The Story County Tobacco Task Force released results of a recent survey that indicate a large number of students would frequent many Ames bars more often if they were smoke free.

“I think that this survey is pretty indicative of the student body as a whole,” said Jeff Lewis, public relations director of the group Students for Smoke-Free Bars. “This shows that students want this to happen – that we’re fed up with smoke.”

The survey polled approximately 2,000 students, and the results show more than two-thirds of those polled would go to their favorite bar more often if it was smoke free.

“We don’t want this to look like we’re attacking smokers – we’re not. But only a small percent of students I’ve talked to want to keep the smoke. The rest wanted to have it be smoke free,” said Clark Richardson, president of Students for Smoke-Free Bars, student liaison of the task force and senior in agricultural business.

Currently, the only bars that are smoke free are Es Tas, 120 Welch Ave. and Brewer’s, 2704 Stange Road. All other Ames bars allow smoking at any time or have a certain hour after which smokers can smoke.

“The next thing to do is to hold discussions about this. This isn’t an us against them kind of thing, but an issue that concerns everybody that goes to the bars,” Lewis said.

Richardson is hoping for action at a city or state level because of communication problems at the individual level.

“It’s been difficult for me to talk to the bar owners – I haven’t gotten in touch with them since last semester. That’s why I think we should have local control; have the community discuss and enact an ordinance about this issue,” he said.

Lewis said he would also like community action because of a high likelihood that the bars will do nothing otherwise.

“I think they’ll wait to change until the public tells them to. I think they think that having all the smokers leaving at the same time, while all the other bars accept smokers, would be bad for business,” he said.

From the information Richardson has gathered, it’s not that the bars don’t want to change.

“From the bar owners that I’ve talked to, they say that they want to take action about this. They’re waiting until they’re imposed to do it, so that all the bars go smoke free at the same time, so no real money is lost,” he said.

The manager of Welch Ave. Station, 207 Welch Ave., declined to comment. Managers of Es Tas; Chasers, 2401 Chamberlain St.; Sips, 124 Welch Ave.; and Mickey’s Irish Pub, 109 Welch Ave. could not be reached for comment.