San Francisco weighs ban on smoking at bar patios, parklets

A cigarette on a bar patio has become the flash point in a much larger fight over San Francisco’s street life. At O’Reilly’s Pub in Haight-Ashbury and at other neighborhood bars, owners are warning that a proposed smoking ban would push smokers onto sidewalks, strain already thin enforcement and change how small nightlife spaces work.

The ordinance, filed as San Francisco File No. 260361, would prohibit smoking on outdoor patios attached to bars and taverns and also cover parklets. It would treat bars more like restaurants, which already have to maintain smoke-free spaces indoors and outdoors, and would remove several exceptions now written into city law, including allowances for bars with no employees, historically compliant semi-enclosed smoking rooms and some hotel rooms.

Supporters, including Supervisor Myrna Melgar and Dr. John Maa of the San Francisco Marin Medical Society, have framed the change as a public-health measure and a workers’ rights issue. Melgar has said the move was part of a campaign promise. Public-health advocates say the rule would close a gap in the city’s smoke-free framework and reduce exposure for patrons, employees and people passing through tightly packed outdoor seating areas.

The proposal has landed in one of the city’s most politically sensitive spaces: the intersection of public health and neighborhood commerce. San Francisco has spent years trying to define what parklets and sidewalk seating are for, and bar owners say those spaces are part of the post-pandemic recovery that keeps customers outdoors and keeps businesses visible. In districts such as the Haight, the Inner Sunset and SoMa, outdoor seating has become part of the daily economy of small bars, not just an amenity.

Resistance is already organized. A petition opposing the ordinance had 1,488 signatures as of May 8, and venues including El Rio, Zeitgeist, The Stud, Mothership and Horsies Market & Saloon have lined up against it. They argue the city is overreaching, that some patrons specifically want to smoke while drinking outside, and that the rule would be hard to enforce once smoking shifts from patios to the public sidewalk.

The Small Business Commission voted 6-0 on April 27 not to support the legislation after hearing from businesses and city staff. Commissioners said the nightlife industry was still recovering from COVID-19 and asked for data on complaints tied to outdoor patio smoking. An estimated 50 bars could be affected.

The Land Use and Transportation Committee is expected to take up the measure on May 18. If the Board of Supervisors approves it next month, the ban would take effect early next year, moving San Francisco closer to San Jose, which has required bar patios to be smoke-free since 2012, and Oakland, which adopted a similar rule last year.