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Students search for smoking gun

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Tiffany Green and Lydia Dietz sat on stools on an East Broad Street sidewalk during happy hour Friday evening, but instead of a cigarette or beer in hand, they held clicker counters and notebooks.

Taped to the building behind them were two devices constantly measuring air pollutants.

Green, Dietz and a handful of other volunteers for the University of Georgia Air Quality Lab were collecting data for a group of Environmental Health Science Department researchers who want to find out how much tobacco smoke permeates outdoor environments where smokers congregate.

This past weekend, next weekend, and again in the fall, the volunteers will be recording the number of smokers and other passersby in a handful of downtown locations, as well as monitoring the air for carbon monoxide and particulate matter that is associated with tobacco smoke.

Because local law bans smoking in all bars and restaurants, restaurant goers in downtown Athens are more likely to sit with smokers outside than two years ago, said Luke Naeher, an UGA environmental health science professor who is leading the study.

"There are fairly high levels of environmental tobacco smoke out there - in outdoor public places such as outside of restaurants or bars - but not much data on it," Naeher said. "We want to find out if these levels ... are of public health importance."

"In looking for a location for this study, we are looking at a typical place that has night life," he said.

While Naeher was not necessarily interested in focusing on Athens in particular, it happens to suit the conditions needed for the study, he said.

U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona said last month that secondhand smoke is a "serious health hazard" and called for smoke-free buildings and public places to reduce people's exposure to secondhand smoke.

Carmona made the announcement in connection with a report he released, "The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke," which states there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

Nearly half of all nonsmoking Americans are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, according to surgeon general reports.

The Athens-Clarke County Commission approved a 24-hour smoking ban in 2005, just after Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a state law that restricts smoking in restaurants, but allows it in bars.

From Carmona's statements, "it would seem to follow that the days when smoking will be allowed in public places are limited," he said.

Smoking bans are being passed all over the country and, as they widen more and more to the state level, local governments are less likely to ignore the issue, Naeher said.

"My objective is to provide data on an important research question that has national significance, not to generate data to set or influence local policy," he said.

Whether or not the Athens-Clarke commission decides to limit outdoor smoking in the next few years, "if (Carmona's statements) are any indication of the direction this trend will take, states like Georgia will move in the direction of tighter restrictions on public smoking, anyway," Naeher said.

Emily Sprayberry, a bartender at Molly O'Shea's, said "there's pretty much nothing good" about the current smoking ban. The bar still draws plenty of customers, but O'Shea's has lost business to other bars that have more patio space, Sprayberry said.

As commissioners crafted smoking bans in 2004 and 2005, they considered banning smoking outdoors. In the end, a restriction that would have banned smoking on sidewalks, as well as restaurants' and bars' outdoor patios, was removed before the final vote.

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 071006

Contact Information

Luke Naeher lnaeher@uga.edu