Bar Owners, Health Advocates Clash Over Smoking Ban on Outdoor Patios in San Francisco

On Monday, supervisors agreed to delay a scheduled vote on the ordinance to the June 8 land use and transportation committee meeting, after an outpouring of concern over the issue, both in support and opposition.

“People feel very differently about this issue. I do think that there can be a path forward that negotiates timing, definitions, enforcement, all of these things,” said Melgar, who chairs the committee and said amendments will be considered before the item comes back for a vote. “I don’t want to withdraw this legislation because I think it is a legitimate public health issue.”

Health advocacy groups, including the San Francisco Marin Medical Society, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network and the American Lung Association, have expressed support for the proposal.

“Many of the smoking patios in San Francisco are covered, which makes the pollution worse, or surrounded by apartment buildings, which exposes more people,” read a letter signed by five physicians at the University of California, San Francisco. “The cardiovascular effects (heart attacks and stroke) of smoke exposure happen within minutes and anyone who has risk factors like high blood pressure, cholesterol, weight or age is immediately endangered by secondhand smoke.”

About 9% of adults 18 and older in San Francisco are estimated to smoke, according to 2023 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But some residents and business owners are pushing back against the proposal, saying it could hurt business, limit gathering spaces where people can still smoke outdoors and potentially create new tensions with neighbors if smokers move to sidewalks and other nearby areas.

“It would affect our income significantly to have smoking removed, especially quite so suddenly,” said Sophie Lewis, a manager at El Rio, a LGBTQ bar and music venue in the Mission. “El Rio has, for most of our 40-plus-year history, allowed smoking on our patio, and that is one of the reasons that people do come there.”

The proposal comes as studies have shown that young people are drinking less and spending fewer dollars at bars.

A 2025 Gallup survey found that the percentage of adults in the U.S. who say they consume alcohol has dropped to 54%, continuing a downward trend and marking a historic 90-year low.

Dan Surratt, who co-owns Finnegan’s Wake in Cole Valley, said that the 50-year-old business has never received a complaint for allowing smoking in its beer garden.

“If this was an issue, we would make adjustments,” Surratt said. “We have so many other important things for this city to be focusing on.”

The proposal does not specifically include any language around smoking cannabis.

However, the city’s Office of Cannabis states that, generally, users cannot smoke or vape cannabis in places where they cannot smoke tobacco.

A petition signed by several San Francisco bars, including Zeitgeist, El Rio and The Stud, has gathered nearly 2,500 signatures to oppose the smoking ban.

“What it does is send a message — and that message is not directed at the problems San Franciscans are living with every day. It is directed at a particular lifestyle, a particular set of businesses and a particular class of customer,” the petition read.

The city’s Office of Small Business unanimously voted to oppose the proposal in April.

Some bars already prohibit smoking on their premises. The proposal is expected to impact about 50 bars.

Other Bay Area cities, including Oakland and San José, have passed similar legislation.

UCSF researchers supporting the legislation point to studies that showed sales for hospitality businesses did not drop when bars and other venues banned outdoor smoking, and noted that some studies found a positive impact for some venues because they attracted customers who avoided places where there was smoke.

Proponents of the ban also said smoking on patios exposes workers to smoke. But bar owners said the new regulation would also harm workers by putting them in an uncomfortable position of having to police patrons at venues where they previously could smoke, or add costs for security to handle enforcement.

“It is very difficult to make a living in San Francisco on service industry wages,” Lewis said, “and putting the burden of enforcement on employees who are already struggling to survive right now in San Francisco puts one more barrier in the way of people having a successful life in San Francisco.”