Atlantic Station Smoking Ban Begins Saturday

As the BB&T Atlanta Open tennis tournament begins play, smoking at the Midtown mixed-use development will now be limited to designated areas

Hunt Archbold, Patch Staff

Posted Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 8:02 pm ET|Updated Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 8:06 pm ET

Just in time for the BB&T Atlanta Open, Atlantic Station will begin enforcing a smoking ban on Saturday, July 14.

In a news release, Atlantic Station said that in order to accommodate all guests, designated smoking areas, marked with “Smoking Spot” signs, will be easily accessible throughout the mixed-use property.

All of Atlantic Station will now be smoke-free, with the exception of the following designated smoking areas. (see attached graphic) These areas will be available starting Saturday:

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State Street across from Target
the corner of Atlantic Drive and 17½ Street
District Avenue between 17th Street and 17½ Street

Two additional spots will be available July 23, after the tennis tournament ends:

State Street across from Yard House
The East side of Market Street at 19th Street

Atlantic Station’s owners said it made the decision to enact the ban after receiving overwhelming support via social media in favor of prohibiting smoking at the Midtown property. The management team regularly engages their social network when making decisions on everything from special events to new retailers.

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Atlantic Station is the first mixed-use development in Atlanta to implement a smoking ban in its common areas. The City of Atlanta is now following suit, pushing to prohibit smoking in all Atlanta parks.

With regard to the possible City ban, Jeremy Richards, Ph.D., Southeast Regional Director, and Director of Historical Research of the Citizens Freedom Alliance, recently sent an email to Atlanta politicians and Patch, outlining the reasons he feels smoking bans don't work.

Richards, who is a non-smoker, got involved in the struggle against smoking bans after Georgia passed its statewide ban in 2005.

In the email, Richards lists a number of links to articles about failed smoking bans all over the world. The list, which is much too extensive to list in full here, includes the links to failed bans in North America and a few health related studies.

Read on to see what Richards had to say:

Elected officials of ATL,

I recently read on the Internet that the issue of an outdoors smoking ban had been raised in the city. I would strongly urge caution on this issue.

It is true that even these outdoor Mayor Bloomberg-esque bans have had some popularity recently. However, in my research on tobacco prohibitions I have discovered that many of the smoking bans (both outdoor and even some indoor) have begun to fail.

Last week Norcross city council repealed an outdoor city ban. Also, within the last year and a half a smoking ban was repealed in Campbell County, KY, and bans have been scaled back in York County, SC, Galveston, TX, the ENTIRE state of NV, and the nation of the Netherlands, not to mention numerous other indoor and outdoor smoking bans that are just outright ignored (including the park ban in NYC).

This is one issue that the ATL city council needs to avoid. I believe the police have much more important issues to deal with.

Note my growing list of failed/failing smoking bans below.

Failed Norcross parks ban (ban repealed)

Failed Campbell County, KY ban (ban repealed)

Failed York County, SC ban (ban partially scaled back)

Failed Galveston, TX ban (Galveston partially backtracks)

Failed Nevada state ban (big scaleback)

Failed Atlantic City ban (Partial scaleback for casinos)

British Columbia outside hospital ban

Failing Canadian hospital ban

Hawaii ban (legislator wants to allow smoking permits)

Failing college campus ban / Failing University ban 2

Failing MN ban (legislators want scaleback)