An English postman who fell from the terrace of a pub after going out for a cigarette, and slipped into coma for a week, has now moved the court seeking one million pounds as compensation.

Matthew Long, 40, contends that the Old West Station pub in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, should have put up rails to stop customers, who were forced to go outside for a cigarette due to the smoking ban, from falling.

The incident took place in August last year, a month after the smoking ban came into force.

The members of his family have revealed that he was so brain-damaged that he even had to relearn his own name.

Its absolutely devastating for Matthew and the whole family. He smoked only ten cigarettes a day but he must be the worst victim of the smoking ban, British tabloid The Sun quoted him sister Clare Ratcliffe, 46, as saying.

If he hadn’t had to step outside to light up it would never have happened. It had been happy hour and Matthew had a few drinks but has no recollection of what happened, she added.

Source: Thaindian News.  Link

While all this was going on I went back to the people who made the second offer and asked them if they still wished to buy Billy’s Inn. If so make me an offer. It is well known by now that there was going to be a ban. An all inclusive ban. In April of 2006 the people who made the second offer came back with an offer of $600,000.00. We just lost $225,000.00 due to the ban.

First off we stopped taking wages and started using our savings to live on. Then we re-wrote the mortgage on our house and opened a home equity line of credit.

Six months into the ban our business had dropped off by 41%.

By November of 2006 we had to drop our Liquor License Insurance (Dram shop), because we could no longer afford it. At the end of our fiscal year the business was down by 26%. The ban had been in effect for only 4 out of 12 months.

Our adjusted gross income for 2006 was $914.00.

We went from a comfortable life style to zero in less than a year.

In 2007 we saw our business continue to fall off. We sold off other property at a loss and used the money to go on. We dropped our property insurance because we could no longer afford to pay that. We ran the last year of business without any insurance of any kind.

On January the first we celebrated our 40th. Anniversary at Billy’s Inn. My wife’s father ran it for 19 years. In 1985 I left the unions because I was tired of rebels dictating policy in my life. I swore no one would ever dictate policy in my life again. I started running the business in 1985 for my father-in-law. In 1987 we took over the business and have been there ever since. Twenty three years down the drain. I am now sixty two years old and I have to find a job till I can retire at sixty six. Little did I know that the next rebel would be in our own legislature.

After the sale of the business our government taxed us 21% on what we could sell.

Then our government penalized us 25% because we retired three years to soon.

Since closing. One of my bartenders has a wife and four children. He has been homeless since the spring of 2008. In February of 2009 they got into a two bedroom apartment. With four children that is real cozy.

One of the other bartenders, (An unwed mother of two), is also now losing her home. Her new job at Walgreen’s does not pay what she received as a bartender.

Another had a killing outside the bar while they were smoking. Two families destroyed by the smoking ban. There was no bartender or owner outside to intervene.

63 bars, 478 employees, 1 casino, 62 employees, 2 nightclubs, 46 employees, 1 bowling alley, 3 pool halls, and 16 bingo halls all closed. Number of employees un-known.

Venders such as Fender Entertainment gone. Lisa Fender booked entertainment for bars and taverns. Businesses could not afford the entertainment venues so it cost her the business.

In 2006 there were 44 bingo halls, now there are 28 left. The non-profits, who could least afford it, are the biggest losers. The losses are in the millions.

What ever happened to love thy neighbor? Or live and let live. Is this truly the American way?

Source:  Letter to The Smokers Club.  Link.

Additinal Source: The Denver Post.  Link.

The West Midlands and Scotland have been hit hardest in the national pub blight that sees six pubs close per day.

that’s a key finding of CGA’s survey of recent closure rates nationally.

The figures are broken down by Parliamentary constituency as part of the campaigns by the British Beer & Pub Association, the Campaign for Real Ale and the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group to show politicians the scale of the closure crisis.

It compares pub numbers in February 2009 with figures from June 2007, just before the English smoking ban, and data from the last general election in 2005.

