Smoking Ban Hurting Tempe Restaurants

cbsfive ^

[chance33_98]

Smoking Ban Hurting Tempe Restaurants 

Tempe, June 19 (AP) -- It may be a breath of fresh air to walk into restaurants here and not smell smoke, but restaurant and bar owners say they're smothering.

They are asking the City Council to do something to ease the financial pain arising from the new, restrictive anti-smoking ordinance.

A number of owners say revenue is down by as much as 20 percent since the voter-approved ordinance took effect May 30. They plan to outline their concerns during a council meeting Thursday.

"You can either kill yourself with gloom and doom, or you can take the tack that clean air is far better than dirty air," said Lee Fairbanks, who spearheaded the campaign to restrict smoking. "It's healthy, it's better than sitting in a cloud of cancerous smoke."

Since Tempe voters approved the most stringent smoking ban in the area, police have responded to 38 complaints of smokers in bars and restaurants but issued no citations.

[Great Dane]

I apologize for the two typo's in above post, I was really tired last night, and should have known enough to step away from the keyboard. :-}