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Feature Articles:
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Merritt Island, FL Lodge 2073, right outside the entrance to the Kennedy Space Center, did all it could to sidestep the state’s new no-indoor-smoking statute.
When it became clear that there was no way around it, they sighed and pulled all the ashtrays. At the start, things were rough, but then a funny thing happened . . .
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Please click on any photograph below to view a larger image.
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Exit Smoking...
Enter Success
By Kurt Wehrmeister
> In the early summer of 2003, the officers of Merritt Island, FL Lodge 2073 sighed at the news coming out of the State Capitol in Tallahassee. They viewed it as another headache, a potential setback they really didn’t need.
That June, the Florida Legislature approved, and Gov. Jeb Bush signed, the “Florida Clean Indoor Air Act,” which seemed, fairly clearly, to prohibit smoking in most Moose operations which generated at least 10% of their revenues from food (in relation to beverages). “To be truthful, we looked at it from every possible angle to see if there was a way around it; whether we could be considered a ‘noncommercial’ activity and therefore exempt,” said Tom Meadows, Lodge Governor at the time. “But all the legal advice and opinions we were getting, basically boiled down to the conclusion that yes, it applied to us.”
This wasn’t welcome news. By mid-’03, Merritt Island’s officers felt they were just beginning to hit their stride since nearly having to close down in late 1999. “We’d just been hit by Hurricane Floyd that September, so we needed a new roof for $100,000, plus we had a $130,000 mortgage and owed $50,000 more to Moose International; the electric bill was a month behind, and most of our other bills were too,” said Administrator Fred Jewett of the situation he faced when he took over that month from his predecessor: “He basically walked out and said, ‘It’s yours,’” Jewett recalled.
The new Administrator and his wife, Phyllis, with help from both Lodge and Chapter officers, enforced economies, began to upgrade the food-service menu, and steadily paid off the debts. By ’03 there was a surplus in the bank, and both men’s and women’s membership were both headed upward.
And now, they had to risk all that progress, by alienating the significant portion of their active Social Quarters patronage who enjoyed lighting up while relaxing with a beverage.
But, they set about doing so--making sure to explain the change thoroughly beforehand in the Lodge newsletter, and posting prominent notices throughout the 18,000-sq.-ft. facility. To say things didn’t go smoothly at the start is an understatement.
Allowing for their preparatory announcements, the date set by the Board of Officers to start enforcing the regulation was Aug. 15, 2003. This was six weeks after the law was supposed to go into effect on July 1--and whether it was from a prompt nonsmoker or a disgruntled smoker, someone anonymously informed state health officials that the law wasn’t being enforced on time, and Jewett received a warning notice from state officials on Aug. 18.
Of course, the whistleblower’s action, however ill-intended, actually helped the Lodge officers make their case with irritated smokers. Said Meadows: “I encouraged people who were upset to come to me; I showed them the paperwork we had received, and demonstrated that we had no choice . . . I told the same story a hundred times, but we always explained it--we never dismissed a complaint by just saying, ‘that’s the law’; we took the time to show them the paperwork and explain it.”
A big part of the challenge the Merritt Island officers faced in “selling” the new policy, unfortunately, was the fact that many Moose operations elsewhere in the state weren’t enforcing it nearly so strictly.*
“After a few weeks, the biggest complaint I was hearing was, ‘How come we’re the only Lodge around here that’s nonsmoking?’” said Trustee Ted Sharp. Meadows, who was also District President at the time, said he had to put up with “all sorts of stuff from (nearby Lodges in) Indian River, Titus and Cocoa.”
The leaders of Merritt Island Lodge 2073 and Chapter 1544 (including Administrator Fred Jewett and his wife Phyllis, far right foreground) have good reason to smile these days: Two years after determining--reluctantly--that they had no choice but to enforce the Florida Clean Indoor Air Act, male membership is up by more than 100, women’s membership has skyrocketed from 850 to nearly 1,400. Depending on the night, average receipts have doubled to tripled. And, said Phyllis Jewett, “Most of our diners are saying, ‘the fact that it’s nonsmoking is why we are here.'"
