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.
It may have been "robust" but it was also biased ........ follow the money. Much of the money came from the same entities as the firearm "study."
Perhaps it would help you to understand if you would lay aside the fact that you dislike smokers. I think if you would concentrate on the fact that these smoking bans are taking away the rights of bar owners to conduct their business as they see fit, then perhaps you wouldn't support these bans.
Do you really believe that the government has the right to tell you, a private property owner, what you can and cannot do on your own property? Take smoking out of the equation long enough to realize that this is an attack against ALL private property owners and private businesses.
Those diseases only happen to smokers??? Apparently not, since my ex-sister-in-law had lung cancer and never smoked a day in her life!!!!
Hey Eugene isn't exactly Cancun either. Those smokers are a hearty lot. They bundle up, go gather around the gas stove on the smoking deck, and have their fix. It works in Eugene, and it gets damn cold here too.
That does not surprise me in the least. Some folks just can't see that to infringe on one person's property rights is to infringe on ALL of our property rights. There's always another group of "anti-something" to take the place of another. When they are allowed to win, we all lose.
Then don't.
Spot on, Chena.
When a person acquires real estate, they acquire a "bundle of rights" associated with said real estate.
To arbitrarily usurp ANY of these rights is undoubtably unconstitutional and the owner should be compensated for the loss of use of their real estate.
"Perhaps it would help you to understand if you would lay aside the fact that you dislike smoker"
Quite honestly, I don't dislike smokers.
"Do you really believe that the government has the right to tell you, a private property owner, what you can and cannot do on your own property? "
No, I don't. In none of the posts did I support what is being proposed.
You are missing my point - smoke all you want, just don't expect me to pay for it (through taxes)
I wonder if this is some type of 'eminent domain' back door move. Like we talked about with the Farmers Gabz.
This places can't do business, so they have to sell....
Just a speculation.
"Those diseases only happen to smokers??? Apparently not, since my ex-sister-in-law had lung cancer and never smoked a day in her life."
Not only to smokers, but at a much much higher rate than non-smokers.
I agree with you that people know what they are getting into when they go into a bar, bingo parlor, or bowling alley. In Eugene, all the bars said they would be going out of business because of this. That was not the case and in fact the businesses did better because nonsmokers returned to the bars and the smokers adapted to the smoking decks. It gave them something to do to get up every once in a while and go hang out on the deck. Didn't matter what the weather was.
Bingo parlors, now that's a little tougher gig. People aren't just lounging around there.
It's you, my FRiend, that doesn't get it. For them, it's going exactly as planned. Back door prohibition.
I remember during the big tobacco trials that the tobacco lawyers wanted to enter just that type of evidence to rebut the government's claims that smoking was costing them more money, but the judge refused to let them.
>>>Back door prohibition.
Ok, than dual purpose. Cause yours makes sense too.
Mine was back door eminent domain.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1455462/posts?page=69#69
"These people who enact these bans truly do not get it and end up running taverns and bars out of business. "
Oh they get it alright. They know exactly what they are doing. What we have is Prohibitionists in disguise using tobacco as their excuse. These people know that drinkers who smoke won't go to a pub where smoking is banned...and that the few non-smokers who would continue to patronize the pub are not nearly enough to sustain the business.
Let's just call it for what it is...backdoor prohibition.
OK, I'm confused. You replied to a post of mine, telling me to see post #32. Your comment on post #32 was "what an idiotic statement". That was supposed to answer my questions? Are your parents home?
See post 39
I'm kind of a hypocrite with these rules. I personally oppose such rules and would never vote in favor of them.
However, I can't say that I didn't enjoy going out to bars in smoke-free NY and LA.
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