Earlier this year Curtiss Guy read all those alarming reports about second-hand smoke and decided to do his customers a favor: He banned smoking from his New Queen of the Sea Restaurant on the South Side.
Guy not only cleared the air, he almost cleared his restaurant.
“The customers told me, `If we can’t smoke, we’ll leave,’ ” Guy said.
And they did. Guy said he lost about two-thirds of his business during the two-week trial run, failing to realize that the New Queen of the Sea customers consider smoking an inalienable, mentholated and sometimes unfiltered right. He might as well have abolished silverware.
Across the city such pockets of politically incorrect resistance, as the rest of the world more or less gracefully accepts the anti-smoking juggernaut, are the target of a proposed City Council ordinance. The measure, which is expected to be voted on Wednesday, would require all restaurants to set aside 30 to 50 percent of their seating for non-smokers.
That, in fact, is what Guy decided to do voluntarily, but let it be said that his customers aren’t above fuming about the implications.
Willie Moore, a customer at the New Queen of the Sea, seemed to sum up the view of most smokers.
“When I finish eating, I like to light up,” Moore, 54, said, clutching his pipe. “And there should be a place where we can smoke.”
Moore, like many smokers, said he did not mind sharing half a restaurant with non-smokers but was wary of any further restrictions.
“I think 50 percent is fine, anything further-that’s too much,” he said.
The New Queen of the Sea, 8701 S. Stony Island Ave., is a staple of the South Side, an establishment without pretense but with more than its share of character. It’s a no-nonsense restaurant, sans maitre’d, with a sign near the door that urges customers to “Please seat yourself and serve yourself.”
It’s a place where they put folded up napkins under the legs of a wobbly table; where you can find a table full of old-timers arguing about last night’s game; where you can get a Hercules breakfast (three eggs, double order of bacon, grits and toast) for $4.25.
It’s open 24 hours and they see all types. At lunch and dinnertime, there are the workers from the nearby Soft Sheen hair products factory. After midnight, there’s the late night crowd from the nearby taverns. And, of course, there are the breakfast regulars where businessmen in three-piece suits sit next to retirees in baseball caps.
Edward Lewis, one of those retirees, said he also did not mind sharing the space but added that the restrictions were part of a growing attempt to slam smokers.
“I don’t mind being told where to smoke,” Lewis, 70, said. “But I feel a little offended. I mean, I’ve smoked all my life and now I’m a crook.”
However, smokers at other restaurants were not as magnanimous about the proposal.
“I don’t think that sort of thing should be mandated or legislated,” said Scott Addison, who was enjoying a cup of coffee at Earwax, a restaurant at 1564 N. Milwaukee Ave.
“I think the City Council ought to keep its nose out of such matters because it’s the prerogative of the owners, it’s a pact they have with their customers,” Addison, 43, said.
Addison, who rolls his own cigarettes from pipe tobacco, said the ordinance was a product of those who exaggerate the dangers of second-hand smoke.
“I’m a little bit burned out on nicotine Nazis who are hypochondriacs about (second-hand smoke),” he said.
And, when told that Ald. Edwin Eisendrath (43rd) was the sponsor of the ordinance, Scott said, “Oh, he’s addressing his yuppie-granola constituents.”
Current laws mandate that restaurant owners consider nonsmokers but do not specify a minimum area and that’s the way Guy, owner of the Queen of the Sea, thinks it should stay.
“In my opinion, the ordinance should be as it is now-unclear,” he said.
Other restaurant owners felt the ordinance was inevitable.
“It’s a sign of the times,” said George Lemperis, owner of the Palace Grill at 1408 W. Madison St.
“Everybody’s health-conscious and smoking is definitely not fashionable anymore,” he said.
And what do non-smokers think about the cries of “smokers’ rights”?
“I think (smokers) are infringing on their own rights to live in a clean environment,” said Denise Booker, of Rockford, who was sitting in the non-smoking section at Wishbone, 1001 W. Washington Blvd.
“It just stinks. Their clothes reek and they always walk around smelling like they’ve been burning up,” Booker, 38, said.
“It’s not a good habit and they should consider their health.”
But smokers like 67-year-old Warren Johnson, who was enjoying a Commander cigarette at the Queen of the Sea Thursday, said he’s not worried about any ill effects of his habit.
“Everybody says this will kill you and that will kill you,” Johnson said.
“Let me tell you, I’ve been run over by a bus, hit by a car; they said I was dead when the car hit me. I’ve been in 13 automobile accidents, had a steering wheel in my chest. My head’s been split open three times.
“So, smoking’s nothing compared to that.”
