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To: supercat
"In many cases, because the owner of the enclosed space regards cigarette smokers as preferable to people who overly dislike smoke. "

So smokers smoke in enclosed places where they know there are people who are greatly bothered by the smoke, because the owner doesn't like the non-smokers???

206 posted on 10/17/2003 5:03:59 PM PDT by DannyTN (Note left on my door by a pack of neighborhood dogs.)
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To: DannyTN
So smokers smoke in enclosed places where they know there are people who are greatly bothered by the smoke, because the owner doesn't like the non-smokers???

Given that smoking is forbidden in most places people are "required" to be, why don't people who can't stand smoke leave places they find objectionable?

Owners of bars, restaurants, etc. divide their potential clientelle into five categories:

  1. People who smoke and will, given a choice, only patronize places that let them do so.
  2. People who don't smoke, but will freely patronize smoking and non-smoking facilities.
  3. People who don't smoke, and won't patronize excessively-smoky facilities, but will freely patronize non-smoking facilities and facilities that work to improve ventilation to minimize smokiness.
  4. People who don't smoke, and won't go into smoking sections, but will freely patronize facilities that have non-smoking sections.
  5. People who don't smoke and will, given a choice, only patronize places that totally forbid smoking.
Some of the category distinctions are a bit fuzzy, but people generally fit into one of those categories. Businesses look at how their potential clientelle breaks down among these categories, how competing businesses are serving the different types of people, and the costs involved to catering to the diffeerent groups, and then decide what course of action to take.

I would expect that for many bars, the breakdown of the four groups is probably something like 60-10-15-10-5. Bar owners may decide that installing and maintaining smoke eaters is a worthwhile investment to capture the people in group (3), but setting up a separate bar for the 10% of people in group (4) isn't worth the effort. As for the people in group (5), a bar owner isn't going to want to give up 60% of his clientelle in an effort to win 5%.

It's important to note something, though. In a free market, majority does not 100% rule. Suppose that there are five bars, all of whom draw from a similar clientelle which has the 60-10-15-10-5 breakdown and none of which have smoking sections. If things split equally, bar's share of the total clientelle would be 12-2-3-0-0; unserved patrons split 0-0-0-10-10. A bar which puts in a non-smoking section would not merely see a 12% increase in business (going from being able to serve 85% of the market to 95%) but would see a 66% increase in business (going from actually serving 15% of the market to 25%. Suddenly it starts looking attractive for someone to put in a non-smoking section.

This doesn't mean other bars will follow suit. To the contrary, once the first bar puts in a non-smoking section, the next bar to do so would only see a 5 percentage-point (about 33%) increase in business (those 5 percentage points being customers won over from the other bar with a non-smoking section). Perhaps that's still enough to make the costs of a non-smoking section worthwhile; perhaps not. But people who want a bar with a non-smoking section would have at least one they could go to in an area with five.

As for those who can't stand smoke at all, in an area with enough bars, even they would probably be in luck. After all, if there are twelve bars, there must be at least one that has no more than 1/12 of the smokers; there's likely to be a bar owner who decides he just can't compete effectively with the other bars for smoking customers (who for him would be less than 5% of the total potential clientelle). Such a bar owner may decide that rather than struggle to win maybe five percentage points of smokers over whom the other bars are competing, it's easier to go non-smoking entirely and win over the 5% of the potential clientelle whom everyone else is ignoring.

Or course, the numbers are somewhat simplified and I suspect that, among potential bar clients, the percentage that can't stand smoke is probably closer to 1%. But there are a few watering holes which forbid smoking (likely as part of some other non-smoking facility).

The real problem for smokers is that all the fun places allow smoking. What they don't realize is that maybe that's because many of the fun people smoke.

217 posted on 10/17/2003 6:22:08 PM PDT by supercat (Why is it that the more "gun safety" laws are passed, the less safe my guns seem?)
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