Posted on 07/03/2003 10:44:39 AM PDT by Drew68
June 28, 2003
So who is going to march on City Hall and scream for Robert Mannion's rights?
The answer, of course, is no one. Indeed, Robert Mannion had no rights when it came to the conduct of his restaurant. It was the city's way, or the highway. And that is how this man's restaurant died.
Smoking killed it. Rather, it was the lack of it that forced its quick demise.
Less than a year after the city of Louisville enacted a no-smoking ordinance in all restaurants, Bart's, a fixture in the town for nearly three decades, shut its doors last week.
It had in recent months become a deserted shell of its former self. The bar, like many in Louisville restaurants these days, stood empty all day.
Robert Mannion tried virtually everything to resuscitate his business.
He drastically cut the price of his once-popular Sunday buffet, began offering 2-for-1 deals on supper, and even started a Bart's newsletter, mailing it to every local address he could locate.
In each one, he included a coupon for 20 percent-off on meals. It didn't work.
I have written of Bart's before, to illustrate the pitfalls of nonsmoking ordinances of the type with which Denver now struggles. Should it be the city's or the restaurant operator's call on smoking?
Robert Mannion had lost 99 percent of his smoking clientele after the ordinance passed, he said, the folks who once filled the place on Fridays, on the weekend and, particularly, on game days.
Their loss, he acknowledged, was killing him. And without a viable bar business, he couldn't offset his food costs.
I sort of knew Bart's would never survive. After I wrote about him the first time, even his beer suppliers called or e-mailed me, saying their trade there was but a fraction of even two years ago.
In the bars and hangouts in the towns around Louisville, you bring up the name Bart's and people tell you how they used to go there, how they don't now, how they used to really kind of like the joint.
Robert Mannion at first remained hopeful. Sure, he said, business was off some 66 percent since the ordinance went into effect. And it wasn't a good thing.
I still remember the lost look in his eyes when I asked him how long he figured he'd hold out. He just patted my shoulder, breathed a deep sigh and said he didn't know.
It was just before noon when I pulled in front of the place in search of Robert Mannion. Only a large "Closed" sign stood behind the door. And a note:
"Due to circumstances beyond our control, Bart's is closed indefinitely. We thank you for your support and memories."
As I was jotting this down, Howard Rose, 52, walked up and tugged on the restaurant's front door. I told him the news.
"I didn't know," he said, almost crestfallen. He runs an industrial supply business just up the road, and ate at Bart's at least once a week.
"I am sensitive to cigarette smoke," Howard Rose said, "but I still came. I never had a real problem because Robert was always really good about separating the smoke in the nonsmoking area."
And then there was Frank Gregg. He'd been coming to Bart's with his wife twice a week. You know, the coupons and all.
"Gone. Closed its doors," he spat.
See, he knew the actual Bart, the guy who opened the place all those years ago, a man who gave him a job 17 years ago playing guitar just off the bar area.
"When I started playing, StorageTek was in its heydey, and Friday nights would be packed. Sixty to 80 people in the bar, alone."
Even when StorageTek began laying off workers, the place still would have half as many people in the door, he said.
And it would remain that way. Until the smoking ban arrived.
"I'll always love that place," Frank Gregg said softly. "It gave me the most wonderful thing I'll ever receive in my life."
He met his wife there.
I never did find Robert Mannion. Phone calls and e-mail have gone unreturned.
I remember him telling me only weeks ago, as we stood in his empty, eerily quiet bar, how he did feel better in recent months. That maybe the anti-smoking people had a point.
After more than a decade working and hustling about smokers in his restaurant, his clothes no longer reeked of cigarette smoke.
He truly believed, he said, he was breathing better.
See, I wanted to ask Robert Mannion what he was thinking today. Was it, on balance, worth it?
Or was it - allowing people to smoke in his restaurant - a call he'd rather have made?
Bill Johnson's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Call him at (303) 892-2763 or e-mail him at johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com
How come he didn't send ME a job application?
Two things:
1. "anti-smoker" is not the same as "anti-smoking"
2. That's an exaggerated, if not entirely baseless, generalization.
Do you think it's just labor costs and unions that are driving business to move their manufacturing operations overseas? We've had labor costs and the unions for a century, we've had the increasingly strangulating government regulation for the past 30 years (especially the past 15).
I'm an ex-smoker (20 years). It isn't a myth.
It also affects your sense of smell, which is a large part of tasting and enjoying food.
If someone is trying to use the democratic process to take away a property owners tight to allow consumption of a legal commodity, it doesn't matter if you say pumpkin or punkin.
They're both the same.
That's an exaggerated, if not entirely baseless, generalization.
Which? That the anti-smokers say that or that the nonsmoking population will make up for the number of smokers?
Almost every smoking ban that has passed in the past 2 years, the controlling authority has been warned that the ban will be bad for business. Almost every time, the anti-smoking cabal has told the controlling authority to, in effect, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain".
The net result is that mom&pop establishments that have been in business for years go under leaving only the corporate establishments in business because they can afford some fall off in business. It's a tax writeoff.
Once the mom&pop establishments are out of the way the corporates come back up to normal only because they are the only game in town. A portion of the people that otherwise would have gone to a mom&pop establishment now have no other choice. They must frequent the corporate establishment if they want to go out at all.
I moved into a new neighborhood and my car was parked in the driveway but partly blocking the sidewalk. Now, 10 or 15 years ago, people walked around the car and back onto the sidewalk (and went on with their lives). Now, they want to sue you for the way in which you have your parked car in YOUR OWN DRIVEWAY.
When I go to a bar or a restaurant I expect smoke. This is probably why I don't get my panties in a bunch over the issue.
Smoking is a great American tradition. My clothes smell terrible when I get home, but that's what a washer is for.
Anyone who thinks it's bad in America should go to the U.K. for a week or two. Just about everyone smokes over there.
And, in fairness to smokers, at least in the U.S., most people I've run into go out of their way to find a place to smoke, where they feel they won't be bothering anyone.
Some of the most friendly people I've ever met smoke.
The definition of "anti-smoking" is "someone who is against smoking", period. To tack on the rest warps the definition.
You said "anti-smokers are always saying that the non-smoking population will make up for the smokers staying away."
which means they have no time to do anything else, since all of them are always talking. Use quantified, verifiable statistics instead of generalizations. Where do all of them always say that non-smokers will pick up the slack? Nowhere, because not all of them say it and it's physically impossible to talk non-stop.
good point
Because you're a damn bartender!!!!
I try to be very aware of where my cigarette smoke is going and either sit on the end of a table or hold my cigarette away from non-smokers.
Of course, at the dive-bars I frequent, there is no such thing as a non-smoker. Everyone, patrons and employees alike are smokers.
People who are very concerned with their health tend to avoid bars on principle. That is their perogative and I respect that.
Sitting in a bar drinking alcohol with other folks who are also drinking alcohol is an inherently unhealthy activity. But for many of us, it is an enjoyable activity where the blessings outweigh the risks.
These people supporting the ban have no intentions of patronizing bars. They have the mindset that "there is a rare but distinct possiblity that one day I might walk into a bar and it would be nice to not smell smoke."
But when the restaurant associations supports these bans it is support for regional bans knowing that local bans will hurt restaurants who will lose business to establishments located outside the ban zones.
The anti-smokers then use this resigned, luke-warm support from restaurant owners and exclaim enthusiastically that "See! Even the restaurant owners themselves want a ban!"
Very true. The same liberals who claim to despise 'big corporations' go out and regulate small businesses into unprofitability, and who remains? The big corporations that can afford to deal with the regulations. Liberals are fomenting exactly what they claim to despise.
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