Businesses already have made the necessary adjustments to the law. Local businesses, such as Harper’s and the Peanut Barrel, have not suffered economically in the face of the law.

This, no doubt, is because a successful bar is successful because it offers a pleasurable experience to customers who want to drink. Unless the business purely is about the consumption of tobacco, the Smoke-Free Law won’t affect it as much as legislators would have you believe.

Still, legislators are proposing bills that add exemptions to the law. One proposal, which would allow customers to smoke and be served on the patios of Michigan bars and restaurants, doesn’t address the potential health concerns for employees who have to serve the patio customers. It’s not the smokers’ intent, but secondhand smoke, even in open air, still produces health consequences for employees.

Another proposal, one where smoking customers would have their own separate smoking room that employees wouldn’t have to enter, doesn’t take into account the costs businesses would have to incur to specially ventilate the smoking room, or the smoke that could seep into the nonsmoking area and affect nonsmoking customers.

And how would these proposals be enforced? What would be an acceptable amount of secondhand smoke for an employee to encounter? How many smokers would be allowed to use the smoking room or patio at a single time? The enforcement of these proposals raise more questions than answers.

With that said, the truth of the matter is no matter where customers smoke, it still affects nonsmoking customers and employees.

These proposed bills likely are another attempt to have private enterprises influence public health policy in Michigan. But this attempt is unnecessary because customers and businesses already are adjusting to the changes presented by the law. Weakening the law to placate a minority of business owners or customers does nothing but create a slippery slope of exemptions and exceptions.

Let the businesses that already have adapted continue business as usual, and let the businesses that can’t handle the changes fail. For example, Blue Midnight Hookah Lounge experienced a significant drop in business after the smoking ban passed. According to owner Patrick Kent, this drop was directly related to restrictions on selling food at his business.

His response: “You either adapt or you go out of business.”

At this point, Kent said he has recovered some of his profits. The ban isn’t perfect, but to those who run their main businesses efficiently it is not a business killer. This law was put in place with customer and employee health in mind, and the legislative priority should remain the health and safety of employers and customers, not the pacification of a vocal minority.