Pair of area restaurants follow no-smoke trend
Pair of area restaurants follow no-smoke trend
Perkins, Carmelita’s latest to go smoke-free
By LAURA KIRBY, DMG Writer
HOUGHTON — Two more restaurants in the Copper Country are following the lead of other establishments that have decided to stub out smoking in their buildings.
Owners and managers at Perkins Family Restaurant in Houghton and Carmelita’s Southwestern Grille in Calumet have both decided to call it quits and create “clean air dining.”
“That’s what I like to call it,” said Carmelita’s owner Sandy Mitchell. She decided to ban smoking inside the newly opened Mexican-style eatery on June 1, but still allows customers seated on their outside porch to light up, not to follow trends, but rather because that’s what customers seem to want.
“No one wants to smell stinky cigarettes when they’re eating,” she says. “I’m a smoker myself and I can go outside, or I can wait. It’s not a big deal.”
It’s hard to tell as yet whether the move has affected business since June is typically a slower month in the restaurant industry, Mitchell said. One group told her they would not return due to the no-smoking policy, but positive comments have so far outweighed the negative.
“People will come in and say ‘We love it.’” she said.
Employees love it too, she notes, especially one of her waitresses who is allergic to the toxic chemicals and irritants in cigarette smoke.
Perkins Manager Sunny Perry agrees. He can literally smell the difference in air quality since the restaurant banned smoking since July 1.
Perry said business has taken a slight hit in terms of some regular guests being deterred. But overall, customer traffic isn’t up or down from last year’s rates, and the real test will be when college students return to the area in fall.
Right now, “most will come in anyway and go outside and have a smoke,” he said. “We still get our regular guests.”
Management had discussed the change for the past six months, in keeping with a growing trend for family restaurants.
“It seems like almost all family restaurants are going smoke- free,” said Perry. “I think people expect it these days.”
Findings of a recent study by Michigan Tech University students agreed most customers surveyed in Houghton and Hancock wouldn’t be deterred by a smoking ban in restaurants and bars.
Graduate students of “Air quality and the built environment” spent spring studying air quality issues, including cigarette smoke in the workplace, health effects of first- and second-hand smoke and smoke-free policies.
The group surveyed customers in 12 local bars and restaurants to see how people felt on the issue locally. They talked to 326 people, 24 percent of whom were smokers and 76 percent of whom were nonsmokers, proportions approximate to the population, according to the Center for Disease Control.
Overall, they found both customers and employees prefer less smoke exposure, no matter what their own choices are on cigarettes.
Mitchell said she hopes her customers feel the same way, and that a no-smoking policy in Carmelita’s can become part of the restaurant’s image rather than hinder it in breaking into the market as a new business. Nevertheless, if customer traffic drops, in the long run she might reconsider the ban.
“This is the hospitality business after all and the customer dictates,” she said. “I hope it works.”
Laura Kirby can be reached at lkirby@mininggazette.com
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