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

(Some bar owners, devastated by declining revenues as a direct result of smoking bans, have come up with a clever way to win back their smoking patrons. They declare everything that happens in a bar is a performance, and everyone inside is an actor. The state law allows actors to smoke on stage.)

It’s not exactly the venue you’d envision for a Saturday night performance. But Bugg’s Bar in South St. Paul has become the latest stage for a statement.

“We’re doing it because we’ve lost so much business, and we’re trying to get people back out, trying to get them back in the community, trying to get them back in the bars,” said Crystal Bentson, Manager of Bugg’s Bar.

Patrons at Bugg’s Bar paid two dollars for a sticker entitling them to a role in the bar’s production Saturday night. It also gave them an opportunity to light up, if they desired.
You can call it the second act in an ongoing drama. Turns out, dozens of bars across the state are now treating the smoking ban like a brief intermission.

Kenn Rockler of the Tavern League of Minnesota said he’s heard from more than a hundred bar owners looking for the latest way to deal with a ban they say is bad for business. They think they’ve found it, in a once little known exemption in the state smoking ban that allows smoking in theatrical productions.

“Maybe the people who did the exemption weren’t aware what would happen with it,” Rockler said. “But again, those people are the same people that said businesses wouldn’t suffer.

Rockler estimates more than four thousand people have lost their jobs since the ban went into effect on October 1, 2007.

State Senator Kathy Sheran sponsored the law last year, she said the current activity undermines the intention to “protect people from smoke in all of these places.”

“It’s creative, it’s clever, it shows us a loophole in the law that people will want to find their way through,” she said. “But it will require us to find resources to go back.”

(Yeah, damn those hard working business owners who refuse to go out of business. We must punish them!)

Source Kare11. Link

DALBO, Minn. (WCCO) ― A growing number of bars are turning into temporary theaters to take advantage of a loophole in the smoking ban law.

The Dusty Eagle is the only bar in Dalbo. Since the smoking ban, business has gone down there 30 to 40 percent. The owners are trying something new to attract business. They’re taking a cue from an old TV show to bring back some familiar faces. Last Saturday night, an actual local mail carrier was playing “Cliff Claven” from “Cheers”.

Though there is some performance, no one there at “theater night” is a professional actor. For last Saturday night, the entire bar was being considered a stage and pretend “actors” were smoking as part of the “show”. The Dusty Eagle is just one of the bars using “theater night” to get around the smoking ban.

Judy Cassman, the bar’s owner, is quick to clarify her position.

“We’re not trying to be vindictive, we’re not trying to be sneaky. We’re trying to draw some business and keep a family business going,” said Cassman.

Source: Wcoo.com. Link

Officials of Harrah’s Metropolis riverboat casino claim Illinois’ new smoking ban has resulted in the layoff of about 30 jobs at the casino.

Casino officials claim guests are spending less on entertainment and making fewer trips because of the ban and the casino suffered a drop in visitation compared to the previous six-month average.

Metropolis Mayor Billy McDaniel pointed out Thursday that he predicted when the smoking ban went into effect January 1, that it would have negative consequences on the local economy.

Source: WQAD.com. Link

Quebec’s public security minister is denying he backtracked on a smoking ban in light of a small riot that broke out at the Orsainville detention centre late Thursday night.

A law prohibiting smoking both inside and outside of Quebec’s 18 prisons went into effect on Tuesday. Just before midnight on Thursday between 30 and 50 prisoners began fighting and set fire to a wing of the Orsainville detention centre just north of Quebec City. The section was evacuated for about an hour while firefighters put out the fire. There were no injuries.

0n Friday, Public Security Minister Jacques Dupuis issued a statement saying prisoners would be allowed to smoke outside – an activity that was prohibited under the ban.

Source: Canada.com. Link

Harrah’s Metropolis Riverboat has been forced to lay off over thirty workers in response to declining business. According to casino management, customers of the casino are visiting less frequently and for shorter stays since the smoking ban was enacted.

As casino revenues drop, so do payments to states, revenue which is desperately needed to fund budgets across the country. Can’t the would-be do-gooders relax for once, and allow people freedom of choice?

Source: Online Casino Advisory. Link

Violence in pubs in Preston city centre is being pushed on to the streets because of the controversial smoking ban, police warned today.

Insp Steve Evans said the sudden increase of smokers lighting up outside pubs and restaurants since the ban on July 1 last year has “provoked” trouble in the city centre.

He warned innocent smokers could fall prey to yobs intent on causing trouble by picking fights in the street.

And today, Lancaster police chief, Chief Supt Tim Jacques, said the ban has meant more people are staying at home to drink, sparking more violence in homes and neighbourhoods in the city.

“It stands to reason. If there are 20 people stood outside in the street, someone walking the streets looking for trouble has more people to encounter and a bigger choice.”

