Restaurants smell new opportunity with May 1 smoking ban

Publication Date: 2010-04-16

• Author:Ron Krueger
• Publication:The Flint Journal

Entering Latina Italian Restaurant in Flint Township, if you look to your left, you see a bar with eight to 10 stools. Taking a second look, you see a not-small room with booths lining the outside wall, a dozen tables and a pool table at the far end.

The bar is the tip-off this is the smokers’ room. So, if you are not a smoker, you veer right and enter the smoke-free dining room.

But all that changes May 1. With the state law banning smoking in all public places except casinos and cigar bars taking effect, the sports-oriented barroom is fair game for all who enter.

Bridget and Mike Hawley figure that, in the longer run, both sides will fill up and, after a few weeks, the smokers will accept the change and drift back.