[SheLion]

Feel free to print out and take this to every restaurant/tavern/bar owner you can. At least give them heads up about what lies ahead for them!

[Gabz]

Through personal knowlegde I can attest to the truth of the harm listed here by the establishments in Delaware.

A lot of the smaller taverns in southern Delaware (the 4 places listed are in the northern area close to the maryland and Pennsylvania border) are only making it because they have an off-sale license or are attached to a package store.

The owner of the package store in my old neighborhood told me she had seen an increase in sales immediately following the start of the ban, remember it went into effect the day before Thanksgiving, and it never slacked off. More people were staying home or entertaining at home.

Package stores, catering businesses and bars and restaurants in nearby states are the only beneficiaries of Delaware's ban.

One of my favorite places in dover was put on the market this summer, and that was one of the luckier places it has an outside deck - but that didn't help enough to overcome the devastation of the ban.

[Judith Anne]

Sorry to interrupt, please excuse me...please add your voices to the Rockefeller Must Resign thread, and thank you.

[TheOtherOne]

Businesses should be able to get Smoking Licenses, just like the can apply for and get liquor licenses. That way, the default for businesses will be non-smoking, but any that choses can become a smoking establishment.

Seems so simple to me. Which side, does not fairly get most of what they want with that solution? Smokers can business get to keep what they want - and non-smokers get the default for business to be non-smoking requiring some affirmative action on the business owner to make his business a smoking establishment.

[Seajay]

I simply cannot believe that such bastions of attitude such as the Pine Tree State and my birth place (NY) have put up with this bulls**t! Note also that it happened in New York right after 9/11 when we looked to the government for "protection" (remember how many here thought that was a good thing?).

This "runaway train" is heading my way soon (Baltimore County Maryland). It will destroy a way of life for many. I have searched long and hard for any news of resistance or outright defiance and found none.

Perhaps the only hope is compromise - let there be dives where the self destructive smokers can congregate and ban it in places where those who want to bring their kids and worry about smokey smelling clothes can roost for an hour and leave 5 per cent tips.

This is the end of the tavern, a way of life that gave America so much!

[Great Dane]

The Blackburn bingo hall in Ottawa Canada, has just closed it's doors, reason given....... the smoking ban.

The hall tried to entice more clients with cheaper card prices, the City said that was illegal.