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."
Hey! They need help getting signatures and you don't even have to get out of your car! Go Quick!!!
Very sorry about your accident. Best wishes to you and your family.I guess this article was about the smoking ban and its affect on business. I think people should be able to smoke at bars. If a person doesn't like second hand smoke, just stay out of bars. The workplace where you are a captive audience is another matter altogether. I support smoking bans in the workplace and other public places.
Can't have the sheep running their own businesses-that lets them be too independent. The role of sheep is to be "human resources" for corporations, and to spend their lives working to make other people money-at least till those other people find "human resources" willing to do the job for less.
I'm a nonsmoker, but sometimes the urge to take up smoking becomes will-nigh irresistable.
You know alcohol will be targeted again sometime down the road. Alcohol doesn't burden the healthcare industry like smoking does, but it can be much more destructive. Alcohol abuse contributes to domestic violence, traffic deaths, personal heartaches and broken families.
I drink socially and quit smoking 8 years ago. Not being a prude, just observing the obvious discrepancy.
I wonder....are private clubs exempt from the ban ?
Exactly!
It's not about folks not being able to go into these establishments because of the smoking.
It's about controlling other people's lives for their "own good".
Somewhere, someone is having a good time and it MUST BE STOPPED! /s
Puff ping.
Alcohol abuse costs us plenty. In the end people have to use their common sense to control themselves. Unfortunately when you drink your judgement is impaired. I know mine is!
So, let me get this sraight. If you're a cigarette addict, and you can't smoke in the bars, you quit drinking? Or do you just stop going out and have the sixpack and half pint at home? Do you gather with other smokers at someone's home to sip and puff?
Much as I dislike smoke in my face, I don't think it is government's function to decide if a business should permit it or not. But it seems to me that smokers (in general, if the "stats" quoted are correct) are like the little kid who, if he can't have it his way, goes into a corner and sulks.
To enter a smoke-easy, remember the password ; "LSMFT". Pass it on.
"Fewer drunks running over people or less bar profits. Tough choice"
I would think it would make drinking and driving go UP !
These stupid bans don't stop smoking or drinking, they cause people to DRIVE to the next town, then they get to DRIVE back.
For the record, the first poster to make this a personal attack is a smoker. Must be frustrating to be losing all the time.
In our case you'd have to drive out of state. I don't know to which state as I haven't paid attention to their regulations.
That's an idiotic statement.
If anything, these folks are driving back and forth on multiple beer runs every night instead of the one trip home from the bar.
And in case you missed it, this is a smoking thread, not a drunk driver thread.
The two largest cities in the county (south of Indianapolis) have gone no smoking, as has Indianapolis. I have a few restaurants that are outside city limits that I can go to. If the county passes an ordinance (the no smoking people are pushing for it county wide) then I will simply get carryout and stay home. Cheaper that way, anyway.
Sooner or later someone is going to figure out a way around this. I don't want to offend people with smoking, but good gosh, smoking in public was ok for nearly 100 years, and I am tired of listening to the griping.
Who says they have to work there? Can't an adult make a conscious decision to work in such an environment? Just as they can decide not to frequent a smoking establishment, can't they chose not to work there?
And no, don't compare it to working at something like a job with hazardous, deadly chemicals without protection. It's not the same.
gotta go to work now...where it's been no smoking for 25 years or more.
"For the record, the first poster to make this a personal attack is a smoker. Must be frustrating to be losing all the time."
Must be frustrating to be an American and advocate government control of your life. Anyone that thinks smoking bans are good policy should move to Cuba where government is expected to tell you what to do.
I'd call it a false choice.
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