When Cyndy Coppola opened Java Joes Coffeehouse in downtown Des Moines in 1992, the question of whether to allow smoking hardly arose.

“If I had to do it over again, I would start smoke-free,” she said.

In the years that followed, Coppola grew tired of going home at night smelling as if she’d been in a bar all day. She didn’t have the time to patrol for underage smokers, though they were common. She installed an exhaust fan and a “smoke eater” in an attempt to absorb the fumes. And there were a few trash-bin fires caused by cigarettes.

She even sent a letter to numerous tobacco companies throughout the country, asking for suggestions as to how to clean up the air inside Java Joes while still allowing customers to smoke. She never got a single response.

“To be in that kind of an environment, I didn’t think was healthy,” Coppola said. “I kept waiting for the legislators to pass laws prohibiting it.”

Then, after three years in business, she banned smoking at the coffeehouse, and subsequently saw Java Joes revenues take a dive and fielded complaints from several customers. Business stayed down for a couple of years before rebounding, and the coffeehouse’s revenues are now twice what they were when it went smoke-free.

“People can still smoke in their homes and cars and outside,” Coppola said. “They still have lots of options, which I think is their right. But for business owners, I think it’s a liability, and a liability that we don’t want to have.”

Coppola remains among the minority of bar and restaurant owners, though she and others like her remain adamant that there is not only a demand for smoke-free establishments, but a high chance of profitability through creating such an environment.

After 25 years in the business, bar owner Tim Kellogg knew the possible drawbacks of opening a smoke-free lounge, but he wanted to do something different, and believed the demand for such an establishment exceeded the risks. He conducted a survey at the Cabaret Lounge in Clive, which he owns, and customers almost overwhelmingly told him they would support a smoke-free alternative in Greater Des Moines.

“Bar owners tell me I’m the craziest man on earth,” Kellogg said. “But I was confident because I knew it was going to work. It was adamant.”

He opened The Cab in Johnston in August 2003 and has been pleased with the level of business and the comments from both non-smokers and smokers who say they appreciate the smoke-free atmosphere. With employers such as John Deere Credit and Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. within a five-minute drive, his average crowd includes a large number of white-collar professionals. The bar has also been incredibly popular among women.

“I have had more comments from people who say they appreciate it, and they thank me to no end that somebody was brave enough to go smoke-free,” Kellogg said. The Cab is now one of only three smoke-free bars in Greater Des Moines.

Despite his success, he has never considered making the Cabaret Lounge a smoke-free bar, saying it would bring “a high risk of failure,” similar to what Coppola experienced those first couple of years. “You’re going to run out half your customers,” Kellogg said.

“I honestly think the best thing to do would be to pass a law to be smoke-free,” said Brian Hobbs, owner of B&B Que in Beaverdale, one of 310 smoke-free restaurants in Polk County, according to the Central Iowa Tobacco-Free Partnership. Though the large majority of customer comments are in support of a smoke-free environment, he does receive a few complaints, and acknowledges that he could be losing business of people who want to smoke.

Dan Ramsey, project coordinator for the Central Iowa Tobacco-Free Partnership, is among those who have lobbied for years at the Statehouse in support of smoking restrictions at bars and restaurants.

“Smoking and non-smoking sections fail miserably at protecting people’s health,” he said. Still, he faces resistance from business owners who believe it is their right to allow customers to smoke. And the debate rages on over the actual health risks from secondhand smoke.

City councils in Ames and Iowa City passed ordinances in 2001 that restricted smoking in bars and restaurants. Eight Ames businesses filed a lawsuit against the city, which they won when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled against the ordinance in May 2003. The ordinances in both cities were a pre-emption of state law that already creates certain smoking restrictions, such as smoking sections, and leaves any additional restrictions up to business owners’ discretion.

Rep. Ro Foege, a Democrat from Mount Vernon, has taken the issue up at the Iowa Statehouse, sponsoring a bill along with other legislators that would allow local communities to adopt stronger smoking restrictions. Though the bill again failed to come to a vote this session, he said it continues to gain interest and support among legislators.

In California, Foege said, the smoking rate has dropped 27 percent since a statewide ban on smoking in public places took effect. He said a ban in Iowa could save the state a tremendous amount of money being spent on Medicaid due to tobacco-related illnesses, which reached $227 million in 2004.

“I’m not going to tell a business what they can or can’t do,” Foege said. “But I want true local control. If Ireland can ban smoking in their pubs, I don’t know why we can’t. But I think it’s up to those local governments to decide.”

Ramsey and others within the Tobacco-Free Partnership will continue their lobbying efforts in the 2006 session, despite major opposition at the Statehouse from large tobacco companies, which employ several lobbyists and have greater access to financial resources than to local non-profit organizations.

“We’re outgunned and we’re outspent,” Ramsey said.