Posted on 01/13/2004 9:37:03 AM PST by NorCoGOP
Mary Whitman's bar and restaurant may not be able to afford the new smoking ban.
One month after the ordinance passed, Whitman, the manager of Roasty's Steakhouse, 920 8th Ave, said the restaurant's bar revenues have dropped 60 percent. One week after the ban went into effect, the bar made only $100 one day.
"All the time I have been here, we have never done that," said Whitman, who has worked at Roasty's for 10 years. "We have terminated one of our bartenders because of it."
Other Greeley bar owners and managers paint a bleak economic picture as well, with many saying they've suffered a significant decline in business since the smoking ordinance went into effect Dec. 4.
If someone lights up inside a Greeley bar, he or she faces up to $300 in penalties and a mandatory court appearance. Both the smoker and the establishment can be ticketed.
Vicki Tobel, owner of the Red Garter Lounge, 3621 10th St, said she has a loyal day crowd, but her business has still dropped 15 percent since the ordinance passed. What worries her most is the lounge's night crowd, where business has dropped 45 percent.
"Our night is just killing us," Tobel said.
She, like many other bar owners and managers, are unsure about the future.
"I don't know if I'll have to cut employees," Tobel said. "I don't know what my next step is."
Neither does Keith Johnson, owner of Cables End Italian Grille, 3780 10th St.
He hopes he doesn't have to let any employees go but said there has been a substantial drop in the restaurant's bar. Johnson said the bar did $10,000 less when he compared his November December sales.
Although some Greeley bars and restaurants might see red, others are staying in the black. Brenda Lucio, owner and manager of Coyote's Southwestern Grill, 5250 9th St. Drive, said business is good since the ordinance passed because the restaurant doesn't depend on liquor sales.
"I would be scared if I had a bar business," Lucio said.
Several Greeley bar owners said that there is an exodus of bar patrons to Garden City, Evans and other surrounding cities so they can smoke. But Alan Dean, owner of Bear's Sports Saloon, 2519 8th Ave., which is in unincorporated Weld County, says the increase in business has been small.
"Business seems to be improving week by week," he said.
The dreary effect of the smoking ban for some Greeley bar owners and managers is in sharp contrast with a survey conducted by the Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution (GASP) of Colorado that was published in the Jan. 4 edition of the Tribune.
GASP is a Boulder-based anti-smoking organization that works to educate the public against the dangers of second-hand smoke and to promote smoke-free environments. The survey quoted bar owners, managers and employees at the Paragon Family Restaurant and Cable's End Italian Grille as saying that the ordinance was "going well" or "doing OK" at their respective restaurants. Both owners disputed the quotations.
GASP president Pete Bialick said the survey was informal and not official.
Bialick said GASP conducts the survey in communities where smoking ordinances pass to update the organization's list of all the smoke-free restaurants and bars in Colorado towns. Despite some bar owners' claims the ordinance is pushing revenue down, Bialick disagrees.
"These ordinances don't affect the bottom line," he said, saying that studies based on sales taxes in more than 100 communities show smoking ordinances don't diminish bar and restaurant owners' bottom lines. He disputed the fact that bar owners say revenues are going down since Greeley passed the smoking ban.
"They are using it as a scapegoat," Bialick said. "The tobacco industry is behind this. They are probably getting paid to say that."
For me, it was the other way around.
That said - you raise an interesting distiction. I said:
"So it sounds like you believe the government should stay out of all moral or health issues."
To which you replied:
Nice try. I believe that the government's only legitimate function in a free society is to defend the rights of it's citizens.
If the government's only job is to defend the rights of its citizens, when does it get involved in moral or health issues? It sounds like you are confirming what I said. How did I mischaracterize your beliefs?
I'm missing something here. Are you suggesting that going to bars is a desirable thing?
Book and verse, please?
No, not 1 Cor. 6: 19-20.
The one about the cigarettes......
Little difference to me, since most bars serve food, and most restaurants serve alcohol and/or have bars inside.
The same priciples apply, regardless.
Yes they are.
I intentionally replied to your statement in the plural because these groups are popping up, seemingly as grassroots efforts, all over the country. They are not. GASP is a hugely funded nationwide effort.
Another one that needs to be watched out for is BREATHE. This is supposedly a group of bar workers supporting smoking bans - it is not. It's a group started by a former stock broker who may currently be living in Arizona but we don't know. After 9/11 he fled fled NYC to reside in France with his partner and their children, but during the build up to the smoking ban in Delaware claimned in a letter to the editor that he was living in Delaware.
Joe Cherner is just one of the many names that should set off alarms to anyone in any place facing supposed grassroots support of smoking bans.
Apparently it is not terribly hard, considering the smokers have largely stopped GOING to bars.
Habits don't change over night, maybe the habit of NOT going to bars is just too hard to break.
See my above statement.
The proponents of the smoking bans were the ones claiming that all the bars and restaurants would be filled with the non-smokers you claim stayed away because of the smoking. They also claimed the smokers would get used to it and come back after a while.
That may be true in southern California or in Florida where the weather is ususally conducive to being outdoors, and in the nice weather in Delaware, New York, and Maine provided the establishment already had outdoor seating. The smokers, who make up the vast majority of the clientele of the bars and taverns are not going to put up with it in inclimate weather.
Nice try.
You are correct.
What galls me about these antis is that they are trying to blame the smokers with the claim if we were so concerned about the establishment's bottom line we would never have stopped patronizing them - while at the same time not ever patronizing them either.
It's totally a control thing and a backdoor way to prohibition, not only for tobacco, but for alcohol.
Think about it - these smoking bans include EVERY work place, not just bars and restaurants. However it is only establishments that hold liquor licenses that face the possibility of losing their license to do business for violations of the smoking bans. The coffee shop or accountant's office across the street from the bar that violate the ban have no such threat over their heads.
I don't know..... are you.
We are not just talking bars, and it's not up to me to suggest anything to someone else, I don't remember saying going to bars was desirable or not.
Some of the issues the government should be involved in are based upon issues of morals - stealing and murder come to mind very quickly.
Some of the issues the government should be involved in are based upon issues of health - controlling the spread of contagious disease comes quickly to mind.
Banning smoking in private businesses does not fall into either category.
If you dislike smoking or seeing anyone doing so, feel free to patronize those establishments that have chosen to cater to such as yourself. But remember, that these bans remove the right of the owners of the establishments that have chosen to voluntarily go non-smoking and thus cater to you. They created their own niche, and the government has now destroyed it.
For some people it is and for others it isn't.
Because there are people who think it is a desirable thing, others have gone to the time and expense of opening establishments to cater to them.
Because you don't think it is a desirable thing, are you suggesting there should be none?
Does have unexpected benefits re: cash flow, once old or new haunts fall from the itenarary.
Still seems somehow unnatural and surreal - twilight zoneish. Would've made a great episode, but even Serling couldn't visualise this.
And honestly, the vindictive part of me chuckles at the idea of a new temperance movement.
However, If you can tax it, one should be allowed to consume a product.
Banning smoking in bars and nightclubs is just a taliban mindset, not for allah but for health.
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