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.
Some of my favorite restaurants are non-smoking, for obvious reasons. They just aren't large enough to accomodate smokers and non-smokers. I have no problem with that. My favorite Chinese restaurant allows smoking, except during busy hours, because they don't have a way to separate the smokers from the non-smokers. That's reasonable. I haven't eaten at a restaurant in Delaware since they enacted the mandatory non-smoking. I even gave up my favorite Japanese restaurant, which was already non-smoking except in the bar.
-- Legal Product.
-- Private Business.
Nuff said?
Where's the logic for the gov imposing itself?
Meh.
Make it illegal or stfu
Far more than you are..............I at least answer questions posed to me honestly, do not throw out strawman arguements, nor promote increased government the way you do.
Oh... hate to reply to myself.. but.
Since its so haaaard to find an ashtray anywhere, my window works fine.
hehe Take THAT PAWLENTY
And no, I shouldn't have to go elsewhere just to please a small group of people who are hell-bent on exercsing their rights to the detriment of others.
You contradict yourself. You don't give a damn for other people's rights, if you think the function of government is to inflict your own desires on all business owners at gunpoint. Rather than troubling yourself to "go elsewhere" to an establishment that caters to your wishes, you applaud the government for forcing all businesses to cater to your wishes. Free market be damned: it's too inconvenient for you.
"Respecting other's rights" indeed!
Here's the bottom line.
Many of you aren't so much concerned with property rights as you are with the right to blow your rights wherever and whenever you want.
By claiming property rights, you are using that to deflect criticism away from your inability to recognize other peoples rights - the right to be safe from bodily harm and the preservation of their own personal property.
You are not gonna change my mind. Nor do I intend to changing yours.
If you are true to yourselves, you'll recognize that using property rights and political paranoia are not the way to justify your actions (smoking).
I'm done. Peace...sort of.
"By claiming property rights, you are using that to deflect criticism away from your inability to recognize other peoples rights - the right to be safe from bodily harm and the preservation of their own personal property."
No....
I recognize the right to go where you please.
If smoke displeases you.. go to a different establishment.
And you have no right to behave as you choose on private property.............which includes cursing at people on Free Republic, which is private property.
Stay out of establishments that permit smoking or open your own non-smoking establishment.
Socialists like you are ging to be the downfall of this country - go back to DU where you belong and leave true conservatives seekig smaller government to do their jobs.
You posted this to me, But I am not a smoker!!!
This really, truly, honestly, is about property rights.
I think you are just to selfish to understand the basic problem and that is it should be the right of the business owner. If you don't like HIS choice, you are free not to patronize that business. You really have no right to tell him how to run his business or to make you welcome in his place. You libs are all alike, selfish, little whiners. You want the punitive taxes collected from cigarette sales, but you want to ban use of the product. Liberals are a truly confused bunch.
Don't give them any ideas.
"By claiming property rights, you are using that to deflect criticism away from your inability to recognize other peoples rights - the right to be safe from bodily harm and the preservation of their own personal property."
You clearly ignored the well written article that I posted, by Walter Williams. It is not about my right to smoke or your right to not be around tobacco smoke, it is about the property owner's rights to chose. Funny thing is tho', I figure out where the exit door is and have the ability to find businesses that cater to my desires. Sort of conveneint that most consumers are able to find satisfaction in a free market.
"You are not gonna change my mind. Nor do I intend to changing yours."
Which is very obvious when you ignore well reasoned arguments to continue flailing in the deepend of the pool without a life jacket. I will again suggest you read Walter Williams' article.
"If you are true to yourselves, you'll recognize that using property rights and political paranoia are not the way to justify your actions (smoking)."
But using junk science and "my clothes smell bad" to stir up political paranoia are justifiable? When is your first day back to school?
"which includes cursing at people on Free Republic, which is private property."
Yep. The gnatzies don't seem to realize that their arguments are the foundations to limiting speech and all the other Ammendments. I just wish they wouldn't clutter a "conservative" discussion board with their infantile socialistic thoughts.
I gotta go for now, keep up the good fight....
The sophist, non-listening bum is calling everybody on this thread liars. What a tool.
LOL!!!
Fat nonsmokers cost a ton more in health care costs than healthy smokers.
And you aren't concerned about anyone's 'rights' but your own.
By claiming property rights, you are using that to deflect criticism away from your inability to recognize other peoples rights
Oh please. You're the one claiming that you have the right to impose your will on a private business owner. You are telling him what he can and cannot offer to his customers. That is simply not supported by the constitution, but that never stops a leftist.
You are not gonna change my mind.
Oh, of course not. It's a real power trip to impose your will on others. I'm sure you don't want to give that up.
If you are true to yourselves, you'll recognize that using property rights and political paranoia are not the way to justify your actions (smoking).
And if you are true to yourself, you will recognize the power trip you are on.
Good luck to you. I really mean that.
The ban-addicts that push for these things only look at their own comfort and have no care about anyone else. I seriously doubt, actually I know for a fact, that not a one of them is willing to accept they have any hand in the demise of business and the loss of jobs their selfish socialism has inflicted upon so many people.
When we tried to make some changes to the ban in Delaware 2 years ago, I explained the plight of some bartenders I knew who had lost their jobs because of the ban.........I was greeted by the response of these holier-than-thou types that they should have gone to school and they wouldn't have to rely on jobs tending bar.
I truly understand the position you are in.
You are the smokescreen for big government socialism.......that's it. You keep proving it with every post you make.
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