by Wendy A. Ritch, M.A., M.T.S.
and Michael E. Begay, Ph.D.

Executive Summary

Objective: To examine the historical relationship between the tobacco industry and the Massachusetts Restaurant Association (MRA), a nonprofit trade association for the food and beverage industry.

Design: This study analyzed web-based tobacco industry documents, MRA Federal tax returns, public relations materials, news articles, testimony from public hearings, requests for injunctions, court decisions, economic impact studies, handbooks, private correspondences, and public records.

Results: Tobacco industry documents that became public after various state lawsuits reveal that a long and productive history of collaboration exists between the MRA and the tobacco industry. For more than twenty years, they have focused primarily on efforts to defeat state and local laws that would restrict smoking in public places, particularly in beverage and food service establishments. The resources of the tobacco industry, combined with the MRA's grassroots mobilization of its membership, have accounted for their successful opposition to many state and local smoke-free restaurant, bar, and workplace laws in Massachusetts.

Conclusion: The universal opposition of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association to smoking bans in food and beverage establishments is a reflection of its historic relationship with the tobacco industry. This is contrary to public statements made by the MRA that it is working independently of the interests of Big Tobacco. State and local lawmakers, as well as local boards of health, must realize that when the MRA opposes state and local smoke-free legislation it does so primarily because it has been and continues to be a close political ally of the tobacco industry.