Some of the disgruntlement turned ugly, in the form of minor vandalism; sliced refrigerator lines and graffiti. More manifested itself in predictions of disaster: “Oh, I was told many times that we were going to go bankrupt in less than two years, that we wouldn’t survive this ‘stupid policy,’” said Meadows.
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The view of space shuttle launches from the north patio at Merritt Island Moose Center (where smoking is permitted) isn’t quite this good--but almost!
Administrator Fred Jewett and Past Governors Bill Cressman and Norm Moore in the covered patio area of Merritt Island Lodge 2073, where smoking is allowed. The Lodge has taken roughly $2,000 from its increased revenues and invested in improvements in this area, where smoking is allowed--including new seating and a television set protected from the elements (inset). The outdoor facility also features a commercial-size barbecue grill.
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Guess what? It’s now a bit more than two years later, and Merritt Island Lodge 2073 is not bankrupt, closed, suffering, or even “holding its own.”
On the contrary, it is thriving.
 Above, the Merritt Island Moose News proudly proclaims the facility’s smoke-free status in every issue, adjacent to the calendar of events.
“We’ve never had a summer like we’ve had this year--never,” said Phyllis Jewett. “And most of them are saying the fact that it’s nonsmoking is why we’re here.”
As with most Florida Moose operations, late summer, August in particular, has traditionally been Merritt Island’s slowest time of the year for patronage. “Two years ago, right before we put the smoking ban into effect, we’d be doing well with 15-20 here for lunch, and 175 for a Friday-night dinner,” Mrs. Jewett said. “But last Friday night (Aug. 19), we served 300 people at dinner, and 80 for lunch! . . . To take in $4,000 on a Friday night in August, that’s unreal!”
She continued: “Before we went to no-smoking, there were people who were coming to Friday-night dinner, who would eat and leave; they’d say, ‘We can’t handle the smoke.’ Now they’re coming and staying for the band.”
Sharp reinforced this viewpoint: “I’m convinced the No. 1 reason we’re doing better now, is that we’re nonsmoking. We had people who had quit their membership, who’ve now come back--and have said it’s because of the smoke-free atmosphere. And, most of the people who quit when we went nonsmoking have come back. Some of them haven’t, but most have.”
Given its extremely close proximity (less than a half-mile from the front gate) to Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral with its relatively youthful workforce, Merritt Island has historically had a membership of somewhat younger average age than most Moose operations in retiree-heavy Florida; roughly 20% of the membership works on the Cape, either for NASA or the U.S. Air Force, or for related private contractors that are headquartered there.
But Administrator Jewett said also that the age demographics of Merritt Island’s active patronage are now skewing younger than they were two years ago. “Before, we had very few young parents coming in, because they wouldn’t bring their little kids into the smoke--and I don’t blame them,” he said. “Now, I’d say, we’re getting 30-40% young families in here some nights.”
Added Sharp: “And the younger clientele we’ve gotten in the last two years--a lot of them are volunteers; they’ve got a lot of energy and enthusiasm.”
Not having the smell of smoke hanging in the indoor air has also enabled Merritt Island Lodge and Chapter to strengthen their relationship with the local school district. The principal of the local junior high school had joined as a member before the move to nonsmoking--“but now he’s signing up others, teachers and other staffers,” said Jewett. And in late July this year, with construction underway in that junior-high facility, the district asked, and the Lodge agreed, to having Merritt Island Moose serve as registration headquarters for 800 junior-high students and their parents.
But, Jewett said, “We’re still getting the older couples as well; they love the dancing on Friday nights, and a lot of them love the nonsmoking also.”
One significant feature on the Lodge calendar did go away with the move to nonsmoking: Wednesday night Bingo, which was open to the public by law.
“Bingo folks are smokers, pretty much everywhere--and they quit us,” Jewett said. “We had a payout of $3,200 for a night; ultimately we were taking in only $2,900 . . . the Board of Officers agreed with me, that we couldn’t afford to lose money running Bingo, so we shut it down.
