“The smoking ban is having a major impact,” said Tom Swoik, head of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association. Casinos in Illinois have posted double-digit declines in revenue since the smoking ban took effect in January.

{And here it comes. . . the nannies favorite line. . . The Level Playing Field}

To create a level playing field, the Casino Association of New Jersey, which fought the Atlantic City ban, is now arguing in favor of smoking bans in other states. In an email statement, the association’s president, Joseph Corbo Jr., wrote: “We are hopeful that other nearby gaming jurisdictions, notably Pennsylvania and Connecticut, soon enact smoking bans.”

{So their solution to the ban killing their business is to spread it to their competition.  Brilliant.}

Source: The Wall Street Journal.  Link

KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) – No smoking, no business – Kanawha County bar owners said they have the numbers to prove it.

They blame the economic slide on an extended smoking ban, which went into effect on July 1, forbidding smoking in bars and gambling parlors.

“It’s not just an inconvenience,” said Greg White of the Nitro Moose Lodge. “It’s crippling us. …It has actually crippled everything we do.”

White said the extended smoking ban is taking a toll on his bottom line.

But Brenda Isaac, an official with the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, said smoking in public establishments is harming others’ health.

“It’s never a goal to shut down businesses, but it’s our goal to make businesses safe,” she said. 

{Not their goal, but quite often the result, despite their constant denials of this fact.} 

White estimates that his establishment lost as much as $65,000 in August alone.

“We’re considering all kinds of options right now,” he said. “But when you don’t have the dollars to make the bills …there is very little option left. It’s driving everybody out of business.”

Source: WSAZ.  Link

Jack Tan, Administrative and Finance Manager of Coffeezone has said that from the past week that the smoking ban has been in place, he has noticed that about 30 per cent of his usual customers have stopped coming.

“About 40 per cent of loyal customers are smokers, and that is why we have an outside seating area, but now with the ban, there is no point to have .outside dining at the restaurant,” he said.

Source: BruneiDriect.com. Link

Larry and Patti Wojdyla held a benefit earlier this summer at their 29-year-old Irish pub to try saving it from a slowing economy, high gas prices and the recent statewide smoking ban that they say ate away profits.

The smoking ban, said Larry Wojdyla, was “the last nail in the coffin” for the downtown business at 418 S. Main St.

“I don’t care if other states (banned smoking) or not, it’s killing a lot of businesses,” he said. “The state should have given neighborhood taverns the option to go smoking or nonsmoking. We have several nonsmoking customers who had no problems coming here.”

After the ban went into effect at he start of the year, Wojdyla said profits fell as much as 25 percent, losing up to $6,500 per month. He said patrons were still coming but staying for less time and, therefore, spending less money.

“My place was a working man’s bar, where people want to sit down, chat with friends and have a cigarette,” he said. “Now people are thinking, ‘Should I go in and spend $3 for a bottle of beer or spend $16 for a 30-pack and smoke at home?’”

In addition to Wojdyla and his wife, their two adult children also worked at Flaherty’s. Now the family has filed for bankruptcy and Wojdyla said they are in danger of losing their home.

Source: Daily Herald.  Link

The Dusanji brothers – Sudarghara and Ajmal - blamed the smoking ban for the failure of their Liverpool-based Cains’ Brewery which has an estate of 100 pubs, including several in Greater Manchester.

They took over the Robert Cain & Co brewery in July, 2002, promising to return it to its former glory after years of under-investment.

But Sudarghara, the chief executive, said that since last year pub sales had dropped by between 15 and 20 per cent because of the smoking ban, and added that the credit crunch had also helped to “cripple the business”.

Source: Asian News.  Link

“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

As of July 2007, smoking in enclosed areas of pubs and clubs across NSW has been banned.
 
ClubsNSW, which is the peak body for venues across the state, said clubs suffered their worst financial year ever, with overall club income falling by $385 million in the last financial year.

Figures from Office of Liquor, Gaming and Racing estimate a revenue downturn of $26,052,814 in the Parramatta area – a fall of 11.7 per cent.

Source: Parramatta Sun.  Link

AFTER 10 months deliberation officials have ruled a Stourbridge magician’s vanishing lit cigarette trick will not have to disappear.

John Milner, from The House of Magic (UK), Brook Street, has been given limited permission to carry on performing the trick despite the nationwide smoking ban.

John, who is a member of the Inner Magic Circle and International Brotherhood of Magicians, asked Dudley Council whether he could continue to include the trick in his act after the ban on smoking in public places became law in July 2007.