He added: “We are not saying smokers are responsible for violent behaviour – but those people stood outside having cigarettes would normally have been in pubs and not encountered the troublemaker.”

Ronnie Fitzpatrick, landlord of the Dog and Partridge, Friargate, Preston, said: “I think there is less tension in pubs because there is more room – the smokers are outside so not as many people bump into each other, which was often a source for trouble.”

Source: Lep.co. Link

“I’ve been loving every minute of it,” said third-year Ashley Meyer wryly as she puffed on a cigarette outside Bar Louie. “You’re drinking your beer, and you have to leave it and go outside into this freezing blizzard.”

“I just don’t get this law,” she added. “I mean, people don’t go to bars for their health.”

Another frequent complaint among students has been the loss of a smoker culture that, until recently, cheerfully lived on in Chicago’s bars.

“It makes for a particular social bond, but now everyone’s having fun and you have to go outside in a self-imposed exile for 10 minutes. Sometimes you feel pathetic,” fourth-year John Elias said. (That is the real purpose of the ban, John.To make you a pariah and feel like a second-class citizen.)

The Cove has also seen a decrease in patronage as a result of the new act. Shawn Sleeper, a bouncer at The Cove, said the ban has resulted in a 25 percent decrease in sales at the bar, a number he attributes to patrons being less inclined to smoke out in the cold. But new problems may arise come summer.

“There’ll be more people out here, smoking, laughing, making noise and then the neighbors start complaining and that’s bad for business,” Sleeper said. He added that the Cove has already been hit with a number of fines for similar reasons in the past few years.

Christopher, a second-year who declined to give his last name, is an occasional bartender at The Cove and a frequent customer of neighborhood bars.

“Before, there were plenty of bars that were non-smoking,” he said. “And that was a choice you made before you went out. Unfortunately now, [the state] has taken the choice away from us.”

Lawmakers in other states have said they passed these laws out of concern not only for the non-smoking patrons of bars and restaurants but for the waitstaff and other employees who were forced to inhale the smoke of others. The latter claim in particular is one with which Christopher takes issue.

“Most people who work here smoke,” he said. “When I did bartend, I smoked a fair amount while I was working. It’s something that most employees participate in.”

But fourth-year Josh Hemley sympathizes with both sides of the debate.
“It’s nice to be in a bar without smoke in your face,” he said. “But I smoke too, so it’s like your mother telling you to eat your vegetables: It’s good and it’s bad.” (No, it’s just bad. It’s good when your mom does it. It’s bad when Big Brother Does it.)

Source: Chicago Maroon. Link

Patio heaters could be banned by the European Union over fears that they are contributing to global warming.

Euro-MPs will today vote on energy efficiency proposals to phase out the sale of the popular gas-burning appliances which are increasingly found outside bars, cafés and restaurants since the indoor smoking ban.

But the proposal has been attacked by publicans, who say bars and pubs need the heaters for customers driven outside by smoking bans.

The trade has invested £86.5 million in heaters over the past 12 months and a ban could cost pubs, cafés and restaurants an estimated £250 million a year in lost business.

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, said: “Not content with devastating the pub trade with the illiberal and ill-informed smoking ban, these autocratic busybodies now want to make smokers stand in the cold and the rain.

A UN climate expert questioned the usefulness of a ban.

“The overall impact of outdoor heaters on global warming and greenhouse gas emissions is very minimal,” said Dr Eric Johnson, of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

(This has nothing to do with climate change. That’s just being used as an excuse to go after smokers and make it impossible for them to smoke in public, anywhere. Nicotine Nannies can’t stand the idea that pubs are still accommodating them, and will use any excuse to prevent it.)

Source: The Telegraph. Link

(Finally, a story on this page to make you smile.)

The minister behind the smoking ban has been forced to move office because of the number of smokers congregating outside her window.

Caroline Flint, health minister when the smoking ban came into force and now welfare minister, said the smell of smoke coming through her window was “overpowering”, according to the Mail on Sunday.

Her husband and office manager Phil Cole told the paper: “There was some kind of ventilation system that we could not close off, so even with the windows closed the smoke kept coming in.”

Flint has asked for a review of the four designated outdoor smoking areas in the courtyard of the Palace of Westminster.

The number of pints served in Britain’s pubs and bars in the run-up to the busy festive period declined by almost 10% as chilly smokers, no longer allowed a cigarette inside a pub, cut short their drinking time or stayed at home.

Pub bosses expected the ban to hit hardest in winter but the November decline is by far the steepest since the restrictions were extended from Scotland into Wales and England last year. UK beer sales in August, the second month of the nationwide ban, were down just 2.5%.

The November figures followed falls of 8.2% and 7.7% for September and October respectively and appeared to hit every type of beer. “All categories fell – there was nowhere to hide,” said Mark Brumby, an analyst at Blue Oar Securities. “Premium ale was down 6.9%, standard ale 9.6%, standard lager 10.4%, premium lager 8.3% and stout 10.6%.”

