Smoking at Sweetwaters snuffed out by state board By Molly Walsh Free Press Staff Writer The new sign posted at the front door of Sweetwaters bar and restaurant in Burlington gives smokers a bit of bad news. Regulars who once lit up freely around the bar at the downtown eatery must now head to the great outdoors if they care to smoke, a change resulting from a recent Vermont Liquor Control Board ruling. The Oct. 27 decision rejected Sweetwaters' bid for a cabaret liquor license renewal and effectively removed the ashtrays from the establishment. The ruling came after more than a year of legal haggling over the cabaret license, a liquor permit that exempts bars from a 1995 state prohibition on smoking in most indoor spaces with public access, including restaurants. About 375 cabaret licenses are in place this year in Vermont. To obtain the license, businesses must show that the sale of food is less in amount or volume than the sale of alcoholic beverages and the receipts from entertainment. Sweetwaters is in an old, two-story building at the corner of Church and College streets. The bar is off to one side on the first floor, with no wall separating it from tables where food is served. From 1995 to March 2001 Sweetwaters served alcoholic beverages under liquor licenses that did not permit smoking. Then the state approved the business's request for a cabaret license. Smokers were allowed to indulge in the bar area. A Sweetwaters patron subsequently complained to the state, saying he and other customers were being subjected to tobacco smoke at a business that had every appearance of being a restaurant in a state where the law prohibits restaurant smoking. The state declined to renew Sweetwaters' cabaret license in 2002. Sweetwaters fought that decision for 15 months, arguing that the Vermont Department of Liquor Control should allow net sales rather than gross receipts in the calculation of the cabaret test. Smoking was allowed as the battle went on. In late October, the board rejected the net sales argument on the grounds that the law intended gross receipts to be the standard. William Goggins, director of education, licensing and enforcement for the Vermont Department of Liquor Control, personally went to Sweetwaters and delivered the board order. "I get out in the field as much as I can," he said. Christopher Ellis, vice president of Hospitality Well Done, the company that owns Sweetwaters, was disappointed by the board's decision. Without the option of smoking, Sweetwaters' customers might simply opt to walk down the street to bars that can allow smoking, Ellis said. "We will certainly lose bar business, which is our most profitable business." Patrons at the Sweetwaters bar area early Wednesday evening were few, but they were all happy about the smoke-free air. Laurie Hill and Mike Nelson exclaimed in unison "absolutely" when asked if the snuff-out in Sweetwater's was a good thing. "I wish all bars were non-smoking," said Nelson, adding that even non-smokers end up smelling like an ashtray when they leave a smoky bar. "That is just absolutely nasty." Another patron, Jeff Mann, said he likes Sweetwaters better as a no-smoking establishment. Still, as someone who likes to smoke when he's drinking a beer, Mann wondered if Sweetwaters' bar business would suffer. "I think it's going to require this establishment to be more creative to bring people in." Sweetwaters waitress Hannah Strobl said she prefers a smoke-free workplace. "It's a better, cleaner working environment." A proposal to eliminate cabaret licenses and ban bar smoking in Vermont is heading back to the Legislature in January. It failed last session after critics, including Ellis, said it was heavy-handed. Ellis is conflicted about the proposal. Closing the cabaret loophole appeals to him on one hand because it would standardize the rules for businesses that serve alcohol, he said. On the other hand, the policy strikes him as government's meddling in private enterprise. "Don't prescribe for business owners who pay taxes and rates and fees and everything else what they are allowed to do in their premises, which they bought and paid for," Ellis said. Contact Molly Walsh at 660-1874 or mwalsh@bfp.burlingtonfreepress .com