About This List
Our original Ban Links list grew to five huge static HTML pages. In May of 2008 we moved them all to a WordPress Format. This makes the list easier for us to maintain and update, and makes it easier for you to search the list.
Wherever possible, the dates on posts matches the dates of the original articles. As a result, new additions may not appear on the first page. For instance, if we find a story that is a year old it will be inserted into the blog based on when it was published. On some of the older atricles with expired links the dates are aproximate.
Many news organizations expire links to their stores rather quickly. We usually wait until a story is at least a month old before adding it, to cut down on the number of stores with expired links.
Categories
We’ve used categories to make it easy to search for stories about particular types of venues, geographic locations, and other factors. The search box at the top of each page lets you find other stories. For instance, we don’t have a category for Pool Halls or Bowling Alleys, but you can find them with the search function.
Job Loss - Obviously, when a venue goes out of business, many jobs are lost, but this category only contains stories that specifically mention job loss.
Harassment - The primary purpose of this list is to document business harm, but we occasionally post stores where the actions of nicotine nannies have no apparent motive other than hate or spite. This category also contains some stories about violence against smokers. In those cases, the “harrassment” is too tame a definition. We don’t publish many of those stories, but you can find a plethora of them here.
Lies - How can you tell if a nicotine nanny is lying? You know the punch line, and it would be funny if it weren’t true. Everything they say is a lie (although sometimes, just for fun, they’ll tell a half-truth), but this category is used to point out some of the more egregious ones.
Other Problems - This category is a catch-all for stories about the multitude of other problems caused by bans - street litter, excessive noise as smokers step outside, more people smoking and drinking at home in front of their kids, dirty bowling shoes scratching up bowling lanes, decreased tourism…all kinds of new and unexpected problems created by smoking bans.
Submitting Articles
We’re always adding to this list (sadly) and if you find an article we’ve missed, please send it to hittman@davehitt.com Please bear in mind that in order to minimize the number of dead links we don’t usually publish articles less than a month old, . (We figure if the article is still there a month later, it’s not as likely to be deleted by the publisher.)
A Note About Inappropriate Ads
Google Ads help pay for this site, but Google doesn’t give us many options to filter out unwanted ads. As a result you’ll sometimes see ads here that are woefully inappropriate.
