling number of smokers in the state (17 percent of adults, according to one recent survey) and previous laws that limited smoking in other areas.
"Businesses and customers have generally accepted the new rules as a given and changed their behavior accordingly," said Mark Dawson, director of business development at Altres, a human resources outsourcing agency active in educating businesses about the new requirements. "The change was pretty much a non-event."
GRAY AREAS
While most people generally understood the broad outlines of the new no-smoking law, there were still dozens of gray areas prompting questions and requiring rulings about where people could and could not smoke, officials said.
"There have been a lot of questions that we have had to investigate on a case-by-case basis," Lipsher said.
Questions that have come up include:
"A lot of the things depend on the specifics of the building," said Jane Sugimura, president of the Hawai'i Council of Associations of Apartment Owners. "There was more complaining in the past when the city ordinance was passed. Now it seems like people are used to it."
At Aloha Stadium, for instance, officials had to consider whether that definition included the concourses outside the seating areas. After studying the question, the stadium authority decided to ban smoking on all walkway areas except those located about 50 feet away from any wall or food concession line, said spokesman Patrick Leonard.
"People have been very cooperative," Leonard said. "They are happy to move when you ask them to; they just want to know where they are allowed to be."
That cooperative attitude has prevailed elsewhere, others said.
"Only a tiny percentage of our calls have been complaints," Dawson said. "Most of the businesses are actually grateful that the new regulations have been put in place."
TOUGHER STANDARDS
Zysman said the law also has prompted new inquiries from individuals, businesses and condominium associations on ways they can go beyond the new regulations. Landlords have been inquiring about saving on cleaning costs and fire insurance if they ban smoking in rental facilities, she said.
"A lot of people are calling to ask how they can make their home smoke-free or if a condominium association can ban smoking on their property," Zysman said.
In general, such associations and businesses have the right to go beyond the limits of the law in outlawing smoking, she said. "Just like they can say no dogs or no hanging laundry off the lanai, they could say no smoking," she said.
At the University of Hawai'i, where the new law duplicates existing policies, there have been only a few inquiries about stop-smoking programs, said Nancy Stockert, director of the UH Health Education Resource Center. More students may be using online programs to stop smoking without having face-to-face meetings with health officials, she said.
"Increasingly, people are trying to do it on their own," she said.
Navarro said he'll seek help wherever he can, including from the American Lung Association Hawai'i chapter, which recently moved into new offices next to his at Dole Cannery.
"I'm going to look into buying the patch and see a counselor," he said. "I've even got a relaxation CD for those moments when you feel like you really need a cigarette."
In addition to private individuals trying to quit, more businesses have been asking about receiving help for their still-smoking employees, Zysman said.
"The new law has been a catalyst for a lot of other things. That's exactly what we wanted to see happen," she said.
Reach Mike Leidemann at mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.
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