Jackpot Bingo leases its parlor to a dozen different non-profit groups on a regular basis. Those groups rely on bingo revenue as a main fundraiser. However, since the smoking ban went into effect last April, attendance at the bingos has dropped by more than 50 percent.  The Tates Creek High School Marching Band stands to lose about $80,000 this year in bingo money.

“We’re trying to supplement this with raffle ticket sales and candy sales, but $80,000 is a large chunk of change,” says Assistant Band Director Andy Critz.

If the band can’t raise enough money to offset the loss, they may have to cancel some band trips or competitions.

Source: wtqv.com. Link Expired.

Now, I and my managers have not been paid for three months. We’ve gone without so that we could pay the bills. I’ve had to let go a third of my staff. And there’s no explanation other than the smoking ban.

A friend in the travel industry told me she lost a $100,000 tour from Germany when the smoking ban went into effect, as they refused to go someplace where they couldn’t smoke.

Source: Grand Forks Herald. Link Expired.

“It’s definitely down. Just look around,” said Gary M. Ziemba, the owner and sole occupant on a recent day at the Blue Room Cafe in Chicopee Falls.

Ziemba, who is running a business that has been in his family since 1936, said he believes sales have dropped by 25 percent from last summer’s take.

“People are complaining about it. They’re saying ‘Why go out for a drink when I can buy a six-pack and sit at home?’ It’s really hurting us,” she said.

Source: The Republican. Link Expired.

In a news conference yesterday, Logan said the ban was “killing local restaurants” and announced that the Maxwell’s on Waller Avenue will close Sept. 30 because of the effect of the smoking ban. That location has been open for 14 years.

Source: Lexington Heard-Leader. Link Expired.

Since the ban was implemented October 2003 by the Montgomery County Council, Scaggs said Anchor Inn suffered a 40 percent loss in Keno, beer, wine, liquor and food sales.

Prior to the ban, Scaggs had installed a $350,000 ventilation system in the restaurant with air exchangers that took in smoke and replaced it with fresh air.

Source: Gazette.net. Link expired.

Slauson said he hasn’t seen anything like this drop in sales during the past 24 years that he’s owned the business…

Administrator Richard Zurn said the smoking ban has cut bar business in half at the lodge.

“It’s hurt our business tremendously,” Zurn said Thursday. “It’s way, way down…”

“Everybody smokes in a bar,” he said. “If you don’t want the smoke, don’t work there.”

“People used to come in and stay,” he said. “Now they come in, have one beer, and leave.”

Source: The Daily Star. Link Expired

A city of Toledo employee responsible for enforcing the smoking ban testified yesterday that he was told to file two false reports against area bars for smoking violations that he never saw or believed to exist.

Dave Carleski, an enforcement officer for Toledo’s environmental service division — which is responsible for enforcing the smoking ban — testified in Toledo Municipal Court that he was instructed by his supervisor to file a false complaint against Arnie’s Saloon on Central Avenue and a false citation against Pa-Pa Joe’s Saloon on Monroe Street.

His supervisor, Karen Granata, the city’s chief of air services, who was not in court, later told The Blade she was shocked (Shocked! Shocked I tell you!) to hear of the testimony, attributing some of it to simple miscommunication. The rest, she said, was flatly untrue.

Arnie Elzey, owner of Arnie’s Saloon, said he thinks it certainly does matter that violations be complaint-driven.

“I’ve been targeted because I’m outspoken about the smoking ban,” Mr. Elzey alleged. “It’s frustrating as a business owner to try to survive under these circumstances.”

Source: Toledo Blade Link

…reports that takings have dropped by anywhere between 15 per cent and 50 per cent come as no surprise.”

“It’s a disaster, my trade is easily down 20 per cent,” said Frank O’Connell who owns MacTurcails, a pub in the centre of Dublin that was popular with tourists and locals alike.

Source: The Publican. Link Expired.

“The research clearly proves that the Dublin pub trade is losing as much as 650 full time staff and 1,300 part time staff. Let’s be clear about the real cost of the smoking ban – up to 2,000 jobs are being lost.”

Source: The Publican. Link Expired

“Manitoba Lotteries Corp. will give severance packages to 269 workers — a move the corporation says is necessary because of Winnipeg’s tough smoking ban.

The ban is expected to drain at least $50-million annually from the lottery corporation’s coffers

Link

WINNEPEG, Manitoba – As reported by the Canadian Press: “Manitoba Lotteries Corp. will give severance packages to 269 workers — a move the corporation says is necessary because of Winnipeg’s tough smoking ban.

“The ban is expected to drain at least $50-million annually from the lottery corporation’s coffers…”

Link

I would say at least 90-percent of my bar smokes.”

Genna McDonald says the smoking ban law which went into effect April first has killed her business.

Her long time patrons in Montville are now lighting up at the casinos. VFW halls and private places like the Polish Club where leisure and smoke-filled rooms are allowed.

Larry Clough, Colchester, says,”I’m down 2,500 bucks a week. That’s $125,000 a year, and I have no problem with a smoking law being enacted, it’s just that it doesn’t encompass everybody.”

Link

Slauson said he hasn’t seen anything like this drop in sales during the past 24 years that he’s owned the business…

Administrator Richard Zurn said the smoking ban has cut bar business in half at the lodge.

