First off, why do you post replies to both the st.
paul and minneapolis list? Threads that start in St.
Paul should stay there. Your reply to mine and bob's
discussion of non-smoking revenue, leaves some of the
readers of the mpls list without some of the
background.
> Why would you not stay on board? Why would you drop
> off because of that
> statement - a mere conclusion based on numbers Bob
> assembled.
>
> C'mon John, no one ever had you on this issue.
right, they don't have me but i am willing to be
persuaded. You see, I don't smoke, never have. 80%
of my friends don't smoke. I don't like waking up
saturday morning with the reminder of where I had been
the night before lingering in the air. I also don't
see my dislike of the smell of smoke a good enough
reason to have my government ban the activity in
places I frequent.
>
> Still, the answer to your question is clearer.
>
> The bar and restaurant owners
>
> 1) panic over the very idea of what they view as a
> sea change in their
> operations and autonomy. That alone is a threat. The
> bottom line is liquor
> sales - and, for all that, they see liquor sales as
> the be all and end all
> of their success. Alcohol begets smoking begets
> drinking begets smoking, and
> so on. Less smoking, less drinking by volume.
If this is true then wouldn't a ban then decrease
revenues?
> 2) Bar/restaurant owners who smoke themselves want
> the freedom to smoke on
> their own premises (even when their wives would not
> at home). It's much
> easier for a nonsmoking owner to look at this ban
> with a more objective eye.
> Oh, they, too, may fear a loss of business, but
> Treumann's numbers are more
> convincing to a nonsmoking owner than to a smoking
> one.
If this is all the bar owners have to stand on then
I'd say they are out of luck. I really don't think it
is and think it is brought up to make the owners who
oppose the ban look selfish. Personally, I don't
think bar owners are that close minded.
> 3) The matter of the principle of regulation.
> Despite having to kowtow to
> other health regulations and building codes,
> entrepreneurial resistance to
> anyone telling them what they can and cannot do is
> so ingrained, they'll
> forego increased sales and profits to make a point,
> and they'll do so by
> arguing the very opposite: that they'll be driven
> out of business.
If you believe there are increased profits to be made
by going smoke free, then the above must be true. How
else could it be explained? Maybe the increase
profits aren't out there. Maybe there isn't as many
smoke avoiders out there who are just pining to go to
a bar but refuse because someone might be smoking
there?
> One more thing: Preparing for a trip to Boston next
> week, I had occasion to
> be concerned over a meeting in a downtown Boston
> hotel bar. My immediate
> fear was having to put up with smoke since, to me,
> bar=smoke. To my great
> delight, my sister and sister-in-law both wrote back
> to assure me that
> smoking is allowed *nowhere* in Boston or Cambridge
> anymore.
What was the fear based on?
> In all cases, the data are in and no one has been
> shut down by a smoking ban
> and revenues have increased 8%-10% while smoking has
> decreased an average of
> 12%-14% - at least in New York.
Did anything else change? Can the revenue increase be
directly attributed to a ban on smoking? Was there
increased tourism in NYC? If so could that have added
to the increase in revenues? Unless the changes to
all variables that contribute to revenues at bars and
restaurants were held constant can anyone with any
certainly attribute all revenue increases to a smoking
ban?
> Now, someone tell me this: what other explanation is
> there for all the
> resistance here in the Midwest - other than pure,
> unadulterated and
> unsubstantiated fear and crackpot individualism? I
> say there is none.
I say it is we like to think for ourselves.
John Harris
webber-camden
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