Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
February 23, 2006 issue
High Country Enacts Tough New No-Smoking Policies
Story by Celeste von Mangan
If you’re a smoker living in the High Country, you’re likely finding it more difficult to light up in public these days. A number of businesses have embraced tobacco-free policies that often mean smoking is not allowed either indoors or out.
Terri van Dyke is the coordinator of the Northwest Tobacco Prevention Coalition, operating from the Appalachian District Health Department, a facility that has been smoke-free since January 1. Van Dyke oversees the effort to curb tobacco use by the public in five Northwestern North Carolina counties. Funding for the effort is provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Ga.
The Watauga County School system imposed a new tobacco-free policy on January 3, and the high school campus is absolutely smoke-free. At one point smoking was allowed in the teacher’s lounge and in specially designated areas for students. With the new policy in place, however, smoking is no longer allowed anywhere on campus—not even in cars.
“We’re a no smoking campus 24/7,” said Tom Trexler, Watauga High School assistant principal.
“There’s no dipping, no going to the car for a smoke. Students have consequences that we deal with if they are caught smoking. Adults, we just tell them to put it out.”
Trexler said that he has noticed fewer adults and students smoking in the past two to three years prior to the implementation of the tobacco-free policy, and he attributes the decrease to education.
At Avery County High School, the campus is tobacco-free for students and faculty. Football fans are permitted to smoke in the stadium, but they are encouraged to move up and out of the main seating areas. No smoking is allowed in the building and elsewhere on campus.
“There’s an awful lot of mouth tobacco used in Western North Carolina,” said Joe Weld, one of two assistant principals at Avery County High School. “We used to have a terrible time with it; kids would be spitting in the corners.”
Weld said he has noticed a decrease in tobacco use among students and faculty since he started as a teacher at the school 23 years ago.
“We have to punish a kid for smoking about once every two weeks,” he said, “and I hardly ever smell cigarette smoke.”
Tobacco-free policies were adopted at Cannon Memorial Hospital and Watauga Medical Center on February 14.
“The way our policy works is that there is no smoking or use of tobacco anywhere on our grounds,” said Bill Farthing of Cannon Memorial Hospital. “If a patient’s car is parked on our grounds, they cannot go out to smoke. Instead, we try to offer alternatives, such as nicotine patches and nicotine gum. The reason we have taken this stance is that as a health care facility we see what the use of tobacco does to people; we are taking a stance that we are looking after their wellbeing. When somebody checks into the hospital, they are given a copy of our no smoking policy. We started this last Tuesday, and I am glad to say we have had to ask only four people to put out their cigarettes.”
Farthing said that hospital employees are not permitted to step out to their cars for a smoke because they would re-enter the hospital smelling of smoke.
“We’ve had, at Cannon and at Watauga, 46 employees who have recently gone on the patch or who have asked for help to quit smoking,” said Farthing.
At some hospitals in other towns, patients must go to their cars—I.V. bags and all—if they want to smoke.
Ninety different restaurants—or two-thirds of dining establishments in Watauga County—are smoke-free. In Boone, Wendy’s and Golden Corral have most recently adopted a tobacco-free policy.
Debbie Broome, owner of The Peddler Steak House on Blowing Rock Road in Boone, said the restaurant she owns and runs along with husband Murray has been completely smoke-free for the past two years.
“When the town imposed restrictions on smokers in restaurants a few years back, we just barely qualified for a smoking section to be set up,” recalled Broome. “Over the past two years, we became totally nonsmoking, and I think it has been better for business to do that; we used to have people waiting for a table in the nonsmoking section of the restaurant, and there would be empty tables in the smoking section. We do not have a bar, however; it is strictly dining.”
Broome said that her restaurant has no restrictions against stepping outside to smoke, and an outdoor ashtray is available for patrons who smoke.
Both Watauga and Avery counties have adopted strict tobacco policies, but nothing has come close to the stringent ban on smoking that Calabasas, Calif. recently approved. A new ordinance makes it illegal to smoke in almost every outdoor area of the city, including streets, parking lots and sidewalks.
Tobacco-Free History
The Tobacco-Free Movement officially began in 1830 as an adjunct to the Temperance Movement, and was referred to at that time as the Anti-Tobacco Movement. In 1990, smoking was banned on all interstate buses and on all domestic airline flights of six hours or less. The Pro-Children Act of 1994 required all federally funded children's services to become smoke-free. Also in 1994, OSHA proposed strict workplace standards on environmental tobacco smoke, and by 2000, all flights between the United States and other countries became smoke-free.