By Richard Carrier
Contributing writer

When Powhatan native Garland Taylor bought and renamed what is now the Home Team Grill in the county last year, his goal was to operate a family-friendly restaurant.

“We wanted to be a restaurant with a bar, not a bar that served food,” Taylor pointed out.

Particularly in a small community, said Taylor, business owners must listen closely to what their customers tell them. In response to feedback he’s received from his own customers, Garland’s restaurant has gone smokeless before 9 p.m. in the indoor areas of the facility.

Smoking will be permitted on the outdoor patio during all business hours. Fans and music have been added to the patio to make it more appealing to those patrons who desire to smoke while the pre-nine o’clock curfew is in effect, said manager Susan Woodard. But Woodard also agreed that the interior smoking ban was inevitable.

“We were getting too many negative comments on our customer comment cards and there was no other way to control it.”

Taylor described the customers’ responses via the comment cards as “unbelievable, we processed literally thousands.” Many of the responses asked management to fix the problem of second-hand smoke in the dining area and the Home Team Grill management responded.

“We had installed four Smoke Eaters [filtration systems] in the bar area and thought they should do the job, but when they didn’t we called in the supplier to re-evaluate the situation,” Taylor said. The supplier suggested a more frequent cleaning schedule and when that did not significantly improve the air quality, Home Team Grill looked for alternatives. When he bought the building in South Creek shopping center, which had been the Irish restaurant O’Hare’s, Taylor had removed a floor to ceiling wall which divided the bar from the dining room. But putting that wall back up was not an option. “We wanted to maintain the open, friendly flow to the restaurant,” he said.

In Powhatan’s Four Seasons Restaurant, located on Route 13 in the Village, smoking is not permitted in the dining area, but is permitted at the bar. Neighboring County Seat Restaurant maintains a total no smoking ban inside the restaurant, but does permit smoking on the large exterior porch.

Italian Delight, located just a few doors down from the Home Team Grill, limits smoking to its “back room” banquet area.

For Taylor, the decision to go smokeless was motivated by the excess of customer complaints, and the inevitability of state legislation banning smoking made the decision easier.

“With the General Assembly proposing legislation to ban smoking we decided we might as well jump the gun,” said Taylor. Although last year’s proposed legislation “was too harsh to pass” and this year’s also died, Taylor knows it is only a matter of time before some form of ban is passed.

Taylor implemented a no smoking ban in his West End location on April 16 and has been indoor smokeless in Powhatan since June 1.

There have been many “thank yous” on his customer comment cards since the change, but there have also been some desertions.

“Some people have stated that they are never coming back, but I feel very good about our decision. We have to respond to what the customer wants,” Taylor said.