Learning Objectives: Identify three barriers to compliance with smoke-free bar law among bar owners. Decribe benefits of conducting individual interviews by a neutral party to identify motivations of bar owners related to compliance.
Abstract: Advocates and staff working on smoke-free policies in the bar setting will encounter many challenges not only getting legislation passed, but in achieving compliance after legislation is enacted. Developing public support, educating key opinion leaders and conducting media advocacy are key components to a campaign. Yet a whole new set of political and institutional challenges will be faced once efforts shift to achieving compliance. The enforcement of the California Smoke-Free Workplace Law in bars in San Francisco presented a multitude of such barriers. A variety of approaches were developed over four years to increase compliance in an environment with many political obstacles including: paid media campaigns, educational mailings, advocacy, and legal actions against non-compliant bar owners. The rate of compliance did improve from 1998 to 2001. Yet, in order to develop more tailored interventions targeting non-compliant bars owners, a better understanding of their motivations and attitudes was needed. The presentation will describe qualitative data that was collected through individual interviews with bar owners that were non-compliant or had recently become compliant with the smoke-free bar law. Additionally, the presentation will describe how the data was utilized in shaping an intervention. Finally, the implementation of the intervention will be discussed. As more cities and states include bars in smoke-free workplace policy efforts, they will need to be prepared to develop innovative interventions to achieve compliance.
Lessons Bar Owners Handout.doc (296.0 kb)
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