Posted on 11/14/2005 7:44:32 AM PST by Namyak
HARRISBURG -- Mary Molinaro loves bingo, but it's been ages since she's played.
"They smoke up a storm in those bingos. It gives me a headache," said Mrs. Molinaro, 72, of Glassport.
That's why she's hoping for the passage of legislation that would prohibit smoking in all public workplaces, including restaurants, stores, sports arenas, bars and, yes, bingo halls.
Violators would be subject to fines of up to $100 for the first violation, $200 for the second violation within one year and $500 for subsequent violations in the same year.
Similar bills have been proposed over the last several years, but they've never made it to the floor.
Supporters are encouraged that this legislation seems to have more momentum. It's the first of its kind to go through a public hearing of the Senate's Public Health and Welfare Committee, though a vote, if any, wouldn't happen until next year. A similar bill is under consideration in the House.
Legislators who opposed previous attempts to ban smoking are now reconsidering.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Disgusted ping....
I agree with you about the non-smoking bar not being a business model to be adopted en masse - that is why this guy was so opposed to the ban. He had found his market niche and the ban was taking it away from him. Numerous non-smoking restaurants also opposed the ban, because they had found their niche, by their own choice, and the ban would take that away from them.
I totally understand your skepticism regarding the casinos in PA. Politics in DE are not pretty, but becasue the state is so small the cronyism, corruption, and double dealing go unnoticed on the national level. It's as bad there as in PA or NJ and one of the main reasons I left.
The PA legislature would be fools to ban smoking in the not yet existing casinos precisely because Delaware bans it. A large portion of the revenue in DE racinos come from PA - PA would see all that back and then some as folks would be coming up to PA from DE and your own folks would stop coming to DE.
You're right. The Delaware casinos were not exempted. Revenues fell 30 percent. Part of the revenue was designated for horse-racing purses. Soon after the casinos opened, purses shot so high, Delaware had the second-highest purse structure in the country and attracted great horses.
After the smoking ban and the 30 percent cut in purses, the good racing went elsewhere.
I note this to show the cascading impacts of smoking bans. More than one industry was affected in Delaware.
I sincerely hope that was sarcasm.
Hey lady, there are many bingos around with non-smoking rooms or totally non-smoking.
Hey, Post-Gazette, you are supposed to be a newspaper. You should know this as well. Tell me you have no bingo ads in your paper.
SD
Yu've got that right.
Bars and the casinos being included was supposed to be the killer of the ban altogether. The then (dem) Senate Pro-Tem assured the House (rep) Majority leader if the bill passed with the bars and casinos included it would be DOA in the Senate. For some oddball reason the ban had become a pet project of the Governor. The former Pro-Tem is now the Secretary of the Department of Labor and bars and casinos are included in the ban.
Politics in Delaware is more than just dirty..........
OK, YOU can tell the regulars at the Brackney Inn that they can't smoke!!!
That makes WAY to much sense.
Fire companies are one of the few exemptions to the smoking ban in Delaware. Most bingos in Senior Centers and churches have been shut down because most folks started going to the firehalls where smoking is permitted.
Although I have not found a non smoking bar yet..
Go to Delaware, or New York, or Maine, or California.........
But then again, this is a workplace issue.
???????????
I have no intentions of telling anyone any such thing, anywhere.
Sigh.....the U.S. and it's nanny state. These laws have been passed in so many places now, I fear it may be a losing battle. So many people hate smoking they're just going to vote it through without thinking about the free choice/personal decisions slippery slope we're facing.
Actually so many people have been conditioned to think they hate smoking and have been conditioned to also hate smokers.
But I have been heartened of late noticing more and more non-smokers speaking out against these bans.
Then don't patronize the establishment.
Yep. Had at least four or five NON-smoker restaurants tank after ours went into effect. They were SMALL (and Local) therefore has a niche. Once it went in, they were screwed. (those who could afford a seperately ventilated smoking section were exempted, but of course, you had to build it and then apply for a permit first-some are still waiting) Once the anti-smokers were able to go most anywhere, they lost their clientele. Brilliant.
The antis refuse to acknowlege what they are doing to private businesses.
I can only speak to my experience in Delaware. It was the chain restaurants (Applebee's, TGIFriday's, McDonald's etc) that pushed to get the bars and casinos added to the ban.....specifically the bars, they didn't care about the casinos.
These bans have nothing to do with health and everything to do with money. The more bans, the more money the antis make. The more bans, the more corner pubs go out of business and the chains become the only game in town.
Delaware is hoping this passes so they can get some of their revenue back after passing their smoking ban.
Really? Guess they left this paragraph out of the excerpt:
In New York City, where there's been a smoking ban since 2003, restaurant and bar profits are up by 8.7 percent, according to a joint report by the city's departments of finance, health and mental hygiene, small business services and economic development
But I wouldn't argue the point that smoking goes well with whine.
Exactly.
Of course the City is going to say that.......talk to some of the owners that no longer have a business.
I trust the word, and the books, of the owners far more than the government agencies who imposed these bans and must continue to justify them.
You may choose to live in your little isolated smokefree bubble, but I choose to live in reality. For as long and as closely as I worked with owners in Delaware, I am in a far better position to understand exactly what the bans do than you are.
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