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Background and significance: A law mandating smoke-free bars (AB 3037) went into effect in California, January 1, 1998. This event, where a change was applied to a large group of people, provides a "natural experiment" and an opportunity to determine the effects of this change in public policy on tobacco-related attitudes, the bar/restaurant business, smoking behavior and exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) within the community. We plan to focus our study within the city of Long Beach. Long Beach has a distinguished history as a city at the forefront of local tobacco control. It has had a local Tobacco Ordinance to protect workers from ETS since 1991. In 1994 an amended Ordinance, which prohibited smoking in all restaurants and restaurant/bar combinations, was passed. (Smoking was permitted only in stand-alone and separate ventilated bars, where 1/3 of the area was allowed for smoking.) Another distinguishing feature is that Long Beach is one of only three cities to operate its own Department of Health and Human Services. Over the years the Tobacco Education Program (TEP) within the Department has received Proposition 99 funds to educate the public about compliance with new local ordinances and state laws; it has also worked to decrease environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and to counter the pro-tobacco influences in the community.
Objective: The goal of this research project is to determine the community response to AB 3037. Our aim is to analyze the response within the City of Long Beach, a city with a strong, local Public Health Department and an active Tobacco Education Program. A series of response measures from Long Beach after January 1, 1998 will be compared with those from 1992 to 1998. In addition, certain responses will be compared with those of two other cities--Lakewood and Bellflower--which have different histories with regard to tobacco control policies. Unlike Long Beach, Lakewood had no local tobacco control ordinance; Bellflower passed one that went into effect in June of 1991, but it was repealed 10 months later, in March 1992.
Methods: To examine the community response, we will collect and analyze five types of measures:
1. Numbers of complaints about violations of the new law, efforts to promote compliance and enforcement, including fines.
2. Face-to-face interviews within the bar/restaurant establishments regarding AB 3037 attitudes, beliefs about ETS, perceptions of health changes and smoking status of owners/managers and workers. Observations of establishment features will be made so as to categorize them as a contribution to interpretation of results.
3. Sales and tax use data for restaurants, delineated by type of alcohol license.
4. A questionnaire survey of a random sample of Long Beach residents, measuring attitudes and changes in behavior following AB 3037. Results of this survey will indicate policy-related changes in smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke.
5. A content analysis of tobacco-related articles in local newspapers.
Results: The results of this research project will document, through wide-ranging measures, the response from the city of Long Beach to AB 3037, as compared with two other cities that have very different histories regarding tobacco-control policy. The results for Long Beach will be reported by gender, ethnic identity, age and residence location and should be of value to other communities preparing to effect new public health policies regarding tobacco. |
