While smoking in restaurants and bars would still be allowed under the proposed amendment, those restaurants and bars that allow smoking would have to assure smoke won’t travel into nonsmoking areas. New restaurants would be designed to handle the smoke, but older restaurants would have to renovate their facilities. While the proposal makes sense intuitively, as nonsmoking areas should remain smoke-free, the actual process of making that happen can be very expensive — especially for small and privately owned businesses. The owner of Irish Pub and Grill, 1910 W. Saginaw St., in Lansing, already installed smoke eaters and fans to make the environment more friendly to nonsmokers, but the equipment cost the owner $3,600.

With Michigan’s poor economy and unemployment rate, this is not a good time to impose expensive regulations on businesses in the state. Since the regulations would only affect Ingham County, the proposal also might discourage new businesses from settling in the Greater Lansing area. Michigan should avoid any proposals that might keep businesses away.

The worst part about the proposal is its potential to financially burden small, locally owned businesses. While large restaurant chains and high-end establishments likely wouldn’t have a hard time fronting money to make the required changes, a few thousand dollars has the potential to cripple a small restaurant owner.

It would be much cheaper and easier for Ingham County to ban smoking altogether instead of imposing a series of laws and amendments to slowly thwart the practice. Fans and filters can never be 100 percent effective, and the costs are too prohibitive. However, under Michigan state law, banning smoking entirely from bars and restaurants is illegal.

If a majority of people in the state believe in a statewide smoking ban, they should come together and vote to override the state law. It will take more than just Ingham County to make this decision. Until that happens, however, the county should make the transition financially feasible for small and locally owned businesses. Otherwise, the proposed amendment should not be implemented.

Until a statewide ban takes effect — if that ever happens — people need to take into account the smokiness of a restaurant before going there. Many restaurant owners choose to make their restaurants smoke-free, and it’s not difficult to find a smoke-free restaurant to frequent. If a particular restaurant or bar is too smoky for someone, then that person doesn’t need to patronize that establishment.