Beaufort passes smoking ban, will sell bonds

By BRANDON HONIG
843-986-5532
bhonig@beaufortgazette.com

Customers in Beaufort bars and restaurants have lit up for the last time, as the Beaufort City Council passed a smoking ban Tuesday that went into effect immediately.

However, the council agreed to allow smoking in outdoor dining areas after hearing an impassioned plea from a downtown worker.

"The last couple of years have been tough downtown, and small businesses have suffered," said Cherrie Wiles, who works at Hemingway's Bistro. "I don't think downtown Beaufort can take another huge hit like this. If this (ordinance) passes, I'm going to be out of a job."

Wiles, a non-smoker, said some small-business owners had told her they were already looking to move to Port Royal, which has no smoking ban. Beaufort County instituted a smoking ban in January 2007.

Prohibiting smoking indoors would not be a problem for businesses, she said, but the ordinance that the council preliminarily passed two weeks ago also would have eliminated smoking in outdoor dining areas and within 10 feet of an entrance to any business, which Wiles said would drive away customers.

She added that banning smoking in outdoor areas would affect not only restaurants and bars but also retail businesses because many people who go downtown to eat, drink and shop might not make the trip for shopping alone.

Councilman Mike Sutton proposed amending the smoking ordinance to allow smoking anywhere outside the door of a business. He suggested revisiting the ordinance in a year to determine if smoking should be prohibited in outdoor dining areas or within a certain distance of a business' entry.

The revised ordinance passed 4-1. The only opposition came from Councilman Gary Fordham, a former smoker who said he finds cigarettes disgusting but thinks businesses should be allowed to regulate themselves.

"I think for brevity's sake, we should call this The Big Brother Ordinance," Fordham said in reference to George Orwell's book "1984."

Under the ordinance, anyone who witnesses a person smoking indoors in public is instructed to contact city manager Scott Dadson, who would then direct a police or codes-enforcement officer to address the issue.

Individuals and businesses that violate the ordinance would be assessed a fine of $10 to $25. Repeat business offenders could lose their business license.

Separately, the city sold $15 million worth of 20-year bonds to a division of Wachovia on Tuesday. The bonds will be paid back with 4.14 percent interest.

The city had been expecting to pay about 4.4 percent interest, but the rate came down after the city's bond ratings were upgraded by Standard & Poor's last week and by Moody's this week.

Dadson said the city's financial adviser estimated those upgrades will save $85,000 to $100,000 in interest payments on the bonds. The upgrades were the result of the city having "embarked upon a strategic path to put its financial house in order" after chief financial officer Shirley Hughes was hired in 2006, Dadson said.

The interest rate was also reduced because Beaufort gained voter approval for the bond issue by holding a referendum last November in which more than 70 percent of voters approved it, Dadson said. Before the referendum, the city was expecting to pay 4.9 percent interest. Hughes said the city's financial adviser estimated that the city saved $1.4 million in interest by holding the referendum and instituting the new financial policies.

The capital generated by the bond issuance will be used to expand the Ribaut Road fire station and build a new city hall and a building to house the city's courts and police department. Work on the courts and police building has begun near the corner of Boundary Street and Ribaut Road.

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