South Australia diners don’t want smoking outdoors at their restaurants, indoor or outdoor

HOTEL and restaurant patrons are strongly supportive of banning smoking outdoors at licensed venues, new research from Flinders University shows.

HOTEL and restaurant patrons strongly support banning smoking outdoors at licensed venues, new research from Flinders University shows.

More than 80 per cent say it is unacceptable for someone to smoke around them in an outdoor eating area and more than 50 per cent are in favour of all outdoor areas of pubs and restaurants being non-smoking.

The researchers say arguments that people do not want and would not patronise venues which were smoke-free outdoors were “increasingly difficult to sustain”.

The survey of 135 patrons leaving hotels and restaurants was conducted by the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction.

It found people were more likely to be tolerant of smoking in outdoor areas where food was not served, but still 53.4 per cent said it was “not OK”.

Almost 60 per cent said they would be more likely to visit a hotel or restaurant which was smoke-free outdoors.

Although 52.6 per cent favoured smoke-free outdoor areas, support was greater from study participants leaving restaurants than from those leaving hotels.

Lead author Professor Ann Roche said there was strong support, even among smokers, for restrictions in outdoor areas of licensed premises.

“It adds to an expanding body of research that highlights a shift in community views about smoking in public places and greater expectations that smoke-free areas will be readily available, especially where food is consumed,” her report in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health says.

“Putative arguments that patrons do not want or would not use facilities that did not allow smoking are increasingly difficult to sustain.

Business owners should be reassured that such restrictions are likely to have little negative impact on patronage.”

However, Australian Hotels Association SA chief executive Ian Horne said that was “a nonsense argument”.

“Our industry is caught between expectations of the health lobby and expectations of a percentage of our customers,” he said on Tuesday.

“At the end of the day, it’s the bank manager and what’s in the till that will have more impact.”

Mr Horne said hotels had adapted “brilliantly” to the indoor smoking ban, but it had cost them.

In May, Health Minister Jack Snelling announced smoking would be banned in all outdoor dining areas in South Australia by July, 2016.

Smoking would be allowed in outdoor drinking areas, but only where no food was served. The two years would allow the hotel industry to adjust, Mr Snelling said. Smoking is banned in enclosed areas, including those with shades, of hospitality venues.