The question is: "if restaurants will see a benefit from voluntarily becoming completely non-smoking, why haven't they already?"
I would guess the answer is the same principle (but in opposite) as for a soldier standing on the front line against the enemy. It is to the benefit of each individual soldier to turn and run away. This guarentees he will survive, if he is the lone man to flee and the rest remain. However, if every soldier flees, then the entire force and their country is guarenteed to be overrun and destroyed. Thus, although it is individually in the best interest of a soldier to flee, it is in the best interest of the group for each soldier to remain. If all stand fast, the number of losses will be smaller than if they all break and run, or if only a few break and run (even though those few will survive).
How does this apply to smoking? I think it is the same principle in reverse. If one bar goes non-smoking, then that bar suffers while the rest benefit. People who have smoking friends will put up with a smoking atmosphere to see them, thus avoiding a non-smokers only place. Yet if all go non-smoking, then all bars benefit, as the smokers will smoke at home and still go out, and more non-smokers will go out (and more frequently). It is individually in the best interest of a bar to remain smoking if the other bars do. Yet if all bars do away with smoking, then it is a net gain (or at least no loss).
There are practices that reward an individual and a group differently. It's to my reward to rob someone, assuming I can get away with it. It's to society's detriment if everyone starts doing this. It's to GSE's benefit to pollute the air. It would be to everyone's downfall if we all polluted as much as GSE did. It's to a smoker's benefit to smoke in a bar. It would be to everyone's downfall if we allowed smokers to smoke in any bar.
The "first adopter" of a practice is often punished by the market or reality. No bar or nightclub wants to be the first adopter of a non-smoking policy. They'd suffer for it. What they might not see is that if we mandate the change for all bars, then no one is a first adopter. If they all change at once, then no one gets punished by the market.
At least that's my theory.
Mary Baker East Side
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