Ohio taxpayers have paid more than $2 million to rid bars, restaurants and workplaces of tobacco smoke since the statewide smoking ban took effect in 2007, a sum that opponents say could be better used elsewhere.
The state has spent $3.2 million so far to identify businesses that are violating the smoking ban, to look for infractions and to process them through the court system, according to information released by the Ohio Department of Health to state Sen. Bill Seitz, a critic of the smoking ban.
Health authorities have issued $1.2 million in fines and collected about $400,000, the health department said.
Critics of the smoking ban, which was approved by 58 percent of Ohio voters in 2006, point to the data as evidence that taxpayers are putting a lot of money toward patchy enforcement of the smoking law while violators shirk their fines.
"Even if they collected every single dime of every fine they've issued, they've still spent more than $2 million," said Pam Parker, owner of a Grove City saloon and a regional director of the Buckeye Liquor Permit Holders Association.
Backers of the smoking ban take the opposite view. They say $2 million over nearly three years is a modest sum to reduce smoking rates in Ohio and protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke. Since the ban took effect, Ohio's adult smoking rate dipped from 22.5 percent to 20.2 percent, according to the Ohio Department of Health, although the trend might not be attributable to the no-smoking law alone.
The state Health Department says smoking-related health costs in Ohio come to about $4.37 billion a year, including $1.4 billion to Medicaid, the federal-state health-care program for the poor and disabled.
"I don't think this has been an unreasonable cost for enforcement," said Mandy Burkett, chief of the indoor environment section at the Ohio Department of Health. "I think the costs will be recouped by savings in other areas, particularly health-care costs."
Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican and a smoker himself, said every dollar spent to look for smokers or ashtrays is money that could b used to pay for education, health care or other good causes.
"It's a matter of priorities," Seitz said. "We are in unprecedented times."
He said bars should be able to purchase "smoking licenses" - similar to a liquor permit and costing a few thousand dollars - that would exempt the businesses from the ban. Money from the licenses then could be used to enforce the smoking law at businesses that aren't exempt.
Seitz's idea may face the same fate as other proposals to weaken the statewide smoking ban. Attempts to exempt certain businesses, such as fraternal organizations and family-owned bars, have fizzled in the legislature. Public-health advocates regularly trot out polls showing strong public support for the ban.
Seitz's "smoking license" idea isn't the only route by which certain businesses might be able to exempt themselves from the ban. Zeno's, a Columbus bar that the state sued in August for repeatedly violating the ban, is challenging the constitutionality of applying the law to bars that are restricted to people 21 years or older.
"It might be perfectly constitutional to bar smoking in certain buildings or sports stadiums or family restaurants, but here you have a business that's only 21 and up and that has a bar that's big enough where someone can sit on one side of the bar and not bother someone on the other side of the bar," said Maurice Thompson, the attorney for Zeno's.
Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David Cain has not ruled on the case.
In Franklin County, the number of investigations into suspected violations has ebbed since authorities began enforcing the statewide ban in May 2007. (Many Franklin County jurisdictions, including Columbus, had local no-smoking laws that predated the statewide ban.)
The Franklin County Board of Health investigated 273 cases in 2007, 200 in 2008 and 163 in 2009, according to records. More than half of the cases were dismissed each year.
The health departments in Franklin and Delaware counties, which receive 90 percent of fine revenue for cases they investigate plus a flat rate from the state Health Department, say the ban hasn't been a big financial burden.
"We haven't had to add staff to get the investigations done," said Stephanie DeGenaro, the head tobacco enforcer for the Delaware General Health District.
