The Daily News

BOGALUSA - When Maria's Mexican Restaurante opened up 21 years ago, smoking was allowed just about anywhere in the restaurant.

Now, it's not allowed at all, in part due to a state law that banned smoking inside restaurants throughout the state.

At Maria's Mexican Restaurante, a law that bans smoking, has not really affected business, the owner said. Advertisement

The law was passed in 2006, and restaurants had to do away with smoking sections by Jan. 1, 2007, or else build an enclosed bar where smoking could still be permitted. But banning smoking didn't really hamper business, said Maria Dowdy, the owner at Maria's.

There were some unhappy regular customers who enjoyed that after-dinner smoke, Dowdy said. "And some that told me they were never coming back."

Eventually, however, those customers did come back. And Maria's actually enacted the no-smoking rule about the same time the state Legislature passed the law - six months before the Jan. 1, 2007 deadline.

"At the beginning, some were smoking outside," Dowdy said, but that, too, began to die down.

Now, it's only on occasion that a customer will have a cigarette outside the restaurant. Most people just come in, eat, and then leave, the owner said.

"I never lost any business," Dowdy said, adding she feels good about the no-smoking law.

"I think we're saving a lot of people's lives," she said.

Officals with The Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco-Free Living agree. According to that organization, indoor air quality in Louisiana restaurants and bars showed that restaurants had eight times more indoor air pollution prior to The Louisiana Smoke-Free Air Act than they do today. Restaurant air quality, according to literature from the organization, has gone from hazardous levels to moderate levels.

Implementation of the law has gone on fairly smoothly, as well.

According to Murphy Painter, commissioner of the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control, more than 95 percent of Louisiana restaurants are adhering to the law.