- OTOH, if it pi$$ed off an obvious jerk like you, than it must have done some good.
Clever. You must be a native Minnesotan.
Posted on 08/02/2005 10:24:13 AM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
APPLETON (AP) - At Jokers Bar, the staff of eight has been laid off. Owner Tony Schaefer said he's now working the bar with his brother.
Schaefer is among many business owners still fuming a month after a ban on smoking at all indoor workplaces was enacted in this city.
The ban was approved by 56 percent of voters in an April 5 referendum and went into effect on July 1. Madison's similar smoking ban went into effect on the same day, although there was no referendum preceding it.
"We'll be closing up" if business doesn't improve, Schaefer said. "The sad thing is we don't even know if anyone would buy it."
Some say they have reason to fume.
Nearly three-quarters of the 64 businesses that responded to a request from the Appleton Post-Crescent reported sluggish sales in the past month, most from 10 to 40 percent lower compared with last July. Some reported sales off as much as 70 percent.
Many tavern owners in Madison have made similar complaints, and sympathetic members of the City Council have already tried once, unsuccessfully, to repeal the ban.
More than 30 tavern owners in Appleton have filed a lawsuit to repeal the ban, and the Common Council this month is expected to review a proposal that would exempt taverns and bar areas of restaurants, similar to a measure proposed statewide.
For now, sales are down 35 percent at Shark's Club Billiards Bar and Grill, owner Mitchell Roepke said.
"We're a blue-collar, working-class establishment and they're the smokers. ... I'm losing $11,000 in sales in July," Roepke said.
But Connie Olson, executive director of Community Action for Tobacco Free Living, a group that pushed for the ban, said some of the negative talk becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"All customers hear are bartenders complaining. Who wants to hear that?" Olson said. "They have to get past this personal vendetta. Don't do that to customers. They need to promote their businesses as smoke-free."
Restaurants reported faring better than bars.
Family restaurants like Applebee's and Perkins, and upscale places like Black and Tan, where smoking had previously been allowed at the bar, saw no ill effect in their July revenues.
At The Bar in downtown Appleton, regular lunchtime diner Carl Schuh of Black Creek compared before and after.
"It's cleaner, fresher and airier," he said.
Several businesses said they were boosting advertising and offering specials to encourage customers to come back, while still lobbying officials for a reversal on the ban.
overly sensitive aren't you?
In a word, no. See post 115
Inherently polite people never tell others to do something. They ask.
Your true colors are showing.
I hear you, FRiend!!!!!!!!
3 weeks ago, as he was going through my medical history prior to surgery on my broken ankle (obviously not a smoking related problem) my orthopedist complained that it was people like me that are causing doctors to go out of business and why he went into orthopedics instead of general practice - even healthy people break bones!!!!
I pay a pretty penny for health insurance, and rarely use it - in fact this is the first time in 5 years I've been anywhere near it other than for routine annual stuff.
excerpt: "You must eliminate alcohol, saturated fat, and chocolate from your diet."
Now that's a diet plan I canNOT live with. I stay away from saturated fat, but common....alcohol and chocolate too? Don't you realize that wine and chocolate go together? A glass of wine and a piece of dark chocolate are healthy for you. Honest, I read that somewhere once. LOL Also wine and cheese, wine and strawberries, wine and sex....oops, how'd THAT get in there. teehee
Now we're talking!!!!!!!!!!!
could not possibly agree with you more.
As are yours.
Clever. You must be a native Minnesotan.
Honestly, I couldn't live with that diet either. But I have no problem imposing it someone who complains about my smoking, because they have some twisted theory that they are the ones paying for it.
First off, I'm a nonsmoker, so you can simply shove that comment.
Second, on the contrary, rights are the sovreignty to act without permission from others. You have always had the right to patronize establishments that don't serve smokers. But now, thanks to people like yourself, people no longer have the right to smoke in these businesses, even if the owners don't mind it or smoke themselves.
Yes, but in a representative republic it SHOULD be called "unconstitutional".
It ties in very easily.
And you have already shown that you side with New London on the issue because you support these bans..........which are pushed by outside private entities seeking to get rid of private enterprises.
You just can't see the big picture because you are far too pleased with the usurption of private property rights imposed by the smoking ban that you are enjoying so much.
You keep rebuilding that straw man...
Please list the post where anyone has suggested that you should...
"I still have not seen any support for the reasonable (and sociable) suggestion that 1/4 of bars and restaurants be allowed to be smoking only, as it reflects the ratio in the general population."
What percentage of the customer base is smokers? Wouldn't 3 quarters of the bars already be smoke free, if their customer base was consistent with the general population?
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -Thomas Paine. I conclude that you don't give a damn about your own liberty. You are a tool of the totalitarians.
I didn't think you were serious about the diet plan. I was just enjoying the chance to be silly. Love it when that happens. ;)
"Sorry, you're wrong.
You are imposing your "rights" on me."
Wrong again. It is not a matter of your rights or my rights, it is a matter of the property owner's rights. Feel free to click the link to read a fine article by Walter Williams.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20031119.shtml
I really wish I knew.
What really gets me is the absolute blindness expressed on these threads by supposed small government loving conservatives who are all in favor of this nonsense.
"But I have no problem imposing it someone who complains about my smoking, because they have some twisted theory that they are the ones paying for it."
Government health care requires that we all pay for each other's health issues, some of those resulting from poor choices such as gluttony. I understand and agree with your opinion.
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