After one month, Beatrice bars and restaurants are still not sure how the new Nebraska smoking ban is going to affect their business.

The Nebraska Clean Indoor Air Act went into effect June 1. It bans smoking in all public places.

Terri Todd, manager of Risky’s Sports Bar & Grill in Beatrice, said the ban really isn’t affecting business. She believes that might be because Risky’s concentrates more on the restaurant side of the bar.

Gibb Hedges, owner of Gibb’s Place bar, said his business is experiencing the normal slowdown associated with the summer months.

“Once school ends, people get busy with vacations, going to the lake, and other outdoor stuff. Once school starts up, we’ll be able to tell how it’s going.”

While it’s too early to tell how his business has been affected, Hedges said the litter around his bar has seen a dramatic increase. While he furnishes ashtrays, both inside their smoking garden, and by the front door, people are just throwing their butts on the ground.

“It’s a real mess,” he said.

Steve Mason, owner of The Rail, says his customer base hasn’t seemed to be affected by the ban, but his staff most certainly has.

“It’s causing twice the work for  the same amount of customers.”

And, he adds, it’s increased his labor costs since he has to bring an extra person in earlier.

Mason put in an intercom system for customers in the beer/smoking garden before the ban took effect. Now, the bartenders are waiting on customers inside the bar and out. “It runs my bartenders to death,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter if I have  one customer outside and 12 inside, I have to make sure that one customer is taken care of,” Mason said. “But in this business you do whatever you can to get them in the door and keep them there. We just have to adapt and overcome.”

After remodeling the area, Mason planned to put fence slats on the fence to cut down on wind. But a representative from the Nebraska Liquor Commission told him that would cut down on the air flow.

The smoking area at The Rail comes equipped with a Keno and cable TV, and this winter, Mason said, he plans to do whatever he can legally do to keep the area as warm as possible.

Hedges and Mason said the reasoning behind the bill didn’t make sense to them. “They say it’s for the employees health. But the employees have a choice of whether they want to work here or not. Customers have a choice of whether they want to come here,” said Mason. Hedges echoed his sentiment.

Mason is mad.

“If (the government is) going to start coming into our businesses and controlling this, what’s next?”