After referring the question to the Local Authorities Coordinating Body on Regulatory Services (LACORS), the council wrote to John on May 30 saying his performance would be exempt from the regulations.

The magician is perplexed by a ruling he cannot demonstrate or rehearse the trick at The House of Magic (UK).

John said: “If anyone in the shop wants to see this trick performed live we will have to step out onto the pavement.”

Source: Halesowen News. Link

August 2, 2008–State Senator Jack Hatch helped push the smoking ban through the statehouse, and now he’s dealing with an unexpected and unpleasant result.

Smokers at Carl’s Place in Des Moines’ Sherman Hill neighborhood have to take their butts outside. It just so happens that “outside” is right across the street from Hatch’s home.

“I look over there every once in a while expecting somebody to shout something at me, but they don’t. They’re polite,” said Hatch, one of the biggest proponents of the ban.

The irony is as thick as the smoke. A gaggle of noisy smokers abiding by Hatch’s law, but making an eyesore for him in the process.

“I don’t think they know it actually, but I do. And it’s nice for me to be behind the bar and watch out these two big windows and see thirty to forty people out there having a good time and smoking cigarettes,” said bartender Scott Renaud.

Renaud claims he’s lost thirty to forty percent of his tips due to the smoking ban, but he won’t find sympathy across the street, where Hatch says the smokers will come back around. “If someone is really going to be bothered because they can’t smoke, then that’s because that person’s really addicted too badly. I think people will settle into something very comfortable,” Hatch said.

Brian Froehlich, president of the Iowa Bar Owners Coalition and a plaintiff, testified that the month-old ban has already slashed sales in bars across the state by 25 percent to 30 percent and as much as 50 percent for some establishments.

“I’d say 80 percent of them are still allowing people to smoke in their bars because if they don’t, they won’t have anybody in there,” Sturgis said.

New figures show pubs are closing down at their fastest rate ever and in a special investigation, the Guardian’s KARL HOLBROOK looks at how the smoking ban, longer opening times, rising taxes, cheap supermarket booze and changing attitudes have hit Leyland pubs.

Anyone thinking about running their own pub in Leyland has been spoilt for choice lately.

That’s because there are currently three pubs on the market and two others have been taken over by new landlords in recent weeks.

Also, rumours have emerged that other pubs are close to being put on the market and local landlords say they are struggling to survive.

“A pub is now closing every six hours in this country and nobody is doing anything to stop it.

“The government keep putting taxes up, levies get harder from the breweries, the smoking ban took about 20 per cent of trade away and supermarkets under-cut everyone with cheap booze promotions.

Paul Fields, who runs the Dunkirk Hall in Dunkirk Lane, is another landlord who is quitting the business because of slumping trade.

The experienced publican blames the introduction of the smoking ban, which came into force on July 1, last year.

He said: “I’ve been brought up around pubs and it saddens me what is happening. The smoking ban has hit everyone hard.

“Last year I had to spend about £3,000 preparing for the ban with smoking shelters and things, but it didn’t make a difference.

However, landlord Dave Sutherland said he quit the Broadfield Arms, in Leyland Lane, earlier this year because the ban wiped out 30 per cent of his trade.

“The fact of the matter is that we have lost an awful lot of local pubs and we are going to lose a lot more.

According to Mr le Clercq, 1,400 pubs closed across England last year, compared to just 255 the previous year.

Source: Leland Guardian.  Link

Another place. Another smoking ban ruining gambling. Australia is the latest place to get hit hard by a recent smoking ban. Poker machine turnover is down at casinos since the ban took affect.

In hotels last month, poker machine turnover was down nearly twenty percent. Millions of dollars are being lost, and some casino operators are blaming the smoking ban, yet other believe there are more
factors at play.

“There is growing evidence that the continuing drop in revenue is not related just to the indoor bans. With petrol prices up substantially this year and several more interest rate increases announced, households are clearly reducing how much they gamble,” said Chief Executive of Clubs NSW, David Costello.

The weather last month also has taken some of the blame from club owners. When it rains heavy like it did last month, smokers are less inclined to go out knowing they will have to go outside in the rain to smoke.

Compared to last year’s March numbers, the numbers are drastically down. In hotels, poker machine turnover is down nineteen percent. Clubs saw a decrease of eleven percent from last year in the same month.

Source: Casino Gambling Web. Link

Police have expressed concern at the number of smokers who gather outside licensed venues for a puff, believing that the combinations of mobs on the footpath and passers by present the potential for trouble.

