Posted on 07/31/2006 5:15:29 AM PDT by SheLion
The issue is no longer just about smoking.
Passing a state law outlawing smoking in most public places was, by this comparison, the easiest thing to do.
The law was not required to address the inevitable hardships such a bill was destined to inflict.
There was clapping and backslapping on the floor of the state Senate the afternoon it passed there. But none of that really matters now, when the issue is one of how it impacts people's lives.
They are men and women who once ran tiny, yet prosperous, packed-to- the-kegs establishments, who now tend mostly empty bars. The looks on their faces would be no different had their roofs actually fallen in.
They call me. What am I supposed to do, I ask? Write about it, they respond.
What has happened is a statewide tragedy, sponsored by the government. And where are all of the people, they all want to know, that the government promised would flock to their now-smoke-free bars?
The loudest of them, of course, has been Jim VonFeldt, owner of the venerable Billy's Inn at 44th Avenue and Lowell Boulevard.
In the weeks between the governor's signing of the bill and July 1, when the law went into effect, he rallied a relatively small band of tavern owners to challenge the law in court.
A judge denied their sought-after injunction. The litigation itself remains pending in the courts.
Jim VonFeldt has just returned to Billy's from his banker when he calls me, yet again.
He has owned the place for 21 years; his wife's family owned it for nearly 20 years before that. His two grown children are his only employees.
And now, he wants to talk.
It is just after 1 p.m. when I walk into the joint. The only sound emanates from a television in the corner, droning a detective show. Only bearded, vacant-eyed Jay, who has occupied the same far-corner barstool for decades, inhabits the place.
Jim VonFeldt walks up from the back, carrying a large stack of documents. He begins reading from them.
Total business is off 35.14 percent since July 1, he begins. Liquor sales, jukebox, cigarette, vending and Lotto scratch-off machine receipts have declined in 23 short days by at least half.
"That video golf game used to average $75 to $100 a week. The last two weeks, the vendor and I split the 6 bucks that were in it," Jim VonFeldt says.
"Where are all these people the government told me would make my life better? My most loyal customers come, but maybe they have a drink. Most have just stopped coming altogether."
As leader of the Coalition for Equal Rights, the tavern owners' group, he gets calls every day, he says. Three come in as we chat, including one from the lawyer representing the group.
"This is simply crippling," he moans into the phone to the lawyer. Hanging up, he beseeches me to look at the blue folder in front of him. It is filled with his complete financial records, the same ones he has just handed his banker at Chase to leverage his house to the hilt in order to pay his bills. I decline.
So he hands me his state workers compensation bill.
"I don't have the money. All of my cash flow has been depleted," Jim VonFeldt said. "And if I don't have workers comp, I can be fined up to $17,000. I don't know what I am going to do."
To emphasize his point, he walks me to the automatic teller machine I had used a month before.
A large "out of order" sign now lies across the keyboard.
"I don't have enough $20 bills to put in it," he says.
He reads from a stack of notes taken during myriad recent conversations with Coalition members, of patrons saying they are going outside for a smoke but never come back, of fights the bartenders inside can no longer break up, of thieves cleaning out cash registers when bartenders themselves sneak out for a drag or two.
Many owners, Jim VonFeldt says, are doing what he did two days ago: writing Bill Owens and begging for an exemption to the law.
"The ban has decimated my business," his letter to the governor begins. "I am one or two weeks away from bankruptcy.
"If I lose this, so goes my whole family. Please grant this exemption for my family."
The last sentence he has typed in large bold letters.
While he waits to hear back from the governor, he fumes.
"We've got young men now fighting all over the world for what they tell us is for democracy and freedom," Jim VonFeldt, 60, said.
"Yet our own government is taking away my freedom to operate my business right here at home. It's just not right."
He sighs.
"At a time when I should be planning for retirement and the good things in life, the only thing I'm planning is how to survive. If I fail - and this worries me the most - I fail my children.
"I don't know what I am going to do."
"They have smoke free bars, but thats not enough for them, they want them all to be smoke free ( because nobody is in the smoke free ones), so they stamp their lil feet and whine until smoking is banned and ALL the bars in town are empty."
The distinctive difference being that the smokers utilize the free market approach and the anti-smokers utilize the force of government guns.
Fabulous summation!!!!!!!!
I do not understand your question. I prefer each of us has maximum freedom.
Good. Looks like smokers are doing their jobs out there. They don't want our money? Cool. Do without it, then. Businesses are a powerful lobby. The ban only goes through because they let it and in some cases encourage it. They do that in my area, and I won't spend a dime, even after I quit smoking. They've done it here in the town where I work, and I actively avoid every business in town now. They should have put up a fight and said that they valued 27% of their customers.
"Adapt, or die."
So, when the market fails to adapt to appease the minority that wouldn't frequent the neighborhood bar anyway, the answer is for the government to step in and eliminate the satisfied majority of the owners market. Then when that owner complains, you tell him to adapt or die? What other market would you like to see eliminated by the government? SUV's, personal-non work related pick up trucks, etc.
It is also clear from your post that you have no knowledge of neighborhood bars/taverns. There isn't much adaptation avialable when 80% of your clients are daily regulars that smoke and the government ensures you can not cater to that neighborhood clientele.
There are plenty of people who drink and don't smoke.
Your article is about bars losing customers because of a smoking ban. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume that the lost customers are smokers.
"There's just something about smoking and drinking. They go together like peanut butter and jelly for a lot of people."
I only smoke when I drink....I'm up to a pack a day! ;-)
New tagline alert!
Who also have plenty of non-smoking friends that are no longer patronizing the businesses.
Nope. I don't frquent restaurants like that. Around here, the fanciest place is probably Bonefish Grill. Downtown has some fancy restaurants like Oceanaire and Palomino's, but we rarely go out to places like that.
Yet the smokers are told they act like children if they don't get there way. I suppose our founders were acting like children when they were not getting their way in the Parliament.....
Well, to each their own. I prefer to be a smoking patriot!
We moved from Delaware to Virginia less than 6 months after the DE ban took effect. Whenever I am back in Delaware, the only establishments I will patronize are those that had actively fought the ban. But even some of them I can no longer patronize, as they no longer exist.
There was one place that I didn't get to very often which was an interesting place. he had a real popular dining and drinking spot and decided to go non-smoking. He carved out his niche and had a booming business. He was among the very vocal opponents of the ban because he didn't want to lose his market niche. The market niche he had created for himself through proper marketting.
The place is no longer there. Nor is the cigar bar which openned down the street from him when he went non-smoking.
Today smokers, tomorrow,(fill in your own item) “ Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of it’s victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some time be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” – C. S. Lewis
Talk about a childish comment :)
The antis got there way in places, and they still refuse to patronize the now non-smoking businesses, but accuse smokers of doing the damage.........real logical.
Why? Do they miss the stench on their hair and clothing, or were they too cheap to buy their own smokes and settled on second hand?
ONe of the very outspoken opponents of the smoking ban in Delaware had done just that. His bar went non-smoking and he was doing a booming business, which is why he opposed the statewide ban. He had created his market niche and felt the ban would hurt his business. He was right, the ban did hurt, the place is no longer there.
They have smoke free bars, but thats not enough for them, they want them all to be smoke free ( because nobody is in the smoke free ones), so they stamp their lil feet and whine until smoking is banned and ALL the bars in town are empty.I.e. The dorks of the world want every "cool" place modified toward their personal lifestyle preferences, and then they pout when they end up losing the cachet the joint had in the first place...
"..........real logical."
They put their logic on display in every one of these threads.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.