City leaders will decide the fate of smoky barrooms in Cambridge this month.

Cambridge’s nine city councillors will likely vote this month on an ordinance banning smoking in all restaurants and bars, legislation which has been hotly debated in public hearings since last spring.

The ban would go into effect in May 2003. Currently, four councillors have expressed their support, leaving the ordinance one vote shy of passing.

Today, the councillors will meet once again with the commissioner of public health to try for a compromise.

But with strong lobbies on either side—and competing economic and health concerns—vying for the councillors votes, middle ground might be hard to find.

Advocates of the ban, supported by local restaurant workers’ unions, say that the ban is a necessary measure to control a health risk and to make sure waiters and bartenders have safe working environments. They argue that the dangers of second-hand smoke could be lethal to the wait staff.

“To me it’s a public health issue, plain and simple,” says Councillor Henrietta Davis.

But the ban’s opponents say that the prohibition would primarily hurt Cambridge’s small businesses, which could lose their customers to bars in neighboring communities that have no smoking restrictions on the books.

The decision comes down to the nine councillors.

Four councillors have expressed active support of the ban. Three are expected to vote against the ban. And two are as yet undecided—Councillors Anthony D. Galluccio and E. Denise Simmons say that they support the intent of the ban, but not the ordinance as it stands.

Unless a compromise is worked out between a wide variety of divergent interests, the ban as it stands now may go up in smoke.

A Growing Movement

Several opponents of the ban have said they would not support a smoking prohibition for Cambridge restaurants unless it were applied across the Commonwealth.

But a statewide smoking ban is unlikely in the near term, because Gov. W. Mitt Romney and other state leaders have yet to express support for such legislation.

Nevertheless, the smoking ban movement has started to spread, city by city, throughout Massachusetts and the nation.

Brookline, a suburb 20 minutes outside of Boston, was the first in the state to implement a ban in the mid-1990s, and over 50 towns and communities have followed suit. This December, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino signed a ban on smoking for restaurants throughout the city.

Eateries in California went smoke-free almost five years ago. Even New York City, known for its vibrant nightlife and bar scene, will have a ban in effect by the end of March.

“The thing we have to primarily take into concern is the science that concerns public health,” says Harold D. Cox, Cambridge’s chief public health officer, who has filed recommendations for the ban.

But the process in Cambridge is trickier than in other cities.

Elsewhere, a smoking ban has been handed down from a health commissioner and signed into law by a mayor, bypassing the need for a vote by a larger legislative body

But because Cambridge’s ban would, in effect, amend an earlier regulation from the city council, only the votes of five councillors could make smoking illegal in bars and restaurants.

The Case for a Ban

Director of University Health Services David S. Rosenthal ‘59, who works on the project Tobacco-Free Mass., says he wants Cambridge to be a leader in the statewide ban movement.

“Cambridge should have been way up front,” Rosenthal says. “I am disappointed that the city councillors haven’t seen that and are still caught up in the fact that they may be interfering with the economy.”

“People unknowingly—waiters, waitresses, as well as patrons—are being exposed to tobacco smoke,” Rosenthal says, adding that “those filters do not do the job.”

The councillors who support the ban say that it is an issue of protecting the restaurant workers.

“Why should you have to choose between your health and your job? You shouldn’t,” says Councillor Davis. “We protect workplace health elsewhere.”

Some claim that it is simply an irritant, and that out of common courtesy to non-smokers and the allergic, smoking in public should be prohibited.

Cambridge political pundit Robert Winters, who is a longtime supporter of the ban, says that some of his reasoning is personal.

“Part of it is just simple selfish reasons. I have friends in bands,” Winters says. “I’ve reached the point where I can’t even go to their shows anymore because I am hacking to death, and I feel miserable afterwards.”

The Decisive Votes

Councillor Tim Toomey and Mayor Michael A. Sullivan, who could not be reached for this article, have said they don’t support the ban because they fear it would cause negative economic repercussions.

The two decisive votes—Simmons and Galluccio—have more complicated concerns.

Although the two other members of her party—the liberal Cambridge Civic Association—have signed on as ban supporters, Simmons has said that she would only support the ban if it were modified to include clear rules for implementation.

Unless punishments or fines are clearly stipulated, small businesses could be hurt, Councillor Simmons says.

“Will businesses be cited or penalized or fined if there is loitering outside their establishment? Will they be cited or penalized or fined if there is rubbish outside their establishment? I don’t want businesses to call me and tell me they’ve got a $150 fine because of noise,” she says.

She says she’s worried that restauranteurs might face a double hit: the loss of smoking patrons and steep fines because those who do come might noisily loiter outside or leave behind cigarette butts.

“I have some real concerns about the adverse impacts on small business,” said Simmons, whom herself runs an insurance company. “As an owner of a small business myself, I can attest to the fact that there will be some impact.”

Simmons is quick to add that she personally hates smoking, particularly because her mother, a longtime smoker, recently died of esophageal cancer.

But as of today’s meeting, she is not ready to vote for the ban.

Galluccio, too, says that he is holding out for a compromise on the ban.

Galluccio says that he would support a statewide ban on smoking, but does not want to support a ban that could put Cambridge bars at a disadvantage to nearby bars in Somerville and Watertown, where smoking is still allowed.

“I have particular concern for the small restaurants and bars that have been the ethnic and cultural meeting places,” Galluccio says. “I don’t want to see them take a hit because of the competitive disadvantages.”

For now, Galluccio says, he could support a ban which made allowances for “small levels of smoking in some cases.”

Like other observers, Galluccio doesn’t foresee passage for the ban as it stands now.

“I don’t think there are votes on this council for the language that is proposed,” Galluccio says.

—Staff writer Alexandra N. Atiya can be reached at atiya@fas.harvard.edu.