I can't answer this question in an comprehensive sense
here, but I have some concerns about the validity of
studies that proponents use to claim that a
Minneapolis smoking ban would be good for business.
A quick note: the vast majority of studies that I
looked at come down on the side of "no net loss" or
"net gain" in business post a smoking ban. However, I
think it's fair to note a couple of crucial admissions
that are made in nearly all of these studies:
1) Economic impact is not uniform - Some businesses
will benefit, some will lose customers. Almost every
study picks a broad category that is thought to
represent a broad measure of the health of the
hospitality industry such as: liquor licenses, net
revenue, etc. What this obscures is the unevenness of
the impact. Even if the net result is a gain, the
individual losses could still be important elements of
any decision made. When advocates of a smoking ban
argue that the evidence to the contrary is
"anecdotal," what they are really saying is that there
will be winners and losers, and the losers should stop
whining. This is eerily reminiscent of our current
discourse on outstourcing.
2) Many of the studies that are the most positive
often are relatively isolated jurisdictions with
limited potential for "jurisdiction swapping" (such as
El Paso or Anchorage). In other words, there is little
research that on point answers the question of whether
there is business flight within metropolitan area.
This jurisdiction swapping is lessened with St. Paul
and Minneapolis acting nearly in concert, but doesn't
address the question of suburbs. I would bet that the
businesses most affected by smoking bans would be
located near a border with a non-ban suburb.
3) The "total receipts" measurements are distorted by
trends unrelated to smoking. As far as I could tell,
no study does a particularly good job of trying to
disaggregate the impact of smoking bans from other
economic trends. For example, the NYC study needs to
be examined in the context of a general recovery in
the tourism and hospitality industries post 9/11. The
NYC study points to a 9 percent increase in tax
reciepts, but there's no attempt to control for other
variables.
4) No study does a good job of disaggregating the
impacts on BARS from the impacts on RESTAURANTS AND
BARS. In fact, I've yet to see much evidence on the
question of bars alone. My guess would be that bars
would take the brunt of lost business.
These points don't discount the sheer number of
studies that purport to prove that the business impact
of a smoking ban would be mimimal. However, I'm
suspicious of the "science" on both sides. These
studies frequently have poor methodologies, attempt to
measure the impact of a ban in a limited amount of
time (the CDC El Paso study measured the impacts of
one year of reciepts, the NYC "study" looked at 9
months of results, and/or are funded by ideological
organizations.
However, my guess is that the answer to this question
is not simple. There will winners and losers, and who
is which depends on a complex set of variables: number
of smoking customers, location in relation to
jurisdictions without bans, the "commitment" of these
smoking customers to the business, the mix of food and
liquor sales, etc.
No answers, just more questions.
Best,
Aaron Klemz
Hale
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