To ban or not to ban?

Anyone looking for a smoke-free night out on the town may have a hard time finding it in Culpeper. But with the advance of a smoking ban in the Virginia General Assembly, that could soon change.

A bill to ban smoking in bars and restaurants statewide passed the House of Delegates General Laws Committee Thursday. Already approved in the Senate, the bill could go before the full House as early as Monday. If passed, the bill would go into effect July 1.

House Bill 1703 would ban smoking except in private clubs and within designated smoking areas with separate ventilation systems from nonsmoking areas. In Culpeper, there are a number of downtown establishments that allow smoking, including The Pub at Hazel River, the East Davis Street Tavern and Culpeper Diner.

* The Pub: Patrons of The Pub, a bar known locally for its live music on weekends and the heavy haze of smoke that hangs in the air, have complained to owner Karen Stogbuchner about the smoke.

“We’ve even had smokers complain,” she said. “There’s just no ventilation.”

The Civil War-era building on the corner of East Davis and East streets has no external ventilation save doors to the outside and a chimney, giving smoke no place to go.

But despite The Pub’s clientele, Stogbuchner supports the ban.

“I don’t see it affecting The Pub in a bad way,” she said. “If it’s a statewide ban, there’s not a whole lot anybody can do about it and it might promote nonsmokers coming in. There will be a whole lot of people that are put off by it, but it seems to work everywhere else.”

Mary Lou Hamilton, The Pub’s sound technician, agreed with Stogbuchner.

“I think it’ll increase business,” said Hamilton, a former smoker.

“We watched what it did in Maryland, and a lot of the entertainment bars had increased business because there are so many people that want to come out who don’t smoke,” Hamilton said.

* East Davis Street Tavern: A few doors down at the East Davis Street Tavern, day manager and bartender Linda Leavell does not support the ban.

The restaurant and bar is smoke-free daily until 2 p.m., after which time smokers patronize the establishment.

“I know the guys that smoke in the evening are going to be really ticked off if it passes,” Leavell said. “I don’t smoke, but it (smoking) doesn’t bother me.”

Patrons inside the Tavern Friday afternoon added that there should be time restraints on smoking rather than a complete ban, such as only after 9 p.m. They also felt a distinction should be made between restaurants and bars or nightclubs.

* Culpeper Diner: Also downtown is Culpeper Diner, a restaurant with its main dining room open to smokers.

Adjacent are two nonsmoking rooms, though they are not on separate ventilation systems.

After five years of running the Diner, owner Luis Galarza noticed he was losing a lot of nonsmoking customers and took over the smoke-free 4C’s restaurant next door.

“My main business here is smoking,” Galarza said. “It would really hurt. We have smokers here from 5:30 in the morning all day. There’s a lot of angry people; Virginia is a tobacco state.”

Galarza said the Diner was grandfathered in with outdated building regulations; if he were to rework the ventilation system to keep a smoking room, he would have to close to apply up-to-date regulations as well.

“With business right now and the economic situation … ” he said, trailing off, implying the renovations would be too expensive. “The secondhand smoke is bad, but there are people who are never going to change. I don’t know if it’s going to pass or not.”

Large chains in Culpeper such as Chili’s, Glory Days and Buffalo Wild Wings also allow smoking in certain areas, as well as a handful of other local establishments.

State Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania and Del. Ed Scott, R-Madison, who both represent Culpeper, were not available for comment Friday.

Houck expressed support for the legislation, while Scott opposed it in an e-mail to a constituent.