SubscribeOur view is that, in the medium term, a smoking ban will be beneficial to pubs. It will enable us to bring back people who have been put off by smoky atmospheres, enable us to reach out to the 75% of the population who don't smoke and at the same time to retain our smoking customers with outside space.Now all that seems to be left are ad hominem attacks against the supporters of the bans.
"Like Stanza dei Sigari and Churchill's, Cigar Masters has benefited from the citywide smoking ban that went into effect in 2003, which allows smoking only if at least 60 percent of the establishment's sales are tobacco."
“The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention's 2004 study of the impact of a 2002 ban on smoking in El Paso, Texas, included the following conclusions:‘Restaurant and bar revenues account for approximately 10 percent of total retail revenues in El Paso, Texas, and this percentage showed that no statistically significant changes in restaurant and bar revenues occurred after the smoking ban was implemented on January 2, 2002.A 2004 study of Florida's smoke-free workplace law flatly concluded:
‘These findings are consistent with the results of studies in other municipalities that determined smoke-free indoor air ordinances had no effect on restaurant revenues.
‘Despite claims that these laws might reduce alcoholic beverage revenues, mixed-beverage revenue analyses also indicate that sales of alcoholic beverages were not affected by the El Paso smoking ban.’‘We could not find a significant negative effect of the smoke-free law on sales and employment in the leisure and hospitality industry in Florida.’It further claimed that there was no evident net migration of sales from restaurants (where smoking was banned) to bars (where smoking was still allowed).
A 2003 review of 97 studies reported:‘All of the best designed studies report no impact or a positive impact of smoke-free restaurant and bar laws on sales or employment. Policymakers can act to protect workers and patrons from the toxins in secondhand smoke confident in rejecting industry claims that there will be an adverse economic impact.’’’
SMC 2.20.010 Smoking prohibited.Yep. Passed in 1910.
It shall be unlawful for any person to smoke any cigar, cigarette or pipe, or use tobacco in any form by smoking, in any polling place in the City at any election held within the City during the hours such polling place is open for the casting of ballots.
(Ord. 25757 Section 1, 1910.)
The Irish law which ended smoking at the workplace (including bars and restaurants) came into force on 29 March 2004. The Licensed Vintners Association (LVA) which represents 95% of Dublin publicans commissioned research to evaluate the economic impact of the ban. In a press release of 9 July 2004 the association stated that:source“Research carried out by marketing research company Behaviour and Attitudes confirms the negative economic impact of the Smoking Ban on the Dublin licensed trade, with turnover down by as much as 16%, and overall employment levels cut by up to 14% since the introduction of the Smoking Ban.”However, figures released in February 2005 by the Central Statistics Office of Ireland (www.cso.ie) do not support the claims made by the Licensed Vintners Association.
Data on the revenues of bars in Ireland are available at monthly basis until December 2004. The Retail Sales Index (RSI) is the official short-term indicator of changes in the level of consumer spending on retail goods and is published every month by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The official figures show that the value of bar sales in Ireland were at 107.4 in the period after the ban (from April to December 2004) compared to 111.3 in the equivalent period a year earlier (from April to December 2003).9
This decrease in revenues of 3.5% (not the much higher figure claimed by the Irish LVA and lobbyists in the UK) simply continues a trend which started back in 2001, well before smokefree legislation was introduced. The volume of sales in bars in Ireland increased until 2000, but decreased by 3% in 2002, 4% in 2003 and 5% in 2004.
Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States. Each year, more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. In fact, one in every five deaths in the United States is smoking related. Every year, smoking kills more than 276,000 men and 142,000 women.Funny thing is, despite appearances in this thread, I'm not anti-smoking in Real Life. Most of my friends smoke, and to be honest, cigarette smoke kinda puts me in party mood -- because I associate it with bars, friends, drinking, and good times. (I won't date a smoker, but that's my own deal.) I'm real easy-going, so it's really not that big a problem for me. If the smoke at a bar bothers me, I don't make a big fuss -- I just don't go. Simple enough.
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posted by chuckdarwin at 5:12 AM on July 5, 2007