- Plenty of places banned smoking before they were required to by law.
Unfortunately, the free market works too slowly for those who wish to force their socialist agenda on the rest of us.
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.
I put my coat on to go out for a smoke when it is 20 degrees out...I just keep going and get in my car and go home. I can't take my drink oustide with me, and it's 20 degrees.
I'm outside having a smoke and I have to listen to you whinny non-smokers complaining that you have to wade through the smokers to get in the place too.
I had heard some grumbling that the law may change here in Hennepin because of the loss of revenue (i.e. taxes) for the city (since they could care less about bar owners).
As a former smoker, I enjoy the clear air as much as the next, but still say that every bar has the right to decide if its a smoking bar or not. If the person doesn't like the fact that a bar is a smoking bar, go find one that isn't. Works the other way too.
Unfortunately, the free market works too slowly for those who wish to force their socialist agenda on the rest of us.
"They have to get past this personal vendetta. Don't do that to customers. They need to promote their businesses as smoke-free."
While literally no one objects to smoke free eating establishments, taverns are a DIFFERANT thing altogether. God save us all from the sort of asshats who impose this sort of thing on us. The thing about people like Connie Olson is that they will not be happy until they prevent you from smoking in your own home as well.
EXACTLY..........and that was true in nearly every area that has instituted one of these property taking bans.
And the governments already tax the crap out of smokers to pay for that. In Fact the Congressinal Research Service determined many years ago (before all of the increased cig taxes) that smokers already paid more into the system than they will ever take out of it.
Therein lies the busybodies' insanity. Lots of people standing outside smoking on the sidewalks. I mean, isn't that still polluting the air? What about global warming? (LOL)
Although I agree with you and oppose socialist wealth redistribution programs in principle, smokers actually cost less in health care costs, because they die sooner, while non-smokers can rack up huge health care bills in managed end-of-life care for decades. (On average.)
"Problem is that I get taxed to fund Medicare, Medicaid, etc so that those who choose to smoke can then get treated for bronchitis, lung cancer, MI, TIA, stroke, etc."
What an idiotic statement.
Don't worry, the government will take care of you. All will be fine.
Yeah, and I get taxed to pay for people who choose to engage in sexual behaviour that leads to Aids and other diseases, abortions to which I'm opposed and liver transplants for boozers that hang out in "smoke free" bars for their health.
If anything, smokers are getting screwed because they pay into a Social Security System from which they may never collect. I think non-smokers should have to pay a higher SS premium since they will be collecting more benefits over a longer period of time.
"Don't worry, the government will take care of you. All will be fine"
What an idiotic statement.
"Yeah, and I get taxed to pay for people who choose to engage in sexual behaviour that leads to Aids and other diseases, abortions to which I'm opposed and liver transplants for boozers that hang out in "smoke free" bars for their health."
I agree, which is why the government should get out of the health care business (Medicare and Medicaid). And also the retirement business (Social Security) while they are at it. People should be responsible for their own health and finances.
See post 32
It's funny.
I know exactly what's going on here with all these anti-smoking laws, and I've never heard anyone else get it just right, so I'll say it.
Every kid who grew up in the 50s or 60s or 70s, grew up with parents who smoked. It was a universal thing.
And every kid grew up trapped inside of cars full of smoke on long car trips, etc., unable to get away from the smoke.
Now, some kids didn't care.
But a whole lot of them did.
A lot.
And their complaints all fell on deaf ears. Parents were parents, and they wanted to smoke, and kids were kids and would just have to shut up and deal with it.
Power prevailed.
Now all those kids are adults.
And we live in a democracy, where power prevails.
The anti-smoking zeal is NOT just aimed at health.
It's not really aimed at big business.
It's aimed at these kids' parents, many of whom are long since gone. The contemporary smoker is here, now, and invokes all of that animus that all of those kids trapped in smoky cars and houses had back then. The smoker stands in loco parentis.
The fact that smokers scream and bitch so much just makes the imposition of laws on them more delicious to the adult kids who were trapped in smoke-filled cars. Baby grew up and now is in charge, and can impose on the parents who used to impose on him.
That's why it's so mean, so obsessive, and why the anti-smoking lobby is so UTTERLY uncompromising, and so UTTERLY enjoys hearing the smokers scream and whine.
It's called "turnabout", and in a democracy it is, alas, fair play.
remember this post when you favorite bar closes...
Do you have any data to back that up? An AMA study that showed that though smokers lived less than non-smokers, they used the health care significantly more. Thus, medical dollars use during life x life expentancy of smokers >> medical dollars use during life x life expentancy of non-smokers.
Your common sense will fall upon deaf ears when it comes to the ban supporting crowd. They have no concept of the idea of private property rights. They are of the wrongful idea that if an establishment owner invites the public into the premises the establishment owner no longer has any rights.
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