“I’m losing $300 a day,” one Columbus bar owner says. “I’m near bankruptcy.
“This is all my husband and I do for a living. This is it,” she says. Saying the smoking ban is destroying her profits. “I rang $37 on a Tuesday. That’s from 10am to 230am,” Leslie said. “I’ve cut all my vendors in half.”Fowler says he’s losing somewhere around 15% to 25% range.

“I feel bad. I’ve let three bartenders go,” Tim Cashin, owner of “Somewhere Else” tavern says. “I’m seeing revenue loss of $1200-$1500 a week.”

Source: 10tv.com. Link Expired

“We get a profit and loss statement every week, and the numbers are going down, so it’s hurting,” said Joanna Segyde, restaurant manager.

The workers are in an environment free of second-hand smoke for the first time. On the other hand, the manager has had to lay-off a half-dozen staffers because of decreasing revenue.

Source wishtv.com. Link Expired

According to the Connecticut Bowlers’ Association 49 percent of bowlers light up. Since the ban, business has bombed.

“I’m down 25 to 50 percent because of the smoking ban and that’s a big chunk of my business” says Izzi.

There’s also another hazard for smokers and it has nothing to do with the air. When smokers take a break and don’t change to their street shoes, the shoes will get wet, stick and people could hurt themselves.

Besides injuring themselves they track in dirt and gravel which rips up the wood floors and ruins it for everybody.

Source: wtnh.com. Link

Sales tax at Talbot County bars and restaurants with liquor licenses declined by nearly $3 million, or 11 percent, from May through December 2004 when compared with the same period in 2003.

The number of bars and restaurants with liquor licenses dropped from 39 in November 2003 to 29 at the end of 2004. Talbot County went smoke-free in April 2004.

Source: Baltimore Business Journal. Link

SCOTLAND’S smoking ban is set to cost an initial 2300 jobs, force nearly 150 pubs to close and rob the Chancellor of £59 million a year in tax revenue, a new report claims.

source: Scotsman. Link Expired.

An Elgin bar has called last orders just two months after bringing a smoking ban into force.

Mr Halkett said he lost 85% of his regulars as soon as he brought the ban into force and claims his experience proves it will not work for small traditional pubs.

“If I’m scared of heights I wouldn’t become a steeplejack, likewise no-one is forced to go into a smoky bar.

Mr Halkett pulled the last pint in his bar on Tuesday and the property – a bar since 1878 – has now been put up for sale.

“Once implemented by law, this smoking ban will clear the towns and cities of bars like this, and along with them will go all the jobs they created.”

However, he stressed: “They are not playing on a level playing field, and that is something that will be extremely beneficial come spring of next year.”

(Nicotine Nannies love the phrase “a level playing field.” But if bans were good for business, as they claim, why is it necessary to force a “level playing field?” Wouldn’t venues that voluntarily ban smoking have a huge advantage over their competitors? Every time they use that phrase they’re admitting they’re lying.)

Source: BBC News. Link