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.
Wow, and just how many kids who grew up in the 50s-70s got lung cancer and heart attacks from SHS? Exactly none. Don't forget that in this period kids began to be brainwashed by liberal propaganda 24/7 so maybe it makes some sense why these antismoking nazis are this way.
You do NOT have the right to come onto my property and impose your smoke-free will upon me, even though it offends (harms) you.
Furthermore, you do NOT have the right to come on my property and impose what language requirements are to be used, even though it may offend (harm) you.
Furthermore, you do NOT have the right to come on my property and impose your dress code, even though it may offend (harm) you.
Get it yet? (don't use the liberal's SHS health arguments on me. They are BS and have nothing to do with this issue in the first place.)
"Read my other posts.
Property rights is a smokscreen for smokers to push their rights on others.
That's it."
I have read all of your posts, MplsSteve. It seems apparent that you do not choose to answer my simple questions. Perhaps you know that if you came out as an advocate FOR private property rights, your other arguments would go up in flames.
Also, The fact that you do not believe that "private property rights" being the most important issue in this debate shows that you simply do not understand the situation, or choose not to.
"This is excellent, just excellent. Just the kind of thoughtful, data driven debate I like to see.
Let me read it well, and if the data is robust, I will change my mind on this issue."
razoroccam, by your above statement you have shown that you have an open mind on that issue and I applaud you for it. Whether or not it changes your mind is secondary right now, it's the fact that you are willing to read it and study the data that shows me you are sincere in your debate.
You are correct. The only one with the final say in this issue is the owner. Not whiney crybabies who probably wouldn't set foot in half these places anyway.
I have seen many non-smokers on this, and other threads who do like the smoke-free atmosphere (that's fine) but are totally against the idea of the forced bans that created it. I have no problem with those folks.
My problem is with those who insist on using the force of government to impose their will upon private property owners.
Sneaky ain't ya. You choose to bloviate rather than admit that private property rights ARE at issue here. Many FReepers are nonsmokers and even though they do not choose to be around smoke, they also believe strongly in private property rights issues.
You can accuse people of using property rights as a smokescreen until hell freezes over, but you are wrong in doing so. The fact that you do not answer simple questions tells me much about you.
His/her tagline fits perfectly though. MplsSteve. Impulse over reason.
BTW, your right to be safe from bodily harms stops at the doorway, or property line, of every private property owner in America. If I choose to have a floor of nails, and you choose to enter, then it's your own fault. But by golly, it's my right to have a floor of nails if I so choose.
Interestingly Indy just had a smoke free pool hall close down. When it opened in 1995 it was smoke free. I never thought it would make it, but it did a GREAT business. However now with mandatory smoking bans it is no longer unique. So the antismoking nazis helped destroy a nonsmoking business, instead of letting the marketplace decide. Amen to the poster who said that big chains push for bans because they can wait out the loss of business that comes after bans. Small businesses can't. This is how officials claim that tax revenues "stay the same" as big chains absorb the lost clientele who have no where else to go when their fave bar closes.
"Fat nonsmokers cost a ton more in health care costs than healthy smokers."
May be true, though I have no data on it.
Not only do smokers pay more into the system than they take out but the debt to society for all time has been paid under the tobacco settlement with the federal government and states. The language of the exorbitant settlement said it covered all damages past, present and future. It's all double-dipping now by the lying totaliarians.
I no longer refer to them as convenient conservatives - rather I call them what they are closet liberals.
Yours is one of the most important posts on this topic. The little guy fails and either sells his liquor license to the chain or surrenders his liquor license back to the politicians who then sell it to the chain.
The smoking ban is a smokescreen for a sort-of backdoor KELO!
I'm like you, I have no problem with non-smoking restaurants for the same reasons as you.
Before we moved, the only restaurants in Delaware we ate in after the ban were the ones that had been smokefree prior to the ban that we had eaten in. I try to avoid going there except in nice weather and then I only go to places with outside seating. The ban went into effect in the winter, so going out was not something we did often. But living in Dover, maryland was very close.
I left Delaware for lots of reasons, so I find few reasons to go back very often.
Ironically, I only go there for the cheap cigarettes. LOL
I keep Kosher. It is not fair that when I walk into Red Lobster that they serve seafood! They just want to force their non kosher ways on me. I don't eat beef because I am Hindu. I went into Taco Bell and some meat got on my bean burrito. Why should I be forced to have my religion VIOLATED by beef eaters! I am a Muslim. I went to Smokey Bones. I found out that they smoke pig meat there. I can't enter without inhaling the smoke from unclean animals. Why should my right to breathe pig-free air be taken away? Their "right" to cook pig flesh ENDS at my nose. They can just take their BBQ OUTSIDE! I went to a Kiss concert. The music was too loud. Since studies PROVE that loud noise causes hearing damage and loss, we need a law preventing any groups from playing loud. For too long Gene Simmons has forced me to be exposed to this racket. 56% of the population thinks that, so we need to listen to the majority.
If you were true to yourself you would recognize using your selfish desires doesn not justify you dictating the use of the private property of others.
Buy your own business or stay out of ours.
There will never peace with the likes of selfish elitists such as yourself.
Take care my FRiend...........
The troll has lost and has gone off to cower in his little cave.
I have other words besides "tool".........but for the sake of politeness, I'll stick to that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.