More than half of constituencies with fastest closure rates since 2007 are in the West Midlands and Scotland. Dudley South lost the greatest proportion of pub stock — 28% (29 pubs).

Big job losses in the West Midlands, and the fact that many of the pubs are smaller and landlocked, have been given as reasons for closures in that region.

The early smoking ban and fears of costly licensing reform have been blamed for above-average closure rates north of the border.

Other reasons given for closures have been a move towards change-of-use, over-regulation and rent levels.

The Cities of London & Westminster has seen the biggest number of closures since June 2007, 30 from a pub stock of 949.

Manchester Central has seen the biggest fall in numbers since the 2005 election, with 50 fewer pubs.

Overall, the study shows there were 61,677 pubs in England, Scotland and Wales in February 2009, down 3,037 in 20 months and 4,271 fewer than in June 2005.

ISTANBUL (not Constantinople) – Despite Turkey having passed a law in May that created a partially smoke-free environment, the implementation of the smoking ban has been claimed as one of the victims of the global financial crisis as restaurant owners choose to ignore it and hang on to their customers.

However, restaurants and cafes in shopping malls that do not want to lose smokers as customers are ignoring the ban.

The same applies to the Olivium mall in the Zeytinburnu district where some restaurants are ignoring the ban due to the decrease in customers. The proprietor of a restaurant where smoking is permitted in Olivium said, “[The ban] reduced business by 90 percent. We had 11 employees here, now we have five, it is a shame…

Source: Hurriyet Daily News.  Link

AMES, Iowa — People in Ames said the statewide smoking ban that is forcing smokers outside is creating a mess of cigarette butts on streets and sidewalks.

“When we were allowed to smoke in the taverns, we had ashtrays and they were regularly cleaned out and taken care of,” said Reynolds. “People didn’t have to toss their butts out here on the street.”

Source: KCCI.  Link

Carpenter works part time at the Legion. He said the smoking ban has driven away business. Pull tab receipts are down and people who used to be regular customers don’t come around as often and they don’t stay as long. Carpenter said veterans especially, should have a right to smoke in their own club.

“They’ve served their country, and a lot of them are older veterans,” Carpenter said. “They’re not going to stand outside in 35 below zero weather and smoke. I mean, they’ll sit at home and smoke.”

The Bemidji American Legion has been smoke free longer than most bars in the state. That’s because Beltrami County passed a smoking ban ordinance a full two years before the state did. Club manager Bill Rice said the ban is largely to blame for cutting the club’s business in half.

“We were doing two and a half million in business in gross sales a year,” Rice said. “We’re down to a little over a million this year.”

Rice has had to cut three jobs at the Legion since the smoking ban took effect.

Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association interim director Tony Chesak said it’s clear to him the ban is causing bars across the state to fail.

I’d say, realistically, 200 to 300 licensed establishments, at least, have closed,” Chesak said. “I would think that would be a conservative number.”

Membership in the association dropped about 25 percent this year. Chesak said the promise of non-smokers frequenting bars more often because of the smoke free law hasn’t panned out.

“All the anti-smoking folks had said, you know, you get smoking out of your facilities and we’ll come in droves,” said Chesak. “Well, those droves didn’t come out.” {They never do.}

A poll conducted in September shows Minnesotans support the statewide smoke-free law by an overwhelming 77 percent. Gordon said national studies have found that smoking bans don’t hurt businesses in states that have bans in place. {That’s only true of studies conducted by nicotine nannies or the governments that passed the law. The few studies funded by tavern associations show the real, devastating effects.}

Source: Minnesota Public Radio. Link.

Pubs across the country may be overpaying rates by more than £2,000 a year because the Government failed to correctly assess the impact of the smoking ban.

Shadow communities secretary Eric Pickles said that a £5,000 reduction in the rateable value of their business could save publicans £2,200 a year, at a time when the British Beer and Pub Association estimates that pubs are closing at the rate of 27 a week.

Source:  Telegraph UK  Link

The worst year in history for Colorado casinos claimed its first victim Friday, when the Wild Horse Casino in Cripple Creek closed its doors, putting 62 employees out of work.

