“It has hit them very hard. Some of them are down 70 percent,” says Eau Claire Tavern League President Sally Jo Bitzer.

Bitzer also manages the bar at Wagner’s Lanes on Brackett Avenue.

She says before the smoking ban, the place was packed on a Saturday afternoon. Now, just a few loyal customers are left.

“People just aren’t coming in, and sitting there and socializing and smoking a cigarette,” she says.

Julie Johnson, the owner of the Five O’Clock club down the street says she’s seen much of the same trend since the ban took affect in July. She also says she feels like the city’s taken her rights as a business owner away, by banning smoking. Both Johnson and Bitzer say the ban hasn’t attracted any new customers.

“When they first came out,” Bitzer says, in reference to the ban, “They said, ‘Oh, there’s so many non-smokers out there that don’t come to the taverns because they don’t want to be affected by the secondhand smoke.’ They’re not coming.”

Source: WEAU.  Link

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