Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994 TAG: 9403040077
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Greg Edwards
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It also has caused a public relations problem for the independent owners of Western Virginia McDonald's franchises - some of whom, at least, are not going along with the smoking ban.
In response to the ban, a tobacco growers' organization has taken a swing at McDonald's, hoping to hit where it thinks the restaurant chain is vulnerable.
"Fast-food restaurants like McDonald's banning smoking is a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black," the Tobacco Growers Information Committee said in a statement.
"The tobacco industry can't hold a candle to McDonald's when it comes to enticing our young," the growers' statment said. "What is so wise about feeding your children high-fat hamburgers, french fries, sodas, fried fruit pies and cookies, and then providing them with a smoke-free environment."
A call to McDonald's headquarters in Oakbrook, Ill., for a response to the tobacco growers' attack went unanswered.
Mike Grimm, who owns the franchise on 16 McDonald's restaurants in Western Virginia, including 40 percent of the McDonald's in the Roanoke Valley, defended his restaurant's menu. "We don't sell junk food," he said.
McDonald's cooks with vegetable oil and offers such menu items as bran muffins and salads, he said.
Forrest Thye, an associate professor of human nutrition and food at Virginia Tech, said McDonald's has developed a low-fat menu and is now offering several items that are reasonable in their fat content.
Thye said he wouldn't put smoking and a high-fat diet in the same category as health risks. The evidence is strong against smoking as a contributor to heart disease and cancer, but the degree to which a high-fat diet contributes to ill health and death is not as well-established, he said.
McDonald's announced on Feb. 23 that it was banning smoking in company-owned restaurants and encouraging franchise operators to go along. With that decision, about 40 percent of 9,100 McDonald's restaurants nationwide now ban smoking.
The McDonald's restaurants that haven't banned smoking are independently owned franchise operations. All McDonald's restaurants in the Roanoke Valley are franchised.
At the same time McDonald's made its announcement, a national association representing 90,000 chain restaurants announced it was backing a bill by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., to end smoking in all restaurants and other buildings used by the public.
Both announcements were prompted by an increasing number of nonsmokers who have demanded freedom from smoke in restaurants, said Terrie Dort, executive director of the National Council of Chain Restaurants.
The Waxman ban would provide an easy out for restaurant managers torn between demands of their smoking and nonsmoking customers. It also would provide a "level playing field" for the 30,000 restaurants that already have banned smoking, Dort said.
The McDonald's decision has drawn more fire from tobacco growers than past smoking bans.
"This one just really struck us with McDonald's being the flag-bearer of the fast-food industry," said Lisa Eddington, managing director of the growers' committee and an employee of the Flue-cured Tobacco Stabilization Cooperative in Raleigh, N.C.
"This is a serious issue, because a lot of tobacco growers in small communities are patronizing McDonald's. We want them to know that their money is welcome there, but their product is not," Eddington said.
Johnny Angell, a tobacco grower in the Penhook section of Franklin County, said he wouldn't be buying any more food at McDonald's. Other tobacco growers with whom he recently discussed the issue would be buying their hamburgers elsewhere, too, Angell said.
And smokers, particularly those in a tobacco growing area such as Franklin County, probably will go to the restaurants that continue to offer smoking sections, Angell said.
The McDonald's in Rocky Mount is a franchise operation that still provides a smoking section and may be spared the growers' wrath. The restaurant's owner, Larry McCarty, knows Franklin is a tobacco county and plans to "sit back and see what happens."
Grimm said he has decided to keep the smoking sections in the restaurants he owns, except for one at Valley View Mall where smoking never has been permitted and which is too small for separate seating areas. He is worried that franchise owners will suffer from a corporate decision over which they have no control.
Growers such as Angell feel under siege with restaurants banning smoking, the Environmental Protection Agency declaring secondhand smoke to be a cancer risk and the Clinton administration proposing an enormous increase in the federal tax on tobacco products to help pay for its health-care reforms.
Not unexpectedly, the growers are striking back.
They've joined tobacco companies in challenging the EPA's secondhand smoke study in court, lobbying against the Waxman bill in Congress and have a big Washington rally planned on Wednesday.
They're also not letting challenges like those presented by McDonald's go unanswered.
by CNB