Revenues for casinos in Cripple Creek, along with Colorado’s other gaming towns, have fallen every month this year. In September, Cripple Creek gaming revenues fell 10.3 percent to $12.8 million compared to the same month in 2007, according to the state Division of Gaming. Statewide, gaming revenue was off 18.7 percent in September and 11.4 percent for the year to date.

Source: Hotel Online. Link.

England’s smoking ban applies to psychiatric hospitals.  The smoking rooms they used to have for patients are now illegal, so patients are lighting up other places, and causing fires. 

Psychiatric units are experiencing major problems with implementation of the NHS smoking ban. Although this was implemented in other parts of the NHS last year, there was a delay until July 1 this year for psychiatric units in recognition that they would face specific difficulties.

Despite the additional time to prepare, a number of unforeseen consequences of the ban have occurred. Most alarmingly, the frequency of “small” fires on psychiatric units has increased sharply. At the mental health trust where I work, the frequency of fires has quadrupled since the start of the ban, from about one fire every two months to two fires a month. At the same time the sensitivity of smoke detectors on psychiatric wards at our trust has been reduced in an attempt to reduce the number of “false alarms” triggered by smoking in enclosed areas and unnecessary calls to the fire brigade.

The increase in the number of fires is thought to be the result of patients no longer being supervised smoking in a “smoking room” and instead resorting to smoking in their bedrooms and the toilets. Whereas previously patients’ cigarettes would either be lit by staff or from a wall-mounted lighter, there is now widespread possession of lighters and matches by patients, and patients are easily able to circumvent body searches.

On October 15, a fire at Camlet Lodge secure psychiatric unit in north London caused an estimated £60m of damage and the evacuation of 60 patients to another facility; fortunately, no one was injured. Camlet Lodge is a modern purpose-built unit meeting current fire standards. Unfortunately, many psychiatric units are still housed in old Victorian buildings.

Staff in the frontline of implementing the smoking ban are at a loss what to do. Attempts to raise this issue with hospital managers at my trust have not produced any practical solution, as managers feel their hands are tied by the Health Act 2006. Surely it was not parliament’s intention when they passed the smoking ban to cause risk to life and limb. Public debate on this issue is urgently required before there is a significant loss of life in a fire at an NHS psychiatric hospital.

Source: The Guardian.  Link

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― On top of the drink tax and the soft economy, the smoking ban has kind of become the coffin nail in the cash register of bars and restaurants.

Although some places are finding a loophole.

“I can tell you right off the bat, three customers that were here in my building three to four days a week no longer stop out of principal they stopped coming all together,” said Marc “Bubba” Snider, owner of Bubba’s Ugly on the North Shore.

While Snider’s neighbors at Firewaters and Mullen’s report little impact on business so far, he says business at Ugly is hurting and he’s hoping his request for an exemption will be approved.

Meanwhile, the folks at Silvoni’s in Ross Township know they won’t qualify for an exemption, but they say they sure could use one.

“For the last two weeks I can definitely say it’s 50 percent off. We’re losing our customers to go up the street, if they do come down here they’ll eat, but then they leave,” said Susie Dragun, of Silvioni’s. “They’re not coming into the bar area to drink and it’s hurting.

But at bars like 222 on Federal Street, and Shenanigans on Babcock Boulevard, which still allow smoking, the ashtrays are busy and business is up.

Source: KDKA.  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

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.

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

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.

Alatus Management, a Minneapolis-based developing company, purchased the building a year and a half ago. After spending 27 years in its current location, it was the decision of Grandma’s corporate office to close the restaurant at the beginning of this summer.

Peterson said she is disappointed that the restaurant is closing because she is finishing finals and now has to find another job.

The president of Grandma’s Corporation, Brian Daugherty, said legislation like the smoking ban has deteriorated the state of hospitality jobs in Minneapolis.

Source: Minnesota Daily. Link

However, there turned out to be an unintended consequence. Cast outside to huddle in alcoves, crouch under awnings, and shiver in the rain, Huntington smokers have to do something with the remnants of their last drag.

