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.
"Except those who cherish private property rights...."
There it is. Thanks.
And what about in a Constitutional Republic, founded on the concepts of limited government and individual sovreignty?
Do we still get to vote on whether we should force people to eat their broccoli at government gunpoint, because it's good for them?
I don't recall where I read it. If you have a study that shows otherwise, ok, but remember that the AMA is not disinterested; they are heavily politicized (to the left, naturally) and anti-smoking studies that come from them should be viewed, in my opinion, with the same skepticism as anti-gun studies coming from them should be.
I forget the year, but the Congressional Research Service, at the behest of Henry Waxman looked into it when he was proposing a huge increase in the federal cigarette tax. It was CRS that determined smokers pay more into the system than they take out, because smokers also pay the smae taxes as non-smokers into the government health funds.
With that said, it is still a specious argument, because claiming that smokers use more taxpayer money is the same as claiming that smokers ONLY use government health care. I pay my own medical insurance, in addition to paying into the government.
Funny you should mention firearm studies - they do have a couple of those!!
Extremely, extremely most excellent point!
But you will notice - not a single post addressing that has been replied to by the poster.........which is typical of those type posters.
The article also stated, "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."
I believe the reasons that these "family restaurants" aren't feeling the impact is that people don't spend an entire evening at a family restaurant. Even a heavy smoker can get through a dinner at a family restaurant without lighting up. But a bar? Bars are gathering places where people can spend many hours entertaining each other. To compare a family restaurant to a "bar" is absurd, IMO.
If you doubt bias in the firearms studies, post a link and I'll be happy (and quite confidant that I am able) to expose it. Logical fallacies, etc. I doubt their smoking studies are any more honest, but they might be.
That was to Ndafill.
Are you posting under two identities?
Also, I told you to look at post 32 which answers your questions.
"So more people will stay home and drink and smoke, resulting in more people drinking underage and consuming larger quantities of alcohol (Those who die of alcohol poisoning rarely do so at a bar)."
If those who desire to take away our personal freedoms continue and are successful on their rampage, it will also become illegal to smoke in your own home.
Their firearm study was biased. The smoking study was fairly robust.
It was a real eye opener when they were still discussing just a Minneapolis smoking ban.
Several times the local media played a clip of a Hennepin County official walking along the street stating how unfair it would be if people could just walk across the street into St. Louis Park and smoke in a bar or restaurant there.
It hit me like a thunderbolt, this is how liberal Totalitarianism starts; the liberal politicians pass laws that the people don’t like, and then they won’t allow the people any possibility of choice.
Thus it went from a Minneapolis City smoking ban to a Hennepin County ban, because it would be “unfair” for the people to have a choice. Liberal Totalitarianism at it’s finest!
It's also the home of Houdini, and actor Willem Dafoe.
Those "family restaurants" and "upscale places" are prime movers behind these smoking bans. They have the corporate backing to handle a dip in revenues that the corner tavern or local diner doesn't. They know they can outlast the little guys and then they become the only game in town.
I watched it happen first hand in Delaware....it was the corporate entities of the hospitality industry that pushed for the ban....adn pushed to include the local taverns in the ban.
Thanks.
"Also, I told you to look at post 32 which answers your questions."
That post answers nothing.
I wouldn't know where to start with you.
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