Click on The Facts to see the actual impact of smoking bans to private businesses.
Oak Ridge Labs, TN & SECOND HAND SMOKE
Statistics and Data Sciences Group Projects
I think any anti who tries to dismiss the findings of the U.S. Department of Energy labs at Oak Ridge, should be confronted with the question: "Are you saying that DOE researchers committed scientific fraud and that their findings on ETS exposure are untrue?"
In Kerrville, TX, they are mulling a smoking ban in all public places:
http://www.dailytimes.com/story.lasso?wcd=18940
Are the control freaks willing to put up their own money to fund the shortfall to businesses when it happens?
Maybe overofficious goverment fascists would prefer restaurants and bars to set up hyperbaric oxygen chambers?
If the governemnt want to be technical, let THEM be liable for every sickness and death resulting from alcohol -- afterall it's proven "dangerous" to one's health, isn't it?
This hysteria has been going on for years. Back in the early/mid-90s, the smoking ban hit restaurants in the FDW area. Same hysteria - restaurants will be forced to close, customers will stay home, blah, blah, blah.
Didn't happen. Business went on and got better because many customers who previously wouldn't go to restaurants to eat because of their pro-smoking stance could now go out and enjoy a meal without the stench of cigarettes.
This is just knee-jerk panic by smokers and Chicken Littles. As usual, there is (literally) neither smoke, nor fire. And, every other place that has banned publis smoking has not seen a decrease in business. This is all much ado about nothing.
I've lived in Baytown & it's full of chemical plants. One can drive only a mile & get 10 different chemical smells. Sometimes they are bad enough to burn your eyes. If anyone thinks that banning smokers will improve the air quality at all, they are either just plain stupid or extremely biased.
Last week the Boston Globe ran a story about city and business leaders in Provincetown trying to come up with new ways to attract tourists to Provincetown -- you know, bring the kids and see the q***rs, or something -- because business has plunged in a town that survives on bars and restaurants.
Now, the Globe, being antismoking to the core, never asked what impact the smoking ban has had on Provincetown but I can tell you:
The smoking ban had a bigger impact on Provincetown than a plague!!!
I have a friend who owns a fairly popular restaurant in a nice part of the DFW area. They banned smoking and lost all of 1 customer in the first year and a half. He said business was better over the previous year or so.
Losing customers in actual restaurants to smoking bans is a myth. It may apply to certain bars in certain areas of town, but its in small numbers.