Source: The Guardian. Link

Since the ban on smoking came into force in England in July, councillors, pub landlords and environmental campaigners said that the litter problem had increased sharply in East Lancashire.

It is said to be particularly on Saturday and Sunday mornings after the weekend nights out, when streets outside pubs are littered with discarded cigarettes.

But it is not just the night-time economy that is affected – the outsides of many offices and workplaces have similar piles of fag ends.

Mr Southam said: “Unfortunately it’s one of these things that the Government dictate to the country without thinking about the consequences on everybody.”

Source: This Is Lancashire. Link

A ban on smoking has cut sales in bars and pubs, according to new sector survey. The Association of Travel and Restaurant Services says that income for pubs has dropped more than predicted.

There is also a transition period of two years for bars and restaurants that have arranged the smoking areas so that tobacco smoke does not spread to smoke-free areas.

Restaurants that successfully applied for a transitional period to full no-smoking status were found to have actually increased net sales. Bars that have built the special smoking rooms have seen income fall just like those where smoking is totally banned.

In the survey, 15% of establishments said that they have cut back on staff because of the drop in sales.

(In other words, bars that still allow smoking are seeing increased sales.)

Source: Yle.fi Link

Licensees in South Devon have blamed the smoking ban for an increase in rowdy behaviour and noise.

“There have been more fights and problems since the ban than in the last eight years,” Kelly Townsend of the Old Coaching House told the Herald Express.

“In the last six months we have had to call the police three or four times and we have had to break up a lot of fights. It happens at least once a week and all the trouble starts out the back in the smoking area.

He added: “Because all smokers now have to share the same area to smoke in, we are seeing higher levels of aggression from groups of people who would not normally have anything to do with each other, but now have to sit together for a smoke.”

Source: Morning Advertiser. Link

The main reason the ban has been bad for the environment is because of pubs’ and bars’ efforts to make smokers more comfortable when they head outside to light up. There has been a significant increase in the number of patio heaters in bars, pubs, and restaurants throughout the UK.

Because of the UK’s generally cold weather, the patio heaters are used an average of 237 days a year. This is the amount of time the temperature is below 15 degrees Celsius.
Environmental groups predict that pub and restaurant patio heaters will produce around 282,000 tons of emissions per year now. That’s a 260,000 ton increase over pre-ban numbers.

Some groups are calling for the patio heaters themselves to be banned in an effort to fight the negative environmental impact they have.

(Congratulations to them for not using the phrase “Global Warming” in this article.)

Source: environmentalgraffiti.com

Pubs are likely to pump hundreds of thousands of tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a result of the smoking ban.

Policy advisers predict that emissions from patio heaters in pubs and restaurants will increase from 22,200 tons of greenhouse gases a year to up to 282,000 tons – the equivalent of flying a jumbo jet 171 times around the Earth.

Heaters will be used for more than 237 days a year, when outdoor temperatures are lower than 15C, says the report, from Market Transformation. A further 80,000 tons of carbon dioxide will be produced next year by patio heaters in private gardens, according to an earlier study by the Energy Saving Trust.

Environmentalists say the heaters must now be banned if Britain is to meet carbon dioxide emission targets.

Tony Juniper, of Friends of the Earth, said: “The impacts of the smoking ban are positive, but this should not cause more problems for the environment. Either smokers will have to give up smoking or simply put on a jumper.”

(I’ve got a better idea. Let’s set Tony and his FOE friends on fire, solving two problems at once.)

Source: Telegraph.co.uk. Link

I AM a professional musician of some 30 years, playing in bars and clubs, and have been dismayed by the effect of the smoking ban. Whereas we were promised that the grateful customers would flock to premises providing a smoke-free environment, the reality has been that I have been playing in mostly empty bars, while the few customers left have been shivering outside in the rain and cold.

I have never seen such a collapse in trade, which happened immediately after the ban and has not improved since. This ill thought out law has destroyed social life in this country at a stoke, as people decide to stay at home, guzzling cheap supermarket alcohol and no doubt smoking in front of their children. I have no problem with restrictions on smoking in shops and other public places, but a total ban in pubs, forcing people to sit outside in the wet and freezing cold, while being denied adequate shelter is surely unreasonable.

Most people I know are upset and angry about this ban, and if it is not reversed it will lead to the demise of many premises which have previously been the hub of the community.

Source: Gazette, Internet Edition. Link

It’s been nearly two months since the Minnesota statewide smoking ban took effect. As Chris Buckley reports, it’s having an impact on bar business on the Iron Range.

Palmers Tavern in Hibbing has been in business nearly fifteen years. Owner John Larson says he’d expected business to take a hit after the new law went into effect and he did immediately.