“But in the scheme of things, that hasn’t hurt us a bit,” Jewett said. He noted that the additional revenue from the newly robust, post-nonsmoking patronage has enabled significant capital improvements without undertaking debt: This past summer, $10,000 for a new ceiling in the spacious 7,200-sq.-ft. banquet room; another $10,000 for two new air conditioners. “And we don’t owe anybody,” said the Administrator with a broad smile.
Perhaps appropriately, some of those improvements have also been directed toward an area accommodating members who still want a place to light up a smoke--the facility’s 5,200-sq.-ft. covered patio (where smoking is legally permitted). Here, a bit more than $2,000 has paid for new seating and a television set protected from the elements. The patio, on the north end of the building, just off the enclosed Social Quarters, also houses a commercial-grade grill facility, and serves as the staging area for “launch parties” when a mission of Atlantis, Discovery or Endeavour is launched from Pad 39 at the Cape--less than eight miles, as the seagull flies, from the Merritt Island Moose.
What if, by some chance, the state statute was repealed, or altered, such that Merritt Island could legally allow indoor smoking again?
Don’t, uh, hold your breath.
“The hullaballoo we faced when we went nonsmoking, I think, is peanuts compared to what we would have if we resumed smoking,” said Past Governor Norm Moore. “Because, again, we’ve got people enjoying this place again who two years ago swore they’d never come back--plus now we have people bringing their children who never would have brought their kids in before.
“To go back to smoking, for us, would be catastrophic,” Moore said. “And our experience has been so positive that I would encourage Lodges to try it--even if they don’t have to!”
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Megan Andrews is part of the Merritt Island Moose kitchen staff that is serving twice the dinner business and roughly four times the lunch business of two years ago. Sometimes it’s steaks and seafood, sometimes burgers, sometimes pizza or stuffed peppers--but lunch and dinner are served, seven days a week.
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*This is still the case. As Moose International Florida/Bermuda Regional Manager Rodney Hammond notes, unless state officials are alerted to a specific situation, enforcement of the Clean Indoor Air Act is being left to local county officials--and some of those officials have indeed allowed some Moose operations in various counties to continue allowing limited indoor smoking; some interpreting our Lodges as “membership associations” that are exempt from the law, others allowing smoking that’s kept completely separate from any food service, if announced in writing and enforced as such. While these “degrees of enforcement” frankly do not square with interpretations of the law that have been issued from Tallahassee, that’s simply the reality of the situation, Hammond reports.-K.W.
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Counterpoint: Naples 1782 Also Enforces No-Smoking--But With Smaller Facility, Seasonal Crowd, Things Haven’t Turned Around as Quickly
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> When the Florida Legislature passed the Clean Indoor Air Act in late-spring of 2003, and Gov. Jeb Bush made clear he’d sign it, the officers at Naples Lodge 1782 decided to start enforcing it beginning with the new fiscal year on May 1,2003, in their 5,000-sq.-ft. facility, for a simple and practical reason: “You fight it, eventually you’re going to get caught,” said Past Governor Wayne Cotterell. “We didn’t want to pay the fine.”
Naples Lodge 1782 leaders, from left: Past Governors Vince Principe Sr. and Wayne Cotterell, Governor Walt Walworth, Administrator Bob Henry.
Administrator Bob Henry said that “a majority” of the Lodge’s active membership had been smokers, and “participation is still down compared with two years ago, but it’s coming back.” Said Past Governor Vince Principe Sr., “Initially we lost maybe $1,000 a week. In the slow season (summer) it hurts us the most . . . Most of our nonsmoking members are the snowbirds; they go north in the summertime. . . we’re still a bit down, but it’s coming back.”
Smoking is allowed in a roughly 300-sq.-ft. screened area in back, and Henry notes that the Lodge is considering an awning-covered, exterior “tiki bar”where smokers could indulge. Given Naples’ location near Florida’s southwest tip, this could be open nearly year-round. One option not being considered, though, is any fudging on enforcing the law. “We obey the law here; it’s as simple as that,” said Governor Walt Walworth.-K.W.
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