Does banning smoking in bars and restaurants increase alcohol-related crime?

To maintain compliance with clean indoor air policies, alcohol-licensed businesses (i.e.,bars and restaurants) accommodate smokers by allowing smoking outside their establishments. Concerns have been raised that an increase in outdoor smoking around these businesses might increase alcohol-related crime close to the businesses. Methods: Crime and on-premise alcohol-licensed business data were collected from St. Paul, Minnesota for the period of January 2003 to December 2007 (n=261 weeks). A 500 foot buffer was drawn around each on-premise alcohol-licensed establishment. Arrest data from the local police were obtained and geocoded; only those crimes that occurred within the drawn buffer were included. Relevant types of crimes included serious (e.g., homicide, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, theft) and less serious crimes (e.g., lesser assault, disorderly conduct, fighting, liquor law violations, noise violations, public drunkenness, public disturbances). The enactment of a comprehensive clean indoor air policy on March 31, 2006 was used as the intervention time point in an interrupted time-series analysis to assess if statistically significant changes in crime frequency occurred when comparing the crime frequency before and after policy adoption. Results: Within a buffer of 500 feet of alcohol licensed establishments, there were 8,755 serious and 41,809 less serious alcohol-related crimes that occurred over five years. After adjustment for overall alcohol-related crime frequency in the area, there was no significant change in either type of crime associated with the local, comprehensive clean indoor air policy (p>0.05). Conclusion: Banning smoking in alcohol-licensed businesses did not significantly increase alcohol-related crime around these establishments in St. Paul, Minnesota.