At precisely 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon, a Niagara County health inspector gave the final OK to the enclosed, separately ventilated room at the front of Foley's Tavern on Buffalo Avenue.
A few minutes later, legal smoking returned to a Niagara Falls bar for the first time since the statewide smoking ban took effect last July.
Becoming the first business to get a waiver from the Niagara County Health Department was a time-consuming, expensive proposition for Roger Foley and Phil Beacher, partners in the business for six years.
Their accountant had to assemble the paperwork to show that the smoking ban led to a drop in revenue of more than 10 percent -- a loss of closer to 20 percent in their case. They had get their plans approved by the city engineer's department, build walls to enclose the 10-by-15-foot room next to the bar, install a new ventilation system to keep smoke from leaking out into the bar area when the door opens and go through three separate city inspections. Total cost -- about $4,000.
"We were aggressive," Foley said. "That's why we got it done before anyone else."
Both men, each a non-smoker, said they still strongly oppose the ban, but couldn't sustain the lost revenue any longer.
"It's part of doing business now," a resigned Beacher said. "It's time to get with the program."
After the ban passed, they built a patio behind the bar at a cost of $10,000 to accommodate smokers. That helped the bottom line -- until the first frost.
Despite having the first bar with a legal smoking room, the two men don't expect a huge increase in new business.
"All we're looking for is for our customers to hang around longer, like they used to," Beacher said. "Before we got this, a lot of them would go outside to have a smoke and figure, 'Might as well get in my car and go.'"
The Health Department and its director, Paulette Kline, have been the targets of a flood of criticism -- including plenty in this space -- for their enforcement methods and initial handling of appeals by businesses receiving citations. But Foley's experience hints that the department has adopted a less hostile stance.
"They've been helpful all the way through the process," Foley said. "They're in an awkward position. They're taking all the heat, but it's not their fault there's a stupid law."
Other bar owners said more recent appeal hearings have been much less contentious, with health department officials almost apologetic. While no businesses appealing their fines have been cleared entirely, most first-time fines have been lowered from $250 to $100 on appeal.
Many questions remain about the waivers. What about new businesses that can't demonstrate a loss since the ban's implementation, since they weren't open yet? What about the half-dozen bars and restaurants near Foley's in LaSalle? Can they apply for waivers based on the loss in business they'll inevitably experience now that customers can smoke inside at a competitor's establishment a few steps away?
Whether or not the county will extend the two-year waivers indefinitely also remains unclear -- Chautauqua County officials announced last week that they won't extend the one-year waivers granted by that health department.
A similar decision in Niagara County would leave Foley and Beacher with a very small, very expensive front room. Both said they'd take that in stride, too.
"We'll turn it into a barbershop," Beacher said.
The thaw that started slowly late last week and accelerated through the weekend made it possible to actually see oncoming traffic when pulling out of parking lots and off side streets along Niagara Falls Boulevard after weeks of guessing, closing your eyes and punching the accelerator.
The gradual retreat of the mounds of snow and ice also recalled a bit of local political trivia, inspiring a new, very occasional Citycide feature: Who Said It?
After one particularly brutal storm, what City Council member commented on the brutally slow pace of snow removal from streets and sidewalks by quipping, "God brought it, let God take it away"?
See the last item of this column for the answer to this first installment of Who Said It?
Fifteen retiring members of the Niagara Falls Police Department were honored during a dinner Friday at the Days Inn by the Falls. Between them, they put in a total of 467 years on the force. "The loss of more than 450 years of experience is certainly a big one for our city," said Mayor Vince Anello. "These men have served our community well. On behalf of the entire community, Linda and I want to thank them and wish them and their families all the best in the years to come."
The retirees, their years of service and rank upon retirement:
Thomas Winegarden (29 years, officer), Gorden Warme (34, captain), Andrew Viglucci (33, captain), John Soltys (33, captain), Ronald Petrino (29, officer), Louis Oliveri (29, officer), John Miller (31, lieutenant), James Lincoln (29, detective), John Eodice (32, officer), Paul Dombrowski (29, officer), Arthur Casilio (34, lieutenant), David Bird (30, lieutenant), Timothy Bailey (32, officer), Michael Arber (34, officer), Charles Ansel (29, lieutenant).
We didn't have room for this one last week, but the settlement requiring the city to pay $1 million to Wendall Stonebreaker as compensation for getting hit by a street sweeper shouldn't be allowed to slip into the ether of history.
First off, there are the allegations made to Citycide by several Department of Public Works employees that the driver of the sweeper was a good buddy of former director Paul Colangelo who had no business operating any piece of heavy machinery.
Apparently, his skill pounding in lawn signs and handing out campaign literature outweighed his inability to navigate a machine that has an extremely low top speed without maiming someone. With management skills like that, city taxpayers should consider themselves marginally lucky that, even though they're still paying Colangelo $63,000 per year in his new job as a grant writer, at least he's not hiring people to run heavy equipment anymore.
Then there's the mental image conjured by accounts of the incident, a low-speed chase that makes O.J. Simpson's ride in the white Bronco look like a scene from a Steve McQueen movie.
Mostly, though, the whole affair raises two serious questions:
Answer to the inaugural Who Said It?
The Niagara Falls Reporter's Bruce Battaglia, after the legendary Blizzard of 1977. Battaglia's flip response didn't exactly resonate with voters unable to navigate city streets or, in many cases, leave their houses. While popular local mythology holds that he was on a taxpayer-funded junket in either Florida or California, depending on who's telling the story, Battaglia maintains that the quote was delivered during a City Council meeting and documented in a story by the late Jerry Brydges in The Other Paper.
"You could look it up," Battaglia said.
He decided elective politics wasn't for him soon after, and embarked on a career path that's made him what he is today -- the longest-tenured publisher at any Niagara County newspaper.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 2 2004 |