Child-Free Dining

A smoking ban backfires

Chilly Winnipeg, Manitoba's metropolis, kicked off its new year with the best of intentions, at least from the viewpoint of smoke prohibitionists. In an effort to separate children from ambient smoke, the Canadian city banned smoking, beginning January 1, in those establishments where minors are present. By January 2, however, it was apparent that the consequences of the new law were not exactly what the lawmakers had envisioned. A number of Winnipeg establishments had opted to keep the smoke and ban the kids instead.

According to Toronto's Globe and Mail, numerous Winnipeg restaurants, delicatessens, and donut shops have continued to allow smoking. To abide by the new law, however, they have had to fire any employees under 18 and must refuse service to children or adults accompanied by children.

A donut shop manager explained the logic behind the changes. "We tried to obey the bylaw for one day and we lost half our business," she told the Globe and Mail. "But now that we've allowed smoking and banned minors, our business has doubled today [January 4]."

It seems not to have occurred to the city's lawmakers that business owners might react this way. Local lawmaker Mark Lubosch was reduced to incoherence on hearing the news, actually accusing such owners of "putting profits ahead of…customers," demonstrating why he is in politics and not business.

Although Winnipeg has donut shops that have long been smoke-free, the no-kids decision was instantly characterized as an act of discrimination against a minority. "The irony is that the bylaw was meant to protect children, not harm them," according to a local human rights lawyer named David Matas. "Children are a vulnerable minority. But you can't discriminate against them simply because you want to make money."

Matas is not the only one who sees irony in the Winnipeg donut war. There is a certain glazed tastiness in watching anti-smoking obsessives equate children's good health with facilitating their access to fried dough covered in sugar and stuffed with jelly. As Lubosch argued, "This issue has always been about health."