He said the lack of facilities pushed smokers out of a controlled environment and on to the street, citing the assault of a 19-year-old man outside popular venue Club 4 Play last Saturday as an example of increased potential for violence.

“For example, outside of Club 4Play is far too crowded. It has the potential to go bad and I can see why that assault from last weekend happened.”

On the occasion Chief Insp Carson alluded to, a man had a glass bottle smashed across his face while standing outside the Moorabool St nightspot. Chief Insp Carson said Club 4 Play owner Scott Mackay was working to address the issue.

Source: Geelong Advertiser. Link

Nicholas, aged 44, is a smoker and said he hardly goes to the pub anymore.

“I can get eight cans for a fiver, so I stay at home more now. I think the ban is a negative thing, there will be no pubs left here soon. I can’t see how they will survive. It’s against human rights,” he said.

However, 31-year-old Rebecca, also a smoker, doesn’t mind the ban, and prefers eating out in smoke-free pubs.

She said: “It’s a better environment for people to eat, especially for the little ones.

“But I do think it’s bad in a business sense. I work across the road from a pub and they have been dead since the ban.”

Source: Wales Online. Link

Tini Bigs’ owner Keith Robbins, says cigar smokers enjoyed their lounge for 10 years until the smoking ban killed business. He says, “In the first 3 months of the smoking ban, we were down over 40 percent and for the year we were down over 30 percent, and it hasn’t come back.”

Source: My Northwest. Link

Senate Bill 346 would exempt family-owned business, outdoor patios and private clubs from the current smoking ban.

“The time has come to take this step,” Cates said. “Why? Because this measure is hurting business in Ohio.”

The Moose Family Center has experienced a dramatic drop in business, which management blames on the smoking ban.

Revenue for the lodge is down at least 60 percent since the ban, said Larry Turner, govenor of the lodge. To be successful, they need to bring in about $28,000 a week; last week they brought in $16,000, Turner said.

Turner dismisses claims from the American Cancer Society and other pro-smoking ban groups that have said more customers would be attracted to places where smoking is banned.

“It’s a damn lie. It’s not happening. You can’t find that anywhere in Ohio,” Turner said.

“The law ensures that all business will operate on a level playing field with one fair, statewide standard that is easy to enforce. Furthermore, the intent of the law—to protect all workers from secondhand smoke— was clearly communicated to Ohio voters,” [American Cancer Society Nanny] Hoctor said.

(Ah yes, the famous, favorite line of the nannies, a level playing field. They still haven’t figured out their constant use of the phrase reveals the lie of bans being good for business. If they were, there would be no need for their cherished “level playing field.”)

Source: Cincinnati.com. Link

TAKINGS at some pubs have slumped by up to 40 per cent since the smoking ban came into force, a shock survey of landlords by The Press has revealed.

But 17 pubs said trade had fallen because of the ban, in many cases by 20 per cent or more.

Since the start of the year, several pubs – including the Oddfellows Arms, in Pocklington, and The Phoenix, in George Street, York, have closed.

Alan Jackson, who has been landlord of the Edward VII in Nunnery Lane, York, for about five years, said he believed his trade was down by between 25 and 30 per cent because of the ban.

Source: The Press.  Link.

According to an article in Britain’s Times newspaper, the smoking ban has destroyed the nightlife for bars night clubs in France. The article stated that ever since the smoking ban went into effect on January 1st

the French are prefer to stay home and host house parties. A whopping twenty percent of the 200,000 bars in the nation have been closed down. It is stated that 40,000 bars have been shut down since the onset of the smoking ban. The public is choosing to stay at home, smoke and have fun at house parties as the newly preferred style of night life.

Sabah.com Link.

THE smoking ban is threatening the future of the Flimby Working Men’s Social Club.

The Chapel Street club is being forced to sell of land around it because of financial problems and last week staff hours were reduced and heating regulated in a bid to cut costs.

Secretary Jimmy Langley said the smoking ban kept smokers and non-smokers away.

He said: “Since the smoking ban we have been fighting closure. The non-smokers have been denied the right to a social pint or two without smelling like an ashtray, but when the numbers dropped, many non-smokers stopped coming in because of the lack of atmosphere. If this goes, the village has had it.”

Mr Langley said the club had been on the site since 1927, when it was a Miners’ Welfare and had been central to village life.

Source: Times and Star, UK.  Link

One year ago, the smoking ban – a law some said would devastate Britain’s pubs – came into place.

