EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) - The Casino Queen in East St. Louis is reporting that its business is down, and executives are blaming Illinois’ smoking ban.

Initially, the $92 million new casino,which opened last summer, saw revenues increase from the smaller boat,but business has declined since January 1st when the state’s ban on smoking in public places took effect.

Casino manager tom Monaghan says the drop in business has been devastating. He says because of the smoking ban, he fears gamblers are going to new nearby competing casinos across the river in Missouri, where gamblers still can smoke.

Source: WTHITV. 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

LEBANON — Wild Bill’s New American Grille, 20 E. Silver St., has closed its doors permanently, and its owner says the smoking ban played a significant role in the closing.

“We’re heartbroken about it,” said Bill Schroeder, who operated the restaurant with his wife Gayle.

The Schroeders first closed their restaurant briefly in February 2007, blaming a one-two punch of a mandated hike in minimum wage and the smoking ban that took effect in January 2007 and which, Schroeder said, cost him about 30 percent of his business. But based on e-mails and pleas from customers, the couple reopened the restaurant in the spring.

After the smoking ban took effect, “We never saw a lot of our smokers again,” he said. “I expected families to pick up after the ban, but I didn’t see too much of that.”

The restaurant closed March 1.

Source: Dayton Daily 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

Cohasset health officials are trying to ban smoking in the George Mealy American Legion post - the last private club in town where smoking is allowed - but some veterans say that, after serving their country, they have earned the right to light up if they wish.

“My personal feeling as a veteran is we deserve something a little bit special,” Vietnam veteran Bill Van Note said. “It’s nice to come in here and smoke and share our stories. At one point in time, we were willing to pay out with our lives for this country. Give us a break. Let us have our piece of the world.”

Van Note said the meeting with selectmen on March 10 is “meaningless” in his opinion. “The handwriