Under 21 denied entry for work to businesses that allow smoking
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October 7, 2007
CHATTANOOGA — Tennessee’s new smoking law has forced some businesses to release employees who are under 21 years old, and some businesses want to change the law to protect their underage workers.
Caitlin Grant, 20, has mixed drinks at a Chattanooga bar for several months, but now she’s not old enough to enter the Electric Cowboy as a customer.
She and a half-dozen other employees at the bar can’t keep their jobs since a no-smoking ban inside workplaces began Monday.
The Electric Cowboy continues to allow people to smoke inside by prohibiting anyone who is not at least 21 from entering, an exemption to the smoking ban.
“It’s totally unfair and contrary to what we were told just a week ago,” Grant said Friday after learning she had lost her job. “I’m old enough to smoke, to fight for my country and to serve alcohol. But they say I can’t work just because somebody else smokes in the same building. How am I supposed to support myself and my child?”
State Sen. Jim Tracy, R-Shelbyville, a sponsor of the anti-smoking law signed by the governor in June, said the Tennessee Department of Health made the decision to ban workers younger than 21 from working in smoking environments.
“You hate to see anyone lose their job, but I understand the health department’s reasoning,” Tracy said.
Rena Doss, another 20-year-old bartender who lost her job this week, said the smoking ban has left her in a difficult situation.
“I chose to work there. I don’t smoke, and nobody was blowing smoke in my face,” she said. “This was a good-paying job for me, and I have bills to pay. What am I supposed to do now?”
Vance Cheek Jr., an attorney for the bar that has locations in Knoxville and Johnson City, said he believes the health department “is overreaching and using an overly broad interpretation of the law” in its regulation of restaurants and bars.
Cheek said that if the General Assembly had known that the smoking ban was going to cost people jobs, they would not have approved it.
“We intend to comply with the health department regulations to this point. But we also want to do what we can for these hardworking employees,” Cheek said, adding he’ll ask for a change to the smoking law if regulators don’t change their policy.
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