Before the new ordinance hustled smokers outside, there were ashtrays inside. Now, even the most environmentally sensitive of smokers revert to a familiar strategy: drop butt to sidewalk, grind with foot, and walk away. For affected merchants, it is an extra burden to clean up the mess that falls onto the gray area (literally) of city sidewalks.

Source: Herald Dispach. Link

A couple say their home next to a village pub has been “blighted” by the smoking ban and are claiming up to £50,000 for the effect on its value.

Neil and Rachel Mutter moved out of the one-bedroom property behind the Silverton Inn, in Silverton, Devon, claiming “stress and exhaustion”.

Their home, The Old Lodge, can only be reached via a partially covered yard beside the pub – which landlord Shane Radmore turned into a smoking area when the new smoking law came into effect last summer.

But when they decided to leave their home and put it on the market for £185,000 they claimed they were unable to sell it because of the situation which followed the smoking ban.

Mr and Mrs Mutter, who moved out to live with relatives, have now made a county court claim for up to £50,000 for the “diminution in value” of their property.

The couple could not be contacted today, but in a county court statement Mrs Mutter said after the smoking law came into effect, up to 15 people gathered in the yard to smoke.

That happened throughout the pub’s opening times and sometimes past midnight, she said.

To get to their home they had to negotiate a crowd of people, around furniture and a cloud of smoke.

Mrs Mutter aid in her statement that they finally moved out because of the “noise, smell, cigarette butts and smoke”.

Source: 24dash.com. Link

The dire financial state of many pubs is revealed in a survey of 500 tenants carried out by the MA.

The most startling statistic is that 10% of pubs are operating at a loss or zero profit.

Also, as many as 78,000 full and part-time jobs may have been lost if the survey results replicate the situation across the 50,000 pubs in England and Wales.

The survey found the average profitability of a pub had slumping by almost 15% in the past year to £24,180.

Of equal concern is that more than half of survey respondents (54%) predicted profitability falling even farther over the coming year.

Nearly six out of 10 pubs (57%) had been forced to shed staff, with an average of 2.75 redundancies per pub.

Pubs where trade was down reported falls ranging between 5% and 40% with the average drop being 18%.

The figures indicate that claims about pubs being repatriated by non-smokers after the ban were over-optimistic.

Source: Morning Advertiser. Link

A ban on smoking in American bars has increased the number of accidents apparently caused by drinking and driving.

US jurisdictions with a smoking ban have seen, on average, a nearly 12 percent rise in the number of drink-related accidents at the wheel, researchers say in a paper published in the Journal of Public Economics.

Researchers found that instead of heading to their local bar for a drink and a puff, smokers ventured farther afield in search of a place where lighting up is still allowed.

They may not be drinking more than before but they are certainly driving more – and that’s what is increasing the risk of a crash.

“Our evidence is consistent with two mechanisms — smokers searching for alternative locations to drink within a locality and smokers driving to nearby jurisdictions that allow smoking in bars.”

Source: Motoring.co.za. Link

Theater night protests are a challenge to a mean-spiritied, shortsighted law.

Your March 16 editorial panned our Theater Night performances in bars as “a clever but wrongheaded protest” against Minnesota’s smoking ban and sniffed that this is a medical, not economic, issue. We disagree. Your editorial focused on physical health and made no room for mental health.

After the smoking ban took effect Oct. 1, many small bars, Legions and VFW posts experienced a precipitous drop in income. Bar owners laid off waitresses they had known since childhood. Bartenders quit school after losing hours and tips. Former customers retreated to ice shacks
on frozen Minnesota lakes to drink and smoke alone.

Public health is more than physical health — clean air and pink lungs. It is also about mental health — keeping company and green wallets. People who drink and smoke alone, who lose their jobs and businesses do not live as well or as long. They need help, not ridicule. These people are socially isolated and financially stressed. Social and financial health deserves to be part of our public health
discussion.

