Dannevirke’s Masonic Hotel is a victim of the smoking ban introduced into bars on 10 December 2004. In the six months following the introduction of the ban, profits have plunged $115k in comparison to the corresponding six-month period from 10 December 2003.

The Masonic Hotel unfortunately, has not been a beneficiary of the flood of non-smokers the present government and anti-smoking factions assured the hotel industry, would flock to bars, once the smoking ban came into force.

The smoking ban has devastated the lives of Mark and Raewyn Payne, owners of the Masonic, a business they took over two years ago. In the period prior to the ban, they had a thriving business, with two full-time and three part-time employees.

Six months into the ban and they are approaching the point where it will no longer be financially viable to keep the Masonic Hotel doors open. Mark and Raewyn, with insufficient turnover to afford to pay wages, had no option but to let their staff go.

“Dannevirke pub goers have been fantastic towards us through this six months of no smoking and we have had zero trouble”, says Raewyn, “as we rarely see many of them anymore”.

“We will lose our business simply to satisfy the whims of a handful of politicians and ‘anti-everything’ people”, says Mark.

“I challenge Becky Freeman of ASH and Leigh Sturgiss of the Coalition to visit the Masonic Hotel in Dannevirke”, says Clarke, “and to tell Mark and Raewyn Payne that the ban has not hurt their business”.

Source: Scoop Politics. Link

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