LICENSEES in Fife are urging the Scottish Executive to scrap the smoking ban amid claims some premises are heading for financial ruin.

Jim Paul, President of the Fife United Clubs’ Association, reacted angrily to an NHS Fife spokesman’s comments that the clubs’ concerns were “silly.” He said: “The health board are talking verbal diarrhoea. “Obviously they have never been in a club to see what life is like as we are feeling the bite and losing up to £2000 a month.“

“It is not just pubs and clubs that are struggling either, as the Fraser Bowl in Glenrothes has also seen a massive downturn in revenue as a direct result of the ban.”

Source: Fife Today. Link Expired

From July the 1st 2007, the smoking ban kicked in in England, and the results for bingo halls have been disastrous, seriously affecting player numbers and prize money. Some players have suggested holding Smoking Only bingo sessions, but this would be impossible legally. The only place where you will be able to smoke and play bingo now is on your computer at home.

Many bingo players are now turning to online bingo as an alternative. As this is played at home, the smoking ban has no effect on it at all - in fact, once the smoking ban starts to cover the whole of the UK, it is expected that online bingo will really take off! There is a wide choice of different sites, and we review many of them on this site.

In Scotland, a smoking ban was introduced in March 2006, and early reports indicate that this has been disastrous for the country’s bingo clubs. Income (and therefore prize money on some games) has dropped by up to 50%, and many clubs have already closed because of this. In the long term, it is estimated that up to half of the bingo clubs north of the border will shut down because of the smoking ban, and it seems very likely that when it is introduced in the rest of the UK the same thing will happen there.

Source: Bingomaniacs. Link

The bingo industry generates billions of pounds in stake money, and employs 20,000 people throughout the UK. However, as the smoking ban in enclosed spaces is introduced, experts are predicting disaster, with up to one in three clubs facing possible closure.

In Scotland, 10 clubs have already closed down since the ban was enforced last April - and more are set to follow.

“The effect of the smoking ban in Scotland’s been a lot worse than we thought it was going to be,” says Neil Goulden, chief executive of Gala Bingo.

“We’ve actually now lost 8% of our customer base who have stopped coming altogether.”

“When you look at a loss of around 40% of your bottom line, that’s devastating, and I’m not sure as operators where we move from here,” Mr Lowe says.

Mr Lowe has already taken drastic measures by closing down two of his seven clubs, and he fears for the future.

Now, with less than six weeks to go before the smoking ban comes to England, the big companies are bracing themselves for closures.

Gala’s chief Mr Goulden predicts trouble ahead for the industry.

“We could have 200 bingo clubs closing. This could mean an enormous number of job losses and loss of amenity to local communities.”

Source: BBC News. Link

It’s been five months since D.C. took on a smoking ban in its bars, and all the grousing over not having a place to light up seems to have died down. But news coming from the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington may change that.

According to FreeRide, a survey by the restaurant lobby group — which strongly opposed the smoking ban — claims that 35 percent of bars and restaurants reported a loss of revenue after the ban took effect. In one case, a bar reported losing 50 percent of its business. An article in the Washington Times in late February highlighted the same trend, quoting bar-owner extraordinaire Joe Englert, whose many establishments were said to have lost up to 40 percent of their business in the first two months after the ban was enacted.

We put in a quick call to the association to get more details, but the most they could offer us was that they had emailed 1,000 bars, restaurants and other establishments, though they didn’t say how many had responded, what the average reported loss of business was or if they controlled for any other variables. We’ve been skeptical of these claims in the past, mostly because few, if any of the other cities or municipalities that have imposed such bans have reported any significant losses in business.

(Few, if any? Evidently the authors are living in a vacuum.)

Source: dcist.com. Link