B.C.’s war against second-hand smoke continues – now with a new awareness campaign from the B.C. and Yukon division of the Canadian Cancer Society and Vancouver hot shop Rethink.
Print, television and radio ads broke on Jan. 31 with the message ‘What if bars catered only to the minority? When it comes to smoking, many do.’ The campaign is based on Health Canada’s finding that only 17% of British Columbians smoke.
A television spot shows a strange comedian take the stage and start telling jokes in an indecipherable language. Only one member of the audience laughs. A newspaper ad shows a spoof of an ad for pay-per-view Highland dancing special at a local sports bar with the same message. A postcard ad shows ‘Sumo Wrestlers Singles Night,’ an equally improbable draw.
Smoking regulations for bars and restaurants have been a hot topic since the B.C. Workers Compensation Board first proposed sweeping anti-smoking legislation in 2001. The WCB wanted smoking banned in all bars and restaurants to protect workers from the effects of second-hand smoke. Bar and restaurant owners were quick to point out that the regulations would hurt their businesses, and the economy of British Columbia. The provincial government agreed and relaxed the proposed regulations considerably.
Present legislation allows bars and restaurants to offer smoking rooms so long as they provide a ventilation system and hospitality workers spend no more than 20% of their shifts in the rooms.
According to anti-tobacco groups like the Canadian Cancer Society, that’s not good enough. Workers will still be exposed to second-hand smoke.
The Canadian Cancer Society, in partnership with the B.C. Lung Association and the Heart & Stroke Foundation of B.C. and the Yukon, took a humorous slant to suggest that bar and restaurant owners could benefit by choosing to go smoke-free.
‘A lot of tobacco-control PSAs are heavily focused on a strong health message,’ says Cheryl Rhyll, spokesperson for the Canadian Cancer Society.
‘We realize that even smokers know that smoking isn’t good for them. The real issue is that the majority of people don’t smoke. We wanted to do a campaign that focuses on that sector instead of shaking fingers at smokers, or at bar and restaurant owners. The tertiary message is that smoking is not a healthy behavior, and that second-hand smoke is really dangerous.’
The campaign, produced with the help of a $750,000 grant from Health Canada, was designed to complement a TV campaign from Health Canada, which shows a waitress with cancer warning of the dangers of second-smoke.
‘The one piece of information that we didn’t have any idea about was how many people actually smoke,’ says Rethink art director William Hammond, who worked on the campaign with art director Hylton Mann and writer Heather Vincent. ‘When you go into a bar, you think it’s probably 60/40%. When we found out that it’s only 17%, we felt that as a business idea, catering to these people is not a smart move. What establishment would have a special night for single sumo wrestlers?’
Or, for that matter, a singles night, as one radio spot advertises, for published sonnet poets.
Media will concentrate on non-urban areas of B.C. where municipal by-laws and social norms are less friendly to non-smokers than the province’s major cities.
A web site (www.smokefreebc.com) created by Vancouver’s Vision Critical provides further information for people in those communities who want to take action to lobby for additional anti-smoking regulation. The site includes background information, a petition, and the contact information of government officials in a position to effect change.
