The George & Dragon sued over smoking

By Geeky Swedes · October 12th, 2008 · 9 Comments

Back in June, a customer at The George & Dragon in Fremont complained to the health department about people smoking on the bar’s outside deck — a health code violation. While the complaint prompted an email flame war and some publicity, it was far from an isolated case: 15 complaints were logged against the bar over a 4 month period, reports the Seattle Times.

That was enough for Public Health to sue the establishment this last week. The suit asks a judge to fine The George & Dragon $100 a day until it complies with the law, which requires a 25-foot buffer zone. Stay tuned…

9 responses so far ↓

1 Matt Stephenson // Oct 12, 2008 at 11:47 pm

I say let them smoke, it keeps them off the sidewalks. I personally find the George and Dragon not to be my kind of bar…
2 Pioggia // Oct 13, 2008 at 7:35 am

but what if it WAS your kind of bar, and you were genuinely allergic to cigarette smoke?

My husband still can’t go to concerts he really really wants to see at the Capitol Club up on the Hill because they also routinely ignore the smoking ban.

I concede that the law could have been written a little better so that establishments could have created smoking patios for those patrons who indulge, but that the rest of us didn’t need to walk through or near, but overall I think the law has been wonderful. Our concert (and bar) attendance has gone up dramatically since it went into effect.
3 js // Oct 13, 2008 at 8:07 am

Keep government out of private buisness. soon they will be in your home. I dont like smoking either, i just dont go where they indulge in it.
4 EnduroDriver // Oct 13, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Now as I recall this whole smoking ban was around worker safety and employees being forced to work in a hazardous environment. Well I’m totally on board with that, nobody should be forced to inhale dangerous toxins as part of their job. Following that logic we should also ban all hazardous materials so hazmat teams are safe, ban house fires so fire fighters are safe, ban car accidents so auto body shop workers are safe and while we are at it let’s ban airborne diseases so hospital workers are safe. But we don’t ban those things because we have identified the risks and invented tools to deal with those risks. OSHA could very easily issue guidelines for respirator use by restaurant and bar workers to completely protect them from the dangers of secondhand smoke. It’s kind of ironic that the very people this ban was meant to protect are the ones 25ft away from the doorway grabbing a smoke. At least those that didn’t get laid off and had to go find jobs on the Indian reservations where smoking is permitted.

For the record I don’t smoke, never have and prior to the ban would seldom (if ever) frequent an establishment that permitted smoking.

Smoking in bars should be a market based decision and not a law.
5 randi // Oct 13, 2008 at 5:10 pm

blahblahblah..give someone a reason and a source to complain to and they will do it..as a bartender i appreciate the law that bans smoking indoors but outside on a patio, come on people…if you don’t like it, don’t sit outside..it’s oct. anyway and most other times of the year don’t allow conditions for outside seating…oh yeah and its a BAR. smoking and drinking and gambling and other vices naturally go together….if you can’t deal maybe enjoy dining al fresco with a beer at some sort of family establishment…
6 wunderkuken // Oct 16, 2008 at 9:05 am

Let me reiterate that there is no smoking INSIDE the George - when it’s done, it’s outside on the deck. With all the thousands of bars in this city, if you don’t like that bar, or it’s smokers, et al, GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. This suit is a ridiculous waste of time and taxpayers’ money, in addition to a burden on business owners.
7 Lazlo // Oct 16, 2008 at 11:18 am

The other thing that bugs me about this is that in most bars people are no where near 25 feet away from the front doors. They cluster around them and you are forced to walk through the smoke. You could ticket every bar in the city for people being less then 25 feet from a door or window. For most bars 25 feet would be the centerline of the road.

At the George they are on the deck and you dont walk through the smoke unless you go out on the damn patio. If you dont like the smoke dont go on the deck or go somewhere else.
8 Lisa // Oct 16, 2008 at 7:38 pm

The George is a GREAT place to hang out — even for us non-smokers. Lazlo’s right about not going out on the patio if you don’t want the smoke; and it seems awfully reasonable to me to let those who do smoke do so without having to walk down the block in inclement weather (um, which would put them in front of someplace else, right — so how DOES one follow to the precise letter of the law without, as has been pointed out, going way out into the street?).

Meg be damned; save the dragon and save common sense.
9 EnduroDriver // Oct 18, 2008 at 1:04 pm

Here, here Lisa. Let’s all raise a pint to common sense, may it rest in peace.