Last gasp for Victoria’s alfresco smokers?

As the Victorian government considers calls outlaw outdoor smoking, communities – from Melbourne’s social suburbs to Frankston, where a trial has been carried out – are divided over the idea of a ban.

By JOANNA LEE

It is a Monday night but the courtyard of Windsor’s Lucky Coq is packed with boisterous twentysomethings, each sporting a drink in one hand and a long, white stick in the other.

One could be forgiven for mistaking the place for a 1950’s bar in New York, à la Mad Men. There may be no suits or jukeboxes in sight but the people are just as stylish and the music just as lively. And, of course, there is the unmistakable communal haze – that hangs over the scene, as nicotine lovers spit out mouthfuls of smoke in between sips of beer and drunken laughter.

It is a scene that may be nearing the end of its time, however, as pressure to implement anti-outdoor smoking measures in Victoria mounts.

Quit Victoria, the Heart Foundation, Cancer Council Victoria, and the Australian Medical Association, four of Victoria’s biggest health bodies, released a statement earlier this year urging the Baillieu Government to introduce a statewide ban on smoking in alfresco dining and drinking areas. The proposal is currently under consideration.

While major cities including Sydney and Brisbane have long since adopted smoke-free legislation in alfresco dining and drinking areas, Melbourne remains relaxed.

But it seems that it is no longer a question of if the smokers will ever be evicted from refuges like the Lucky Coq, but when.

“Smoking at bars and clubs is smocialising,” one of the drinkers, Katie, jokes. Like most patrons here tonight, she’s indulging in the usual vices over a casual catch-up with friends.

A Marlboro is wedged in the corner of her pursed lips, as she digs through her large handbag. She’s fishing for her lighter, lost in the midst of gadgets and make up. Almost immediately, someone pulls out a lighter from her pocket, putting a halt to her quest. The group of friends light up. Inhale, exhale, a sip of beer.

Ms Van Wetering, 21, hardly fits the usual stereotype conjured up by the term ‘smoker’. Fresh-faced and impeccably dressed, she is more job-interview than grunge-rock. While she is willing to label herself as a ‘smoker’, her habits vary.

“Sometimes I go a week without; other times, it’s like three to four on average.”

Her habits are usually exacerbated by other smokers, or going out at night – because, as she explains, “You think, why not?’”

But it is also partly due there being a time and place for everything; she swears by her rules to never smoke in front of her parents and during work breaks.

“If I can’t smoke at a café or a bar, the two most enjoyable places [to smoke], then I actually don’t know where I would,” she says.

Smokers like Katie are less concerned about the health benefits they may reap from a ban on outdoor smoking, and more concerned with the breach of their civil rights.

“Of course it will be a big deterrent, and of course it’s for the benefit of our health, but it’s just another leap forward to Australia becoming a nanny state,” she says.

The past few years have seen the tobacco giants and their customers moving steadily towards defeat in the ongoing cigarette war. The Australian Government has made a persistent commitment to reducing cigarette consumption, through several tobacco tax hikes and now, plain-packaging – an international first.

Statewide legislation banning smoking in all alfresco dining and drinking areas in Victoria may signal another win for the health bodies. But is it a step back for civil liberties?

Stefano Mazzeo, another Melbournian smoker, is vehement about his right to smoke. “If I wanted to quit, I would quit.
“It shouldn’t be dictated upon me by government, because it’s my choice. If you’re going to do that, you may as well make it illegal.”

Frankston City Council is no stranger to the turmoil that comes with being at the centre of such a polarising issue. It is one of the few local governments in Victoria to have implemented any sort of outdoor smoking ban at all.

The initiative, which began in November 2010, imposes a smoking ban in certain areas of the town centre, particularly those with high pedestrian traffic.

“It wasn’t an easy decision, given that smoking has always been seen as a person’s rights and so on,” says Paul Maas, who is currently overseeing Frankston’s Smoke Free Outdoor Area initiative.

Maas reveals that compliance has, at times, been an issue, and often it is the same people that resist the council’s rules.

“Some of these people just don’t understand what community is all about.”

He is quick to insist, however, that the initiative was not a case of council “going into it like a bulldozer”.

He says not only have Quit Victoria and Peninsula Health been actively involved from the outset, the public has also been consulted through various surveys and forums. Though public opinion seemed divided during the early stages of its inception, with only 56% agreeing that it was a good idea, 74% of people are now in favour of the continuation of the initiative.

The council has now expanded the ban, with reserves, playgrounds and certain areas of the beachfront now within the smoke-free zones.

But the initiative is far from perfect. Last year, the proposal to make alfresco dining areas smoke-free was rejected so while smoke-free zones may be theoretically smoke-free, smoke clouds are far from absent on the streets of Frankston’s city centre. It was, as Maas is willing to admit, a bit of a “back down”.

“Some traders, in particular the cafes within the area, felt it was a little bit restrictive on their ability to look after their customers,” he explains.

The Coffee Club and Ha’Penny Bridge, an Irish pub, both on busy Wells Street, consistently attract as many, if not more, smokers than non-smokers. ‘Smoke-free’ means little to both venues, as signs of smoking remain as visible as ever – ashtrays neatly perched between sugar sachets and menus on every table, cigarette butts on the ground not yet swept up. It is a scene wholly different from the sort of healthy and robust, cigarette-free environment Frankston City Council aspires to.

Frankston’s Gloria Jeans, on major shopping strip Shannon Street, had been a part of the initiative from the very beginning. When a trial was put into place in 2010, the café was forced to become smoke-free. Now that the proposal has been rejected, and the ashtrays are back on the table, supervisor Rebecca would rather see them gone.

“It didn’t affect business that much,” she says. “We did lose some of our customers, but we also gained some new ones, like mums with prams or kids.”

While the issue of alfresco dining areas in Frankston may, for the time being, stay relatively untouched, local government legislation would effectively be overridden if the Baillieu Government decides to take action.

Maas says the state government should provide legislation right across Victoria.

“We’ve been in contact, and addressed our concerns to the state government about what we think they should do – and that would be for the state government to show the lead.”

In the meantime, smokers remain relatively unaffected, but also increasingly outraged, as they continue to endure bullet after bullet, shot from the government’s anti-smoking gun.

“If they care so much about our health, then why not place stronger restrictions on drinking?” Katie says.

“Yes, there is no such thing as second-hand drinking,” she adds, before anyone can counter her analogy. “But drunk people on the streets can create disorder, violence and harass other people.”

“By the way, I don’t think they should ban alcohol,” she motions to the drink in her hand, before taking a sip. Then, taking one last drag from the cigarette in her hand, she stubs it out. “It’s just a double standard.”