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."
Gabz is taking the libertarian line that if someone wants to do something they ought to be allowed to do it without government restriction. I was pointing out that that is hogwash - some people would like to have brothels and opium dens too but the rest of the public doesn't want that to happen.
Likewise, the majority of the public does not want smoking in bars and restaurants. Some folks may want it, but they are out of luck.
I'm sorry, I thought I had addressed it. Can you restate it please?
It doesn't mean "squat" to the owners who have gone under because of the smoking bans, does it?
You don't own one of the businesses that have had to lay off employees, cut the hours of the remaining employees, cut hours of being open, stop hiring bands, etc.
It may not be as bad to the businesses in Florida because the weather is generally reasonable, but the further north you go, having to go outside doesn't hold any water.
You got what you wanted in your corner of the world - leave the rest of the world alone.
Well then I misread the title of the thread. I thought it said "bars."
Businesses are regulated up the wazoo. There are a thousand things that bar owners cannot do that they'd like to. But they are singled out for special regulation and have been for since at least 1919. This is just another rule imposed upon them by the government on behalf of the public. Now no business owner likes to have rules imposed on them, but communities have an interest regulating the businesses that operate in their borders. There is no federal law making communities pass anti-smoking ordinances. They do it because they want to. I know that democracy seems like a really lousy system, but it is less lousy then the other ways of running things.
I spoke to one thing - you are the one that is trying to twist my words to mean something else.
Address my specifics or do not twist my words.
I will then address your concerns.
First of all, smoking in bars is hardly akin to having brothels and opium dens.
Likewise, the majority of the public does not want smoking in bars and restaurants. Some folks may want it, but they are out of luck.
Who is this majority of the public? Are we talking statistical majority (if so, where are the numbers?) or are we talking vocal "majority"? Sort of like the majority who wanted prohibition, eh?
Look: people know what to expect when they walk into a bar. A bar is for drinking and smoking and other potentially nasty habits. If folks don't want to deal with that, then they should stay home or go to a Starbucks instead. This smoking-ban-in-bars thing is friggin' ridiculous.
I was in a bar several months ago, smoking and having a beer just like everyone else around me and some preppy punk said something about my cigarette smoke offending him. Now mind you, the air in that place was positively pea-soup thick and had been long before I walked in. I refrained from exhaling in his face and replied "then why are you here? Find some other place where nobody is smoking. There are plenty. Don't chase ME out just to suit YOU. You know what to expect when you walk in here." He backed off right quick.
I speculate that the majority of people doesn't want tofu turkey, guano coffee or beef tripe menudo, either. Does that mean that those products should not be available to those (perhaps eccentric) individuals who DO want them? Are those individuals out of luck? Huh? Huh?
Do you also give this insight to all the overweight people in your church?
Btw smoking is in the Bible. Let me give you the scripture to prove it.
" Gen 24:64 64 And Rebekah lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel. (KJV) "
Joe Camel goes back a long way.....
Me, taking a libertarian line???? ROFLMAO. Even my husband, who is a registered Libertarian would find the implication hilarious.
If believing in the right of a propety owner and the right of free assembly and association is offensive to some people, all I can say is that it is their problem not mine.
LOL, ain't that the truth.
This thread is, but as a smoking issue, it takes in a whole lot more than bars, just because this thread mentions only bars, that doesn't exclude all the rest affected by government over regulation.
Priceless, gota remember that one. ROTF.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point 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 own conscience." -C.S. Lewis
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