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Restaurants and bars typically have high fail rates. About one quarter of new restaurants and bars fail every year. Now in NYC, every time a restaurant or bar fails, the media points to NYC's smokefree workplace law.

This week's New York Post article featuring Joan Borkowski (owner of Billy's Steakhouse) saying that revenues were down 50% is particularly suspect for the following reasons: 1) Joan was Philip Morris' front person during the 1995 battle, 2) After passage of NYC's 1995 law, she also said revenues were down some huge amount, 3) Her restaurant, like almost all NYC restaurants, was already smokefree (except at the bar) before passage of the current law, 4) Approximately 80% of New Yorkers don't smoke, 5) The 20% of New Yorkers who do smoke tend to have lower income and therefore eat out less often 6) New York Post owner Rupert Murdoch was on the Board of Philip Morris from 1989 until 2001.

There is no way that NYC's new smokefree workplace law could cause a 50% drop in business at Billy's Steakhouse. If Joan's business is down that much, she must be putting ashes in the food. Common sense tells us that it's just not possible for a small percentage of restaurant smokers who now can't smoke at the bar to have such a large impact on revenues. It sounds to me like the tobacco industry is planting fictitious stories.

I don't disagree that there is a high rate of failure in the bar/restaurant business. But when a place has been going great for a number of years and has a sudden drop following such a draconian move as a smoking ban, a thinking person will make the connection.

that has become so obvious in various localities around the county where a city has banned smoking, their businesses get hurt, so they seek a county ordinance, and then whe the county has a problem they start seeking statewide - all at the instigation of the antis.

My only knowledge of what is going on in NYC is from the press reports and what I am told by friends and family in and out of the hospitality industry there (I moved from NYC 21 years ago)

I have no idea if PM is planting fictitious stories in NYC or not. It may have happened in 95.

I do know that it is not happening in Delaware, if anything PM had a hand in getting the ban being passed by their absolute refusal of any assistance to the grass roots efforts to fight it. The same goes for the rest of the companies. Do I have documentation to back that information up? No I don't - you are going to have to take my word for it (which you never seem to do) that I spoke with representatives of most of the companies, as did many of the bar and restaurant owners and were basically told we were on our own.

You may be right about no 50% drop in a particular place in NYC - but I know of many places in Delaware where it did occur.