Public health pundits grumble that Theater Night disrespects the law and violates its “spirit.” But this law is mean-spirited and disrespects our veterans and small-bar owners. It makes no accommodation for them.

Last spring, the veterans and small bar owners worried they would lose customers. The Legislature assured them they would see more customers when their businesses were smoke-free, a rosy prediction that turned out wrong.

Theater Night is a blessed respite from the economic desert in which some of our small bars were dying. We now have time to address the mistaken assumptions of last spring. We recommend two healthy accommodations for our veterans and small bar owners.

First, our veterans deserve an exemption. They performed valiantly overseas and continue to perform for their communities through charitable giving. But their revenues dried up after Oct. 1. Granting them an exemption will restore those revenues and their charitable giving.

Second, the smoking ban lets scientists study the effects of tobacco smoke as long as their laboratories are ventilated at the rate of 60 cubic feet of air per minute per person. This is a safety standard that our small bar owners are willing to adopt, even at great cost. Granting such an exemption will give them a chance of survival.

Some may be upset by our approach. But all we ask is to be heard on the subject of mental health as an integral component of public health. Until that day, our show will go on.

Source: Start Tribune. Link

A pub is closing down on Easter Monday due to falling trade following the ban on smoking.

The bar, in Chapel Road, is one of several Yates ear-marked for closure around the country.

Owners, the Laurel Pub Company, which owns more than 400 pubs and restaurants nationwide, said: “We are closing due to the affect of the smoking ban and difficult trading conditions.”

The company says it will be helping the 12 staff to find new jobs. The spokesman said: “Where possible we try to re-locate our staff.”

The Argus has reported landlords reporting takings dropping by £1,000 a week in some pubs. Littlehampton appears to have been one of the worst hit areas with five pubs being forced to shut.

A survey by the Campaign for Real Ale revealed 56 pubs a month are closing across the country.

Source: The Argus. Link

This is an excellent example of how anti-smokers lie with numbers. The first paragraph of the article says:

A smoking ban had no effect on restaurant and bar revenue, according to an analysis of tax records by the Bismarck Tobacco Free Coalition.

Note the wording – no effect on restaurants and bars. But what did they really measure?

Individual businesses were not studied, rather full-service restaurants only were placed in groups of five based on revenue. The five businesses that produced the most revenue were group one, and so-forth, to the five lowest revenue-generating restaurants.

Full service restaurants are often already non-smoking, and few cater to a smoking clientèle. They are usually not affected, or affected minimally, by smoking bans.

The study claims to have studied bars and restaurants, but in reality only looked at full service restaurants. The completely ignored bars, dinners, pool halls, bingo halls, clubs, – in other words, they intentionally left out the businesses that are harmed by bans.

And then they lie about it, saying they included bars, and implying that all types of of restaurants were studied.

This is typical nicotine nanny behavior. I have yet to see an honest study from their ilk.

Source: Bismark Tribune. Link

The ban on smoking in enclosed public places has caused controversy, but what if you couldn’t smoke in the place where you lived?

Life in a typical mental health unit is not exactly festooned with luxuries. Like all hospitals, they can seem cold, clinical and austere places to many patients.

And life is about to get worse for many of those held in a unit. By 1 July 2008 they must all be smoke-free. Prisons, on the other hand, will remain exempt from the smoking ban.

The move is likely to anger many patients, who are not allowed to leave the unit and are not being punished for any crime. Already three are taking legal action over their right to smoke.

The patients argue the hospital is effectively their home and therefore they should be able to smoke. The new rules even prevent them smoking in the grounds.

“You have the choice to smoke in prison, but not in a mental hospital,” he says. “But prisons are there for punishment, and hospitals are there for treatment.”

“People who use mental health services are twice as likely to smoke as those who do not, and some may use this as a means of coping with distress,” she says.

And there is even an argument that suddenly being made to give up smoking could worsen their problems, suggests Dr Chris Allen, a consultant clinical psychologist.

“If they’re using smoking as a way of assistance to cope with their mental health problems, and then that’s taken away, that could lead to problems being exacerbated.”

Source: BBC News. Link