Ontario bans smoking on patios

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: STEPHANIE LAI
Smoking will be banned on patios in the New Year, but there's bound to be backlash.

The province of Ontario is banning smoking on patios effective January 1. It will be illegal to: smoke on bar and restaurant patios, smoke on playgrounds and public sports fields and surfaces, sell tobacco on university and college campuses.

These changes are part of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act.

The Out Back Shack (OBS) will be affected, and OBS operations manager Gary Deline thinks it will take time to adjust.

“It’s going to be a learning curve,” he said. “The one thing [it] doesn’t really affect is the summer time, because we’re closed.”

“There are a number of students who’ll want to smoke and drink on the patio when they come back to school in September and once in the spring, when the weather gets nice again.”

Deline says OBS patrons still smoke on the patios in the wintertime.

“We may have to look at some way of controlling that,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to affect us as much as other bars that have larger patios than us and are open all summer and cater to smokers continuously.”

“I still think it’s going to be a challenge to police it.”

The reaction from students is what Deline will prepare for.

“Reactions to it are going to be negative,” Deline said. “A lot of what I’ve heard so far is that Ontario is just trying to be the nanny and make sure that everyone in Ontario is taken care of as opposed to letting people make their own decisions.”

There is a smoking area outside of the patio, and when winter rolls around, Deline says there might be options to patrol drinks while in designated smoking areas.

“If you wanted to bring your drink out to the patio so you could still watch [it] to make sure it doesn’t get drugged or removed or dumped, then you can,” he said. “They wouldn’t be permitted to remove the drink from the patio, and they wouldn’t be permitted to smoke on the patio with their drink.”

“It would just be a matter of informing people [like] the manager on duty just to let people know if someone’s smoking on the patio.”

To Fanshawe College staff Greg Wochner, drinking and smoking go hand-in-hand.

“I can’t sit down and have a beer and not smoke,” he said. “The reason why patios came up in the first place is so smokers could go outside.”

“All of a sudden people started putting their noses where they don’t belong are telling you how you should live your life.”

Deline had the same sentiment.

“I do think that the government maybe has gone a little too far with this,” he said. “I think telling smokers that they’re not allowed to smoke outdoors now is pushing them and segregating them into another area.”

“I think anybody that’s an adult that wants to go out and smoke can make decisions for themselves.”

Police Foundations student Tanya Melvin thinks this will have a negative effect on businesses.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” she said. “There’s going to be a financial impact.”

“If people go to bars they’re not going to stay long, or they just won’t go at all.”