Second-hand smoke kills 50,000 Americans each year, the group said.
Liars liars pants on fire!!!
Posted on 03/21/2006 4:11:50 AM PST by SheLion
BEAUMONT - Every evening Pat Roy's bar fills up with workers in their boots and overalls who come to enjoy a few drinks and cigarettes.
But if a proposed ban on lighting up in public spaces is approved by the Beaumont City Council, Roy predicts a 50 percent drop in business.
"(The ban) would be devastating," said Roy, the owner of Patrick's Pub.
For many of her customers, smoking and drinking go hand in hand, Roy said. If they cannot smoke in Beaumont, they will start frequenting bars in Nederland or Port Neches, she said.
Roy and about a dozen other bar and restaurant owners - fearing a smoking ban could put them out of business - gathered Sunday to coordinate their opposition.
The city council will hold a public hearing Tuesday on two proposed smoking bans. The strictest proposed ordinance would apply to bars, restaurants, workplaces and most other enclosed spaces accessible to the public.
The other version would allow smoking in bars - defined as establishments that derive at least 70 percent of their revenue from alcohol sales. This proposal also would allow smoking in restaurants if there is a walled-off smoking area with a separate ventilation system.
Even the less restrictive proposal would be a devastating blow to restaurant-bar hybrids like his, said Frank Randazzo, the owner of Madison's.
The filtration devices and smoke-eaters, combined with the building's high ceilings, keeps the air at Madison's clean, Randazzo said, adding he has received only two complaints about the smoke since he opened two years ago.
Supporters of smoking bans in other cities have claimed the ordinance can be a boon to business - bringing in new customers who had previously avoided the nightlife because of the smoke.
But Randazzo does not want to gamble his livelihood on that assumption.
"It's an interesting experiment that nobody is willing to finance," he said.
The stakes for restaurant and bar owners could not be higher, but Roy said she is surprised more are not actively opposing the ban.
At a city council meeting last month where the two ordinance drafts were first presented, supporters of the ban came out in force, but not a single bar owner spoke at the meeting.
The issue came to the forefront last year when the Jefferson County Medical Society endorsed a total ban and urged the council to act.
Second-hand smoke kills 50,000 Americans each year, the group said.
Beaumont's bar and restaurant owners are up against a growing statewide trend. El Paso and Austin have banned smoking in almost all public spaces. An analysis by the state health department shows at least 29 Texas cities have adopted a ban that is at least moderately strict.
But last month the Galveston City Council rejected a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants.
The public hearing on Beaumont's proposed smoking ordinances will begin at 1:30 p.m. at city hall on Tuesday.
Second-hand smoke kills 50,000 Americans each year, the group said.
Liars liars pants on fire!!!
There needs to be a resturant chain for smokers ONLY!If non-smokers want to eat there,then they should be forced outside.After all,they claim they want fresh air so they should go where there is fresh air.Smokers have much better personalities and are far more tolerant than those non-smoking control freaks.
I've been to Beaumont, when we deployed somewhere or other back in the 90's. Some food catering service was retained to provide take-out for us hungry GI pilots and mechanics. Mont Cler? Hm... chicken fried steak, and the gravy was pure ambrosia.
Well, we are all for smoking bans be left up to the private business owner and his patrons and NOT the local City Councils and Boards of Health! The City Councils sure didn't invest any money into the business!
And you are so right about smokers being more fun and not the prissy nosed non-smoking control freaks. I smoke, but I sure have seen the difference between the two camps. Lots of non-smokers could care less about second hand smoke, but you have these anti-smokers that won't even tolerate the WORD "Smoking." Smokers are more relaxed.
Oh I LOVE chicken fried steak and gravy. I miss it!!!
I grew up in Beaumont, and delivered that paper at 4:30 AM at age 13, saving $2K for a crappy little Mustang II. I couldn't wait to get away from their and Forest Park High (West Brook now?). Not all that bad a place looking back though.
I grew up in Beaumont, and delivered that paper at 4:30 AM at age 13, saving $2K for a crappy little Mustang II. I couldn't wait to get away from their and Forest Park High (West Brook now?). Not all that bad a place looking back though.
How can you say "Crappy and Mustang" in the same breath? LOL
I LOVE Mustangs!!!!
After dropping a grand on a new transmission (earned at minimum wage) and watching the plastic panels in the back turn brittle and disintegrate after a couple of years in the sun, crappy was the kindest thing I could say. I agree that the original Mustang was a great car.
The Mustang 2 was a real POS (made super-cheap)that had no resemblance to the original masterpiece. The new mustang has went back to the roots, and, IMO, is the only good-looking car made in this country now.
Oh dear. That's sad.
I had a Mach One once. I loved it. Very classy and sporty at the same time. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it was an automatic. A car like that should have been a stick.
I'm not a smoker but I am getting angry at smoking bans. They're turning America into a big mental institution's cafeteria.
Property & socializing circles belong to whoever makes the rule of these, and in this sense I see a sort of property takeover & a social holocaust waged on smokers by city councils accross the nation.
All these are Pharisean rules which can derail easily in any other inane cases of behaviors deemed "unsafe". I wonder how many of those laundering hypocrites in city counsils are just too fat or too old to do their jobs safely without it affecting us. There should be a rule against that (sarcasm)
The other thing is that owners should not have to be licensed this way as nurses. Taking the responsibility of smoking & putting it on the owner's shoulder smacks of irresponsability & thus racism.
Many of us totally agree with you. This should be left up to the private business owner and his patrons.
I bet a lot of people today hesitate before buying property. What with imminent domain and the City Councils going in to tell them how to run it. Totally asinine.
Oh, and localy, a University "science cop" researcher in Industrial engineering started screaming that allowing smoking is like allowing people to pi at the public pool.
Which it is not, as smoke at worse is more related to kitchen fumes
Which we cannot see who pi or not at public pools, but smoking we can personaly avoid
And if we gauge a bar's sanitary conditions on smoking, it's the dumbest thing since we want to go after false products such as establishment delivering tainted foods on the sly, where true crime exists. However the pharisean system goes after the superficial looks of things & not the smuggling & laundering by sheeps' clothing of City Counsil wolves.
This is clearly an agenda driven proposal
Yes, nowadays property buying is either done by idiots, by people who are part of city counsils because they rent on a mass scale, or by people who buy, sell or mortgage loans on the property price bubble.
Property buying in the traditional sense is dead.
Well, air is circulated all the time. How often is water changed in a pool? eh?
Actually, at a lot of public pools we CAN see who's peeing in the pool.
They have a chemical they put in the water that changes to a nice bright yellow in the presence of urine.
"Where's that yellow coming from?"
50,000 deaths a year from ETS.
Patooooooiieeeee
I SPIT on your 50,000 deaths a year as the bald faced lie that it is!
(not to you Judge)
This is really disgusting, Joe. That is the figure they used about smokers. Now, they are using it for SHS? Totally disgusting. The liars!
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