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As evidence mounts about the dangers of secondhand smoke, so does the legal liability of employers — including restaurants.
While legitimate hospitality groups worry...
According to Nation's Restaurant News (May 18, 1998):
[California Restaurant Association] leaders supported a statewide prohibition of smoking in restaurant dining rooms and bars to protect workers from secondhand smoke and employers from liability in civil and workers compensation cases tied to individuals claiming they were harmed by on-the-job exposure to secondhand smoke.
Even the National Restaurant Association and Wisconsin Restaurant Association, allied with Big Tobacco in opposing smokefree restaurants, recognize that secondhand smoke exposes their members to liability. Polling its members about a smokefree restaurant proposal in 1991, the Wisconsin Restaurant Association introduced issues this way:
Recent statistics conclusively show that second-hand smoke causes cancer. The only way the public can be protected against second-hand smoke when dining out is either to make conscious choices to not patronize restaurants that allow smoking or to pass a law that bans smoking in all restaurants.
There is a feeling that employees of restaurants need to be protected from second-hand smoke because they have very little choice in the air they breath if they want a job. It is possible that as statistical evidence mounts on the adverse health risks of breathing second-hand smoke that there will be workman's comp and civil liability lawsuits filed against employers whose employees become ill.
In fact, secondhand smoke cases have been filed against the hospitality industry, and won or settled favorably to the plaintiff under common law, workers compensation, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Ventilation "experts" protect themselves...
Big Tobacco and those who profit from selling ventilation systems carefully insulate themselves from liability — while leaving the hospitality industry fully exposed. For example, on its now-defunct "Options" web site, Philip Morris proudly announced:
Options is an initiative developed by Philip Morris USA to help business owners find effective, practical ways to minimize secondhand smoke and to create a more comfortable environment for both non-smokers and smokers in public places.
But at the bottom of a page elsewhere on this site, Philip Morris quietly adds:
Options is not intended to address the health effects attributed to secondhand smoke
At last count, at least a dozen air filtration sellers are denying that their products reduce health risks from secondhand tobacco smoke — including industrial-strength manufacturers Honeywell, IQAir North America, Peak Pure Air, United Air Specialists, and Wein Products.
In other words, don't blame them if employees or patrons sicken and sue.
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