This is a really touchy issue. What can a business owner do? Even if he wasn't forced to do this by law, he would still alienate a huge amount of non-smokers if he didn't accomodate their wishes. As smokers, we are in the minority. Actually, we seem to be one of the few minorities where it okay by the gov't to hate us.
"What can a business owner do? Even if he wasn't forced to do this by law, he would still alienate a huge amount of non-smokers if he didn't accomodate their wishes."
Actually, that is the choice he makes. He will decide to cater to the smokers, the non smokers or both. This will drive the decision to invest in capitol equipment and it will drive the overall direction of the business. All of that is considered against potential profit for the investment and effort.
An example of a business formula that restricts smoking is either a grocery store or a clothing store. On the other side of that coin, a convenience store may decide to allow smoking. I've seen both.
Another real world example is a blues bar/restaurant in my area opened up after an extensive, and expensive, refurbishment. They decided to be smoke free. The first time I went to this bar to watch a band I was shocked they would be smoke free, but I respected their policy and did not smoke. I did notice that people were leaving and they had a lot of empty seats.
A couple of weeks later I went back, fully prepared to respect their policy. I noticed people smoking in the bar area and the hostess told me that so many people complained and left that they decided to offer the ability to smoke at the bar, but not in the rest. area. I complied and enjoyed being able to relax with a cig at the bar. About a month later I went back and noticed they actually set up a smoking section in the restaurant area. The hostess let me know that to many people complained and left because they couldn't see the band from the bar area.
The phenomonon that occured after that was amazing. Their business picked up and people started talking about hte place as a really fun place. However, after the place would fill up and people started to smoke, the place became filled with smoke and it was very uncomfortable. What occured is that people figured this out and began to chose alternative venues where both the smokers and non smokers could be comfortable.
Now that very nice bar/resturant has gone under, been sold, re-refurbished into a new venue. The lesson, well the bar owner made the assumption that a smoke free market existed in the blues bar industry. He spend a lot of money to start the club, and based on his assumption he chose not to install a robust air filtration system. That choice led to him losing a lot of money and wasting a lot of his time. Had he decided to cater to both smokers and non smokers, he would have installed a filtration system during the refurb and he would still be in business today.
That is how it should be. He took a gamble and if the business model paid off he would be rewarded, however it didn't. The market punished his poor business decision.