Very Strong Support for Ontario-Wide Law on Smoking Rooms

By huge margins, the public of Ontario favours province-wide legislation to bring about uniformity to rules governing smoking rooms in bars, bingo halls, and other similar facilities. By a similar margin, Ontarians favour provision of ventilated smoking with restrictions on patrons and employees.

These are the key findings from a n=500 representative survey conducted by COMPAS on behalf of the Canadian Restaurant and Food Association, Ontario Horse Racing Industry Association, Ontario Accommodation Association, and the Ontario Restaurant Hotel & Motel Association May15-17, 2004.

Supporters of province-wide legislation for achieving consistency in smoking room rules outnumber opponents by more than 3:1—72% scoring 4-5 on a 5 point support-oppose scale vs. 19% scoring 1-2. Among Ontarians with strong opinions, supporters outnumber opponents 4:1—63% scoring 5 vs. 14% scoring 1, as shown in table 1.

Supporters of the idea of “separate, ventilated smoking rooms with patron and employee restrictions” outnumber opponents about 3:1—66% scoring 4-5 vs. 24% scoring 1-2. Among Ontarians with strong opinions, supporters outnumber opponents 3:1—59% scoring 5 vs. 20% scoring 1.

Support for separate rooms and for province-wide legislation is uniform across demographic groups and, most importantly, among smoking groups. Regular, casual, former, and non-smokers resemble each other closely in their attitudes. To the extent that there may be any differences, regular and casual smokers may be even more favourable to the idea of separate smoking rooms, albeit fractionally so, while they may be marginally less enthusiastic about province-wide legislation.

About half the population has never smoked. Among the remainder, the largest group consists of ex-smokers. Regular and casual smokers together account for about a fifth of the population.

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