I saw this movie. Crazy! LOL!LOL ! I saw it too. Not mine either. And....Not my kind of smokes, though. heh!
I'm smoke-free since 1983 when I quit cold turkey.....
Posted on 12/20/2002 10:10:51 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
SAVANNAH NY- A ban on smoking has snuffed the life out of their D&S Diner, Susan and Doug Devall say. The owners of the village's only diner, one of the few businesses on Main Street, say they will close for good Dec. 29. They blame Wayne County's no-smoking law, which passed in January.
We'd still be here, Doug Devall said, if the law hadn't passed.
The couple opened the diner in August 2000, after a string of businesses failed at the same location. Although the diner didn't turn a profit in its first year, the two expected to operate in the black the second year. Then the no-smoking law sent that goal go up in smoke. Nearby Cayuga County has no ban on smoking in restaurants, so the Devalls figure much of their business went to light up elsewhere. That took 30 percent of the customers right out of here, Doug Devall said.
Sales were down $3,000 in July 2002 compared to July 2001. Hardest hit were on Friday nights and Sunday mornings.
The couple had the option of converting an extra room into a smoking room, but the cost of installing ventilation, sealing doors and other measures was too much. Meanwhile, the two sympathized with their smoking customers and let them indulge under the counter, so to speak.
If it's not busy in here, I will let people smoke. I'm not going to lose my business, Susan Devall said soon after the law went into effect.
The decision to allow smoking or not should be left up to the individual business owner, Doug Devall said. Restaurant owners should be able to choose whether their establishment will be smoking or non-smoking.
The bottom line
Most of them are crying their eyes out because we're closing, but I can't keep robbing Peter to pay Paul, he said. The bottom line: He needs around $800 a day to survive, said the couple. It's the days when less than $100 comes in and then the propane truck pulls in and there's a $400 bill to pay, those are the days that hurt, he said.
This stuff is going to backfire on politicians, come back and bite them on the ass, Doug said, referring not only to the smoking laws but to the high taxes and other regulations that New York state imposes on small businesses. Workman's compensation, disability, unemployment, liability -- the cost of insurance is extremely high for a small business that employs two full-time and three part-time people.
Absolutely, said Sandy Brownell, when asked whether the new smoking laws have hurt many small restaurants like the D & S Diner.
Brownell is a saleswoman for Palmer Distributing, which is based in Newark. It's hard for them to make it in New York state because of the insurance regulations and the taxes as well, she said. I see it a lot, more than I wish to, she said about the closing.
Brownell is a smoker herself, and said whether she could light up or not weighed into her decision on where to eat.
Not just customers
It's the customers Susan will miss the most, especially the regulars. In a small place like this, though -- one of the few places for people to gather in Savannah -- most of the customers are regulars. In fact, several people sitting at the counter Thursday afternoon, after the lunch rush, had the look of regulars about them.
It's like art work for you, said Jackie Shurtleff, placing Leon Waldron's grilled ham and cheese sandwich in front of him.
Waldron comes to the diner at least once a day, usually to shoot the crap with all the guys in the morning and to pick on everyone.
So where will Waldron go after the new year?
Nowhere it seems.
I'm still coming here, they just don't know that yet, he said.
Tim Carmon, who works in Savannah and drops by at least three times a week for lunch, also hates to see them go.
Shurtleff is Sue's sister, as well as one of the diner's employees. She's worked at the diner since the day it opened.
Both of these facts make the closing an extremely emotional event for her as well as her sister. Upsetting was how she described the upcoming closing -- the simplicity of the words belied the complicated emotions felt.
Before he started working part-time at the diner, Randy Brown would come in with his father for lunch. Off duty Thursday afternoon, he sat at the counter eating what Jackie euphemistically called a concoction -- a Philly sandwich with extra cheese plus pickles, potato chips, and ketchup -- all on the sandwich, not on the side.
Brown has another part-time job at Pearl Technologies, but will miss the good atmosphere at the diner.
It's the environment that will be missed even more than the food. Mrs. Nobel, a Savannah resident whom Shurtleff described fondly as a fixture, has been coming to the diner morning and noon since it opened.
Nobel said the diner has the same friendly, pleasant extended family feeling as when Betty Kelly owned the building and operated a luncheonette there more than 20 years ago.
Nobel doesn't think there will be another business opening in the space anytime soon though -- a great loss for the village.
The diner will be sorely missed on Main Street, which has more empty storefronts than full ones. A couple of bars, a hair salon, a convenience store/gas station, the town hall. Given the limited amount of amenities and services available in this hamlet, most residents head to Seneca Falls or Auburn for basic necessities and entertainment.
This exodus will seemingly continue.
Future plans
There will be an auction in January, and then the Devalls will try to lease the space. Since they own the building, which has apartments upstairs, the couple's connection with the hamlet won't be totally severed.
Drink beer and raise hell, Doug said, when asked about his plans for the future. His contracting business will continue to take up most of his time.
But ultimately it's Sue, at the diner just about every day, who'll miss and be missed the most. Her husband joked his wife would be able to enjoy a stretch of being Suzy Homemaker.
Based on Sue's response to that suggestion, it doesn't seem likely.
Although the couple got smoked out of Savannah, figuratively speaking, Sue hasn't been totally burnt by the restaurant business. But she would consider something closer to home and in a higher traffic area, she said. In fact, with an eye on the future, the couple is tentatively keeping an eye on a place in Weedsport.
But the 29th is going to be pretty hard, Sue said.
Seems like you haven't read a whole lot, we have always said, if the owner choose to go smoke free there is no problem, but keep the darn government out of it.