“It’s hurt our business tremendously,” Zurn said Thursday. “It’s way, way down…”

“People used to come in and stay,” he said. “Now they come in, have one beer, and leave.”

Source: The Daily Star.  Link Expired.

To illustrate his feeling that the government has overstepped its bounds and decimated New York nightlife, he recounted a conversation he had had with a woman who supports the ban gleefully, who quipped obliviously that “my hair doesn’t stink, my clothes don’t stink, and there’s so much room at the bar.”

Despite what naobobs like Dr. Gemson and Assemblywoman Glick seem to think, the smoking ban has done far more to harm small business than it has to prevent smoking. An entire underground economy has sprung up around the ban to provide places for smokers. Knights of Columbus halls and private smoking dens are common, and bars spill crowds of smokers into the streets. Since the ban has been enacted noise complaints have skyrocketed, providing headaches to precinct captains citywide and proving a serious detriment to residents’ quality of life. Rarely noticed, bar owners in lower Manhattan still suffering from 9-11’s aftershocks are now victimized by thoughtless laws.

I spoke to Sandee Wright, owner of Whiskey Ward on Essex Street and a fierce opponent of the ban, put in place, ostensibly, to protect employees from the dangers of second hand smoke. Standing 5’3” with pink highlighted hair and a black skull and bones tank top, Sandee hardly fits the role of Dickensian wage master. When asked about the issue of employees’ health she retorted that “it’s not all that healthy when bartenders can’t afford their rent.” So far falling profits have led her to let go of two employees and cut back shifts. Often times her husband Max works the door to eliminate costs. When unemployment hits “health insurance is the first thing to go,” she said.

Whiskey Ward has seen profits drop by at least 20% since the ban hit. Manhattan Beer Distributors concurs. Stagnant sales have led to a 7% drop in beer demand citywide, and a 19% drop citywide to clubs.

Source: New Partisan. Link

A Lakewood, Wash., casino (with restaurant and bar) has laid off 15 employees since the Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health’s new smoking regulations went into effect in earnest Feb. 26. Managers say they will lay off 40 to 50 more if the business slump, which they blame on the ban, continues.

“My tips have gone down from $70 or $80 a day to less than $20,” Tracy Willows said at the end of her shift, when she is shaking her head at the 20 bucks — if she’s lucky — in her pocket and wondering if her pay will be enough to fill her gas tank, much less put food on the table or buy gym uniforms for her two kids.

Source: In-Forum.com. Link Expired

The city centre pub in Galway, western Ireland, has seen its business drop by 60 percent since March when smoking in workplaces became illegal.

With ruin staring him in the face, co-owner Ronan Lawless felt he had to act.  “We had absolutely no option,” Lawless, 33, told RTE state radio on Wednesday. “We were going to be out of business in the next month anyway.”

About 200 people packed into an upstairs room at the pub on Tuesday evening for a cigarette in the first major challenge to the nationwide ban.

Health Minister Micheal Martin described what happened as “an unacceptable defiance of the law” and warned others not to follow suit. “You can take it from me there will be no holds barred in terms of taking this head-on and upholding the law in all its aspects,”

(Isn’t it nice when a nicotine nanny with nothing to lose brings down the full weight of government force on a small business owner desperatey trying to save his livelihood.)

Source: Swissinfo.ch Link

The consequences, according to Toni Clifford, a bartender at Ace’s, are already apparent. On a normal weekday afternoon, she used to take in at least $30 in tips. Yesterday, she was hoping for $5.

Source: Berkshire Eagle. Link Expired.

Montgomery County restaurant, bar owners say smoking ban has hurt them

“I’ve probably lost $50,000 since October,” Levy said. “Everyone is going to VFWs, lodges and country clubs,” where smoking is permitted.

Source: The Gazette. Link Expired

(Richard Naylon had his customers sign a card that said they had been informed that smoking in his establishment was illegal. Then he served them. This was strictly in accord with the letter of the law. The government bankrupted him with legal fees, but before that:)

Naylon said when smokers returned to Jimmy Mac’s in April, its bar business increased by $25,000 from the previous month.

Source: Newday. Link Expired

Figures from the Dublin trade clearly show that on average, pub revenues have been hit by between 12% and 15%.

Source: UTV Northern Ireland. Link Expired.

Source: Newsday.com. Link Expired

“It has almost put me out of business. We are down about 45 percent for each month,” Zook said. “Our food sales were 48 percent of our business. Now they are down to 10 percent. A lot of people who had drinks with lunch or dinner are not coming in now.”

…The Ale House’s food sales have rebounded and are up 6 percent over a year ago, but for the first five months of 2004 alcoholic beverages sales were down $2 million compared with January through May of 2003, Reid said.

Source: Palm Beach Post. Link Expired.

Suppliers of drinks to Irish pubs have posted a decline in sales of between 15 percent and 25 percent, the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland said in an e-mailed statement. The VFI represents more than 6,000 rural pubs.

“Our fear of a severe loss in business as a result of the smoking ban has become a reality for many members,” said Seamus O’Donoghue, president of the VFI, in the statement. “Many small, rural, family-owned pubs have been hit particularly hard.”

Link