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McDonald's Bans Smoking at All the Sites It Owns

McDonald's Bans Smoking at All the Sites It Owns
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February 24, 1994, Section A, Page 16Buy Reprints
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The McDonald's Corporation said today that all its 1,400 wholly owned restaurants would ban smoking immediately. At the same time, the association representing 90,000 chain restaurants backed a bill to end smoking in all restaurants and other buildings used by the public.

The announcements were prompted by the increasing numbers and outspokenness of nonsmokers who have demanded freedom from smoke in restaurants, said Terrie Dort, executive director of the trade association, the National Council of Chain Restaurants. She said 30,000 of the nation's chain restaurants already banned smoking, and the proposed law "provides a level playing field that our industry needs to reach the 100 percent mark."

Until now, restaurant managers have been afraid to ban smoking for fear that their smoking customers would rebel, giving their competitors an advantage. Tobacco Group Protests

Ms. Dort said today that "the only way to resolve this issue fairly" was for Congress to ban smoking in all buildings in one stroke.

Brennan Dawson, a spokeswoman for the Tobacco Institute, which represents the major tobacco companies in Washington, said of the restaurant group, "These people really have overstepped their bounds, and are trying to decide what is best for everybody, from the bingo halls to every workplace in the United States."

She said that if smoking was banned in all restaurants, smokers would not be the only ones to suffer. She said a ban would hurt restaurateurs too. She cited polls by the tobacco industry in which smokers have said that they might go to fast-food restaurants less often if smoking is banned there.

The council of chain restaurants and McDonald's both said they would support the Smoke-Free Environment Act of 1993, sponsored by Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who is chairman of the House Health and Environment Subcommittee. Last week, the bill was endorsed by the Clinton Administration and six former Surgeons General.

McDonald's is the nation's largest fast-food chain, and today's announcement brings to about 3,600 the number of its restaurants that prohibit smoking, said Rebecca Caruso, a spokeswoman. That is about 40 percent of the 9,100 McDonald's restaurants.

The restaurants in the chain that have not banned smoking are franchise operations and cannot be ordered by McDonald's to halt smoking. But Ed Rensi, president and chief executive of McDonald's U.S.A., said the company would "continue to actively encourage our franchises to make their restaurants smoke-free, and more are voluntarily doing so every day."

At a news conference with chain restaurant representatives, Representative Waxman praised the "smart business decision" of the restaurants. "In the most elementary terms, members of Congress must now choose between Ronald McDonald and Joe Camel," he said.

The Waxman bill would ban smoking in every building regularly entered by 10 or more people at least one day a week, not including residences. It would permit building owners to have special smoking rooms in public buildings if they were not used for anything else and were ventilated so that air went directly outside.

The bill would also ban smoking within the immediate vicinity of the entrance to the buildings.

The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Carol M. Browner, has said that her agency estimates that if the bill becomes law, the lives of 5,000 to 9,000 nonsmokers would be spared each year, along with the lives of 33,000 to 99,000 smokers who would quit or cut back cigarette smoking. The savings in medical costs and lost wages would be $6.5 billion to $19 billion a year, she said.

The bill provides penalties for those who run buildings that fail to comply with the law, but relies on court action by local individuals to enforce the ban. The bill authorizes any aggrieved person or agency to take complaints to Federal District Court, where a fine of up to $5,000 per day could be assessed.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 16 of the National edition with the headline: McDonald's Bans Smoking at All the Sites It Owns. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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