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For Restaurants
Ready to go smoke free? Or at least give it a trial run? We can help make the transition smooth. We have tips on making a plan, promoting your business and involving key players.
Checklist for Going Smoke Free
Going smoke free is good for business: it helps reduce operating costs, caters to the majority of customers and gets you ready for a potential ban on smoking. Follow these steps to help make the transition easier.
- Announce management’s commitment to creating a smoke-free workplace to employees. Focus on the benefits to your business.
- Get all the facts and help you need to make your restaurant smoke free. Contact the Seattle/King County Health Department at (206) 296-7613 for tips, assistance and promotional support.
- Determine a timeline for going smoke free, including the day you are going to make the announcement, when signs will go up and the date the conversion will be complete.
- Create a written document that clearly outlines your new policy. Share the policy and implementation timeline with employees through a staff meeting and/or a letter from the owner of the establishment.
- Announce the policy change to customers well in advance of the actual change through signs, messages on food and bar bills, etc. You may want to have one-on-one conversations with regular customers who smoke to explain your decision and ask for their continued patronage.
- Make changes to facilitate the smoke-free policy: Remove ashtrays, matches and other smoking paraphernalia. Post “No Smoking” or “Smoke-Free Restaurant” signs at your entrance and other places around your restaurant. Remove cigarette vending machines.
- Promote the change through advertising, special events, etc.
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Promotional Ideas
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Are you interested in going smoke free, but not sure how it will affect your business? You may want to try it for a month, a week or a day. Promotions can bring excitement and fun to going smoke free. “Testing the water” can also calm your concerns and fears about becoming entirely smoke free. The following are just a few promotional ideas that restaurants and bars can use to publicize their new smoke-free status.
- Make Wednesdays (or other day of the week) smoke free for a month. Display signs and table tents, and include messages in your ads to let customers know. You may want to offer food specials or discounts to encourage new customers to try your restaurant.
- Go smoke free for the Great American Smoke-Out (typically in November). Support the smokers in your bar or restaurant who want to quit for the day.
- Host smoke-free wine nights with the message that smoky air and fine wines don’t mix.
- Host smoke-free happy hours featuring food and drink specials. Encourage customers to come mingle, meet new people and go home without smelling like an ashtray.
- Offer smoke-free hours. Make your restaurant or bar smoke free after a certain time of day, such as 4 p.m.
- Host a smoke-free evening charity event. Invite a charity of your choice to have a smoke-free fundraiser at your establishment.
- Use the holidays to host smoke-free themed evenings such as Halloween, Christmas or New Year’s Eve.
- Offer a place to watch televised sporting events such as football, hockey, basketball, baseball or soccer in a smoke-free environment. Or celebrate the Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup or Play-Offs without smoking.
- Have a smoke-free children’s art contest. Encourage children to draw art that focuses on how much better food tastes in clean air. Display the artwork to promote a smoke-free environment. Offer prizes for the best drawings.
- Offer free gum, pencils, marbles, toothpicks, licorice, pretzels, nuts, etc. for people trying to quit or refrain from smoking.
- Have games on tables or available on request to help keep customers busy so they don’t think about smoking. Make it fun with a “Hands-free Thursday.”
- Add entertainment such as live music, a poetry reading or a fashion show in a smoke-free environment. Or partner with a salon to offer manicures during happy hour.
- Be sure to let us know when you go smoke free so we can list your business in our online and printed smoke-free restaurant and bar guide. Click here to let us know you’ve gone smoke free.
Success Stories
Since going smoke free the Whistle Stop Ale House has attracted quality staff and loyal customers. Their bottom line increased by 40 percent in the first six months after they made the switch.
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Membership
Join the many others who have successfully made the smoke free switch and become a member of the Seattle Smoke Free Coalition.
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