City council met Monday in a workshop session to go over the proposed North Myrtle Beach smoking ban. Council will do a first reading on the ordinance at the Jan. 23 meeting.
Some tweaks to the proposal will include whether or not to ban electric cigarettes in public places. Construction sites and hallways will fall under the ban if enclosed. Smoking will only be allowed in designated areas in city parks.
A hearty debate began before the workshop between smoker Dick Jones and smoking ban supporter Michael Dunagan.
"It's a simple matter of a choice somebody just has to be man enough or business man enough to make that choice to tell the patrons no or yes you can," Jones said.
Council member Bob Cavanaugh kind of agreed with Jones. He wondered if the free market should decide the issue at least for the next year. Cavanaugh suggested making restaurant owners choose to display non-smoking or smoking on their establishment.
Other council members thought businesses are looking for government to make the decision for them and Dunagan thinks that's the right move.
"I know an awful lot of people, good friends of mine who own restaurants and bars who want to go smoke free, they don't want to lose the revenue," Dunagan said.
Workers at Duffy's Street Seafood Shack on Main Street in North Myrtle Beach haven't seen any real drop off in customers since getting rid of smoking voluntarily three years ago.
"It's been really good, I mean no complaints," Waitress Lisa Causey said.
Causey is a smoker herself, she doesn't smoke around non-smokers out of respect and she has no problem going outside and most of her customers are on the same page.
"They'll say can I light up a cigarette, and I'll say it's non-smoking and they'll be like can i go outside and I'll say yeah. Then they'll go outside and then come back," Causey said.
Hugh Gassaway thinks all businesses should have the choice that Duffy's had, but he doesn't expect to win this battle because he says too many council members support the proposal.
"A lot of them were in essence elected with this particular agenda in mind, I've been to two or three of these meetings and they've already been threatened twice saying they weren't going to be re-elected if they didn't pass it," Gassaway said.
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