(loss of regular customers that go every day to the watering hole and spend significant money). These changes in the customer profile are directly caused by government intervention and will drive the average customer spend down while fixed costs remain constant. Therefore driving everyone's prices up. Exactly.
From experience I know exactly what happened in Delaware bars and restaurants - the regulars disappeared, and were not replaced by equal numbers of non-smokers spending equal numbers of dollars.
Just using my husband and I as an example...The $100 or so a week he and I spent in a couple different places, for lunch and/or happy hour stopped going to the local places. The beer money went to the corner liquor store and lunch money went to the supermarket. And our Friday happy hour dollars went to another state. And we weren't the only ones doing that. The bar in Maryland we went to on Fridays was packed with folks from Delaware who stopped going out there.
The losses have been astronomical.
And the bar and waitstaff that hadn't asked for government intervention to protect their health no longer have jobs, because the business just isn't there.
And the places that had been non-smoking by choice - they're market was stripped away from them.
"The losses have been astronomical.
And the bar and waitstaff that hadn't asked for government intervention to protect their health no longer have jobs, because the business just isn't there.
And the places that had been non-smoking by choice - they're market was stripped away from them."
Yep, simple economics at work. That is why I am surprised any FR member wouldn't see it. The closer we move to full socialism (full gov't. ownership of all property) from capitalism the more failure we shall endure. Incremental socialism is more evil than just being violently defeated in a war by a socialist state. The frog in the pot theory, and people still don't get it!