Aged Smokers Out in the Cold

B.C. Report News Magazine, January 11, 1999

What have they been smoking?

In the name of health, the Capital Regional district (Victoria, B.C.) forces seniors to light up outside - by Kelly Jane Torrance

Peter Blashill photo

Oak Bay seniors: Their home is no longer their castle.

When Hilda Avison was born in 1907, an average woman's life expectancy was less than 60 years. Now going on 92, this resident of the Oak Bay Lodge, a home for the aged, looks forward to reaching her centenary, despite a tobacco habit barely two decades younger than herself. Mrs. Avison is hardy but does not relish braving the chill Victoria air every time she wants a cigarette. But this is precisely what the Capital Regional District (CRD) will force her and other lodge residents to do come 1999 when a total workplace smoking ban comes into effect. (note: this article was written prior to Jan 01st - the ban is in effect at the time of this post)

As of January 1 smoking is prohibited in all buildings and motor vehicles in the CRD, excepting private residences and vehicles. Individuals defying the bylaw face fines of $200 to $1,000, business operators $500 to $2,000. It includes intermediate-care homes like Oak Bay Lodge, which has about 275 residents, a 10th of whom now smoke in a ventilated room. Last month the CRD board voted against an amendment that would have allowed Oak Bay to keep its smoking room. The lodge was given a few months to comply.

Dian Stevenson, a Capital Health Region public health educator, says the ban was implemented primarily for the health of employees. "In each (old age) facility, less than 20% are smokers, and it's usually 5%," she says. "It means everybody else is being exposed to secondhand smoke, and also workers...The people who are complaining are by far in the minority."

Mrs. Avison complains she is being treated like a stranger. "They don't have any place outside for us," she complains. "To sit out on a day like today, you're out in the rain. This is our home and I think there should be some consideration given to it. This is supposed to be a free country, you can do what you like. They're taking all the privileges away from everybody, not just us."

According to an Angus Reid poll, the ban is supported by 65% of the CRD's population, but Oak Bay Lodge board chairman Andrew Maxwell believes in minority rights. "We have a smoking room that was designed and built and paid for by the Ministry of Health, which totally meets the Workers' Compensation Board guidelines. We do not intend to close it," he declares, adding that this decision is supported by legal counsel. "We're in the middle of a nasty snowstorm. Forcing people to go out of doors in this kind of weather is little short of imbecilic."

The lodge's smoking room is totally segregated from the residents' area; and, as an intermediate care facility, residents are capable of moving in and out of the room without employees assistance. Mr. Maxwell, a non-smoker, believes it is more dangerous to compel seniors to smoke outdoors - or in their rooms, which resulted in two deaths from fire in the 1980s.

It is not only seniors who are angered by the smoking ban; Ms. Stevenson admits, "A lot of the businesses have fears about the fact it's going to affect them." She disputes claims of lost revenues, "In California, when tax data came in after the first quarter after the ban in bars, revenues were up 6%." (A survey by the American Beverage Institute, however, found that business in the two months following the ban was off by an average of over 26%; other results were more fighting and fewer tips.)

Gordon Card, owner of Victoria's Monkey Tree Pub and co-chairman of the Victoria Age of Majority Business Coalition, has studied smoking bans in California and elsewhere; he estimates receipts will fall by at least 20%. He says, however, this is also a matter of principle. "We're letting the third level of government, the CRD, control us," he declares. He also worries about the power demonstrated by the regional medical health officer, Richard Stanwick, who campaigned for the bylaw. (Dr. Stanwick did not return repeated calls from this magazine.)

The coalition has taken its case to the Supreme Court of B.C.; it will be heard in April. "If I put a huge sign on my building, saying this is a smoking building, it's dangerous to enter, hazardous to your health, and someone over 19 decides to come in, that's up to them" - including employees," Mr. Card argues. He doubts bylaw enforcement is practicable and warns, "If you go into a big bar or cabaret at one in the morning, there are 50 people smoking, and a bylaw officer says put them out, he's not going to last very long in there."

****