He says this October he sold nearly thirty percent {less} product than October of 2006.

And the biggest hit was the weekday afternoon crowd.

“The people getting done with work that want to have a couple of beers, a couple of cigarettes, and go home.

These people don’t go out at night, they don’t go out on weekends, this was the only time we’d see them, and many I haven’t seen since October first.”

“Our reps have said they’re at least 30 to 35% down in sales, I do know of a place in Orr that’s already begun laying off people because of it.”

He says pull tab sales are also nearly thirty percent lower than normal.

“I see the same regular players but don’t see them gambling as much, some would spend several hundred a night, and now instead of playing for three hours they’re here maybe an hour.”

The non-smokers who frequent the bar, he says, are happy with the new rules.

But those are people that are there several times a week. He hasn’t seen any new customers taking advantage of the smoke-free environment.

“I’d be interested in asking the non-smokers that say they haven’t come out in ten, fifteen years that stood in front of the county and said, we’re ready to go out. Geez, I’d like to see it – we’ve been here for 15 years, now we’re smoke free, you wanted it so here it is!”

Source: Northland News Center. Link

A bingo hall has been forced to close after 37 years in business.

The Bingorama club in King Street, Belper, closed its doors for the last time on Tuesday.
The club’s operator, Stylus Sports, said that current pressures facing the bingo industry, such as high taxation and the smoking ban, made Bingorama economically unviable.
Managing director Peter Hargreaves said: “I have worked in the bingo industry for nearly 30 years and the current climate is the most difficult I can recall.

“If the Government continues failing to address the inequality of trading position that bingo clubs currently face, many local communities will see a familiar social facility disappear from their towns for good.

“It is with much regret and sadness that we have been forced to close Bingorama with the resulting loss of jobs and social facilities for local residents.

“I should like to thank all our staff and customers for their support over the years.”

Source: Evening Telegraph. Link

More pubs are resorting to strippers and exotic dance nights to pull in badly-needed trade as the economy worsens and the smoking ban begins to bite.

Striptease and entertainment agencies say enquiries from pubs and clubs have significantly increased over the past six months.

Dawn Pugsley, from Angels Exotic in Windsor, Berkshire, said hard-pressed hosts were turning to strippers to entice drinkers through the door.

“We are getting a lot more enquiries from pubs and the numbers have risen sharply over the past few months or so. Licensees are telling me they are being forced to look at alternative forms of entertainment because they are struggling so badly,” she said.

“More licensees are looking at these sort of nights, especially since the smoking ban began to hit trade.”

Source: Morning Advertiser. Link

Pubs across the country are facing legal showdowns with councils over issues arising from the smoking ban.

Following The Publican’s exclusive story last week on Chelmsford licensee Jeff Castledine, more licensees have come forward telling of their harsh treatment from their local authorities.

Noise from smokers outside pubs is the main issue causing licensees headaches.

The letter sent to Ashley states: “As the interview will be tape recorded in accordance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 you may bring a legal representative/solicitor with you. The maximum penalty for breaching license conditions is £20,000 and or 6 months imprisonment.”

Another licensee, who wished to remain anonymous, has been sent a letter by his council saying it is “monitoring the situation” over noise outside his pub.

He said he is facing a “catch-22” over what do to with his outdoor area. “I’m being challenged to put in heaters outside, but I’m loath to make the area more comfortable because there is more chance of noise,” he said.

Source: The Publican. Link

ANTI-tobacco campaigners have slammed bars and nightclubs that promote outdoor smoking areas, saying they flout the spirit of strict bans introduced in July.

Dr Mark Westcott, a vascular surgeon from St Vincent’s Hospital, drives past Abbotsford’s Terminus Hotel every day, and said he was disgusted by a sign that encouraged patrons to “smoke in comfort & style”.

“This promotion may not be against the letter of the law, but it’s definitely against the intention of the law, which is to stop smoking in pubs,” Dr Westcott said. “This is indirect advertising of tobacco.”

Other Melbourne nightclubs have used emails to advertise smoking spaces, while South Yarra nightclub Q Bar sent text messages to its database of private members.

“Q: new licenced smoking area open 2nite so bring carton and lets go!” the message states.

Q Bar manager Richard Chatfield conceded that an area in front of the Toorak Road nightclub had been provided for smokers. He said the text message promotion complied with Victoria’s tobacco regulations.

But Quit Victoria executive director Fiona Sharkie said the message could constitute a tobacco advertisement, which breached Commonwealth legislation.

Ms Sharkie called on federal Minister for the Ageing Christopher Pyne to investigate. (I’m telling, nyah nayh nayh!)

(So bars come up with a way to keep their business afloat by providing a comfortable place for their smoking customers to sit outside, and that’s still not enough for these miserable whiny little pricks? Do you need any more proof that these people hate smokers?)

Source: The Age. Link