Almost always. There have been a few people now and again who regard as fascists business owners who decide to ban smoking in ther own establishments. You and I, however, seem to agree that businesses should be free to permit or ban smoking as they see fit.
I saw this movie. Crazy! LOL!LOL ! I saw it too. Not mine either. And....Not my kind of smokes, though. heh!
I'm smoke-free since 1983 when I quit cold turkey.....
I'm sure those small business owners who were forced to close their doors when they lost 30% of their business agree that the draconian ban here was a "godsend." Who wants to be in business anyway? BTW, do you realize what you said in this last sentence? Sheesh. Grow up.
If I light up, it's in a restaurant that welcomes smokers. Why are you there?
tell me can you keep the second hand smoke to your table only? No, I suspect not.
Proper ventilation systems make the pollution level in smoker-friendly establishments LOWER than in smoker-hostile ones without ventilation. Why aren't you lobbying for better ventilation?
Name for me one act that I can do at my table which would interfere with your dining experience the way that your cigarette smoke with interfere with mine.
Having unruly, disrespectful children. And ventilation doesn't help that.
That is the difference between you and me--I don't want to mess with the air you are breathing in the restaurant but you seem to have no qualms spreading your second hand smoke around the room. I don't care if you smoke--go ahead but please don't think that a seperate section or partition segregates your habit from those who don't smoke.
Without good ventilation, you're right, but that doesn't change the fact that you're there willingly and if the place welcomes smokers, you have the choice to go elsewhere. Separate BUILDINGS do a far better job of segregation than partitions. Don't you agree?
Define "public." The rights lost here are those of the business owner to cater to his market, to make a living off his own labor, to permit a legal activity on property HE/SHE owns, not the government and not nonsmokers. Nonsmokers have always had the absolute right to open an establishment and set a nonsmoking policy. But smokers and other astute businessmen no longer have the right to cater to smokers if they so desire. That's wrong, and it's a right lost.
I don't think you get it and you run to the "loss of rights" as a cover for your fear of not smoking for a short duration inside a restaurant.
Oh, bullshit. Get off that anti-talking-points crap. It has never been true and it just makes you sound idiotic.
Do you fly commercially?
Not for recreation.
Do you attend church?
Not for recreation.
Do you spend any time at your children's school?
Not for recreation.
These are all places where your rights and mine may be abridged. Should we allow smoking in these places?
We who? Airlines are private businesses; they should set their own policies. Churches and schools are different, but I certainly wouldn't go postal if they permitted smoking in specific areas.
What's that term that describes carrying something to a ridiculous extreme?...oh, yeah, reductio ad absurdum. Won't work here, bud.
No one ever said or even implied that ALL restaurants and bars and casinos and bingo halls and bowling alleys go out of business when smoking bans are imposed by the heavy hand of government, but it's a flat fact that SOME do. These are usually the mom and pop neighborhood places that work on a slim margin of profit and cater to a particular clientele. These are REAL people who work hard for their living and the elitist jackasses who pass sweeping laws like these stomp them into the ground while jerks like you cheer.
According to a recent survey of 300 California bars and taverns, conducted by KPMG Peat Marwick, the employees could do with a little less help.
* Since Jan. 1, 1998, 60 percent of California's bars have lost business.
* Of that group, the average decrease in business has been 26.2 percent.
* 50 percent report increased fights and customer complaints.
* Almost 30 percent have had to lay off employees or cut working hours and shifts.
* 65 percent report a loss of regular customer business.
* Employees in 59 percent of the establishments report losses in tips.
And 40% or more of the bars are flaunting the law. Now the state nannies are scrambling to get the money to figure out how to staunch that little rebellion.
California ain't no poster child for the success of smoking bans, no matter how much you wish it were so.
So it's not about the "health" of the workers after all? It's just another money grab? What would be the requirements to get such a license? What would it cost?
Yes, it sure works well in the Granville Ohio area, due to demand, over 50% of establishments are smoke free, the marketplace will work, if we let it.
How are they flaunting the law? Are you suggesting that they've switched to being employee-owned so they can proudly point to the part of the law which exempts employee-owned bars? Or are you saying they flout the law and disregard it altogether?
Your claims of money grab, 30% loss of sales, restauants closing, are pathetic straw men or just crying wolf.
Ahhh, but there's the rub! Many so-called conservatives are merely authoritarian statists who have a deep-seated mistrust of that uncontrollable thing called the "free-market". They simply don't trust us common folk with too much liberty.
Now, I happen to also think business owners should have the choice to allow smoking, but I think the default should be non-smoking. When people like you have some problem with reasonable restrictions I could care less about joining any fight to make that an option everywhere. It is the stringent claim that you have a right to smoke anywhere that will cause you to lose that right almost everywhere.
So do I live here, and I'm really glad you're happy with it. I'm active in the Chamber and know many businesses that were hurt and never recovered.
When people like you have some problem with reasonable restrictions I could care less about joining any fight to make that an option everywhere. It is the stringent claim that you have a right to smoke anywhere that will cause you to lose that right almost everywhere.
Whoa, pal. I've never said any such thing. I have no problem with "reasonable" restrictions, and if a standard showing permissible levels of pollutants were set by OSHA, I'd be fine with that, too. The free market would respond to supply what the people want but antis won't allow it. That's wrong and anyone who doesn't see that private property rights and individual liberties are being attacked here isn't paying attention or is letting his/her hatred of smokers blind him/her to the truth.
The market WILL adjust. But it won't adjust the way the antis want it to and that won't help those people who put their hearts, souls and life savings into small restaurants and bars and lost it all because of this jihad.
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