Oakland bar owners rage at outdoor smoking crackdown. It could cost them thousands

As if costly commercial rents, high taxes, and inspection fees weren’t enough, Oakland bars say they’re facing a new challenge: anti-smoking laws.

Since January, a city ordinance has banned smoking in all outdoor bar areas and within 25 feet of bar entrances. Some bar owners have received warnings from the Alameda County Public Health Department.

“After this warning, if smoking violation continues, the City of Oakland Code Enforcement Division is contacted for assistance with enforcing the ordinance,” a notice reviewed by The Standard said. An attached leaflet outlines the penalties: $100 for a first violation, $200 for a second, $500 for a third, and up to $1,000 per day for prolonged noncompliance.

“We are all struggling to make it,” said Lexi Filipello, owner of The Lodge on Piedmont Avenue. “Alienating the last retreat of customers doesn’t serve most of us.”

Filipello added that she doesn’t smoke and thinks cigarettes are gross. Smokers often make a mess, she contends, but some patrons show up to light up.

“It should still be a choice of the business,” she said.

Shari Murphy, who co-owns Smitty’s and Baggy’s by the Lake, agrees. She also manages Merchants’ Saloon and said that bar will have to shut down its cigar night, which has been a big draw for years.

“Our night has become very tight-knit, a chance to talk shop and play chess,” Murphy said.

Enforcement of the new law falls to businesses, she said, and that means bars will have to hire more employees at a time when they’re struggling to make ends meet. She’d prefer that the city fine smokers directly.

“It’s another example of the constant ‘signs and fines’ climate we operate under,” Murphy said. 

Some Oakland bars have been fined in recent years for failing to post signage about human trafficking and date-rape drugs, alcohol health warnings, and permits. 

But not all bar owners feel the same. Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon — Oakland’s oldest bar and famous haunt of Jack London — has prohibited smoking on its patio since 2016. Co-owner Elliott Myles said the change didn’t hurt business.

“I’m totally in support of it,” he said of the law. “I don’t think bar owners should be catering to one small, incredibly entitled group of people.”

Myles added that after his bar banned smoking indoors in 1997, gross receipts actually increased. 

Needless to say, smoking is unhealthy. Oakland’s law is designed to protect neighbors, workers, and bar patrons from secondhand smoke. Other businesses, like restaurants, are already barred from permitting smoking in outdoor spaces. 

“Oakland law actually had a special carve-out for bars,” said Amaya Wooding, an anti-tobacco advocate.

Wooding works for an organization called LGBTQ Minus Tobacco, which distributed signage and educational materials to bars after the law took effect. The organization’s work is funded by a state tax on tobacco, and it does not receive city dollars, Wooding said.

Signs the organization provided can be seen at a handful of downtown Oakland bars, including Cafe Van Kleef and Theory. In addition to standard “no smoking” language, they include a QR code that links to resources for people trying to quit.

Wooding noted that LGBTQ Minus Tobacco surveyed customers at Oakland street events and bars in winter 2023-24 and found that only about 10% said they’d attend those bars less often if smoking were banned on patios. Many more said they would come more often, Wooding said.

But two patrons smoking Thursday night outside a downtown Oakland wine bar — a 33-year-old artist and a 53-year-old research scientist — would not be among them. Neither gave a name.

“Fuck that!” the artist cried upon hearing of the law.

“You work hard for your money every day,” the scientist said. “If you can’t light up a cigarette and let your hair down, what can you do?”