SMOKING OUT THE HEALTH NAZIS
City Hall plays Big Brother on a burning issue

At the door the anti-smokers are handing out pizza-sized green lapel buttons reading "SUPPORT SMOKE-FREE 100%" One by one, they troop up to the mike.

David Baxter of the Toronto Workers' Health And Safety Legal Clinic tells the 75 assembled citizens that "involuntary exposure to second-hand smoke is the equivalent to violence against workers, violence against women and newcomers, and permitting it also amounts to condoning child abuse."

I mean, please.

Next up, voice teacher Honey Novick, who sings a paean for a smoke-free town: "We'll schmooze and we'll dance and we'll breathe in clean air/ We'll eat out more often and bring lots of friends/ And no stinky clothes will we bring home."

Then Dixit, 29, steps up -- mop of hair, Moosehead jacket, black leather boots. "For me it's personal," he says. "I'm the owner of the Duke of Gloucester. I started drinking at the Duke. That's where I grew up. And I graduated from University of Toronto in psychology there. It's my home. There's over 200 people I consider regulars, who come to my pub five nights out of seven."

"Well maybe they have a problem then," says Councillor Michael Walker.

"Yeah, that's about the level I expected from you," shoots back Dixit. "I had to borrow a lot of money to buy that pub that I love so much. I'm doing OK, but if I have so much as a drop in sales of one or two per cent, it will bury me. And 70 per cent of my customers smoke.

"I run a very legal pub and it's hard to do that. But if you pass this I will find every loophole around it. I'll just privatize and charge a $2 a year membership."

City Council votes July 2 on a proposed bylaw "to prohibit smoking in restaurants and entertainment facilities effective Jan. 1, 1997, except that a proprietor may establish a designated smoking area which is fully enclosed, separately ventilated and does not exceed 25 per cent of the indoor seating area." If owners can prove they get three quarters or more of their revenue from booze, they can permit smoking in 50 per cent of their joint -- until Jan. 1, 1998.

SAINT PETER THE SMOKELESS

Ever vigilant to get both sides, I swing uptown. Just three doors east of the Eglinton Theatre, Thomas Hinds is handing out stogies to all and sundry, plus Upper Canada Lager, Oban single malt scotch and cappuccino, to celebrate his newest temple of tobacco.

The place is wall-to-wall and you couldn't cut the air with a blowtorch. Hmm... no babies writhing on the floor in death throes from second-hand smoke. Why not? It's called Freedom of Choice. You wanna smoke, die, writhe, wheeze, stink, whatever? Here ya go, says Hinds.

It's a bit different from aircraft or offices. There, there's less choice, so I'm glad they're smoke free.

"There's been 1,000 people through here," says Hinds. "They're enjoying fine scotch, good beer and great food, and the key is you can smoke anywhere you wish."

(One speaker told the Board of Health there are now six smoke-free restaurants on Bloor St. W. That's cool. Let the consumer decide.)

Hinds says city, fire and police reps tell him the new bylaw won't touch him since his beer taps and cappuccino maker are just adjuncts to his main biz, which is selling pleasure (and death).

By the door to Hinds' place sits Orlando Ortega, 60, unilingual Spanish-speaker. He's visiting from Cuba, where he's rolled cigars for 42 years, to give demonstrations. The proposed bylaw is bad news for him, he says.

"I'm like the guy who runs the funeral home," he says. You ask him, 'How can you be happy that people are dying?' And he answers, 'Hey, if they don't die, my business doesn't grow.' "