Punch Taverns
Britain’s largest landlord has had a rotten year. Its shares have collapsed by 70% as beer sales fell 10% with total like for like sales 3% worse and halfyear profits down 20%. Falling volumes and customer numbers have come at a time of rising energy and food costs.

Enterprise Inns
The sprawling tenanted and leased pubs chain includes many thousands of country locals, which have had to work harder to repair the trade of the lost bar-propping smoker. Its shares have fallen 35% in a year – not as much as others because of a likely change in tax status to a real estate which will boost to shareholder dividend payments. Latest reports talk of an upturn in trade, though profits have been falling more than 10%.

Marston’s
Best known for its Pedigree bitter, its pubs include some stalwarts of the City as well as the Pitcher & Piano chain. With the shares more than halved in a year and the latest figures showing profits down by almost 20%, ‘resilient’ was the best that chief executive Ralph Findlay could come up with when comparing his bars with the competition.

JD Wetherspoon
Its shares have cratered 60% since the fag ban, despite it leading the way by banning smoking in much of its estate even before it had to.

Restaurant and café owners whose businesses are located inside enclosed venues and shopping malls have been suffering a 15 to 20 percent drop in turnover since an indoor smoking ban went into force on May 19 have claimed that it is not the ban but unfair competition that is responsible for plummeting sales.

Shopping mall managers say the sharp fall in turnover was mainly caused by eateries located outside shopping malls, where the ban on smoking will not go into effect until next year. Smokers who spend their time in shopping malls walk out to nearby restaurants that offer a smoke-friendly alternative, a situation mall managers say creates unfair competition. Managers demand that the smoking ban in all restaurants and cafés, scheduled to take effect on July 19, 2009, should either be moved up to an earlier date or their eateries should be excluded from the indoor smoking ban until that date.

{This is fairly typical behavior.  When bans hurt one sector but not another, the injured parties often demand that the pain be spread around in the interest of “fairness.”} 

Source: Today’s Zaman.  Link

No citations so far, but a lot of bar owners say the ban is killing their business.

“I have seen business drop way down – up to 30%,” said Chada.

Source: News 5, KHAS TV.  Link

In Ireland last month a piece of news was quietly slipped out through  the back door that you’ve probably not heard about. The number of smokers among the population has RISEN significantly since the introduction of the Irish smoking ban.

The reasons for this should be clear to all but the heavily blinkered. Prohibition simply does not work. Never has done, never will. Drive something underground and it becomes seductively attractive. Lifetime non-smokers are trying ‘that first cigarette’ so they don’t feel left out when accompanying their smoking friends – you see this all the time outside pubs.

This has come as something of an embarrassment to Irish govt health tzars and the likes of ASH-Ireland who are absolutely furious. “These figures clearly show that no progress is being made despite the immense success of our smoking legislation”, commented Prof Luke Clancy of ASH.

How can ASH declare the ban a ‘success’ when all it has achieved is to close around a quarter of Ireland’s pubs, removed choice and destroyed that certain social mystique the Irish were once free to enjoy?

Source: The Publican. Link

A YEAR after the smoking ban was introduced, pub landlords in north and west Wiltshire have described the “detrimental and costly” effect on their businesses.

Lionel Hadland, who has run The New Inn, in New Road, Chippenham, for the past 18 years, said he had not seen a profit for months.

“I am going to have to approach the brewery and see if I can get a reduction in rent as otherwise I am going to have to move on,” he said.

Mr Hadland who runs the pub with his partner Jane, said they had let a member of staff go because they couldn’t afford to pay her anymore.

The Wiltshire Times reported in May how five pubs in Bradford on Avon were being sold off due to a reported fall in trade, some of which was attributed to the smoking ban.

Peter Everleigh, landlord of The Riverside Inn, said he was selling up because the smoking ban had deterred people from going into pubs.

Source: Wiltshire Times.  Link.

More than a dozen bars and taverns have shut their doors since smoking was prohibited in almost all businesses, and owners of some bars that remain say revenues have plummeted. Tax receipts on food and drink purchases countywide, however, have increased slightly over the past year, and several clubs have invested heavily to install outdoor beer gardens and patios.

Councilman Tom Didier, R-3rd, disagrees with his former colleague. Didier, who sells food to restaurants and bars, said he’s seen how the ban has hurt mom-and-pop places throughout the city.

“It’s been difficult,” he said. “There are still customers today that are hurting.”

Source: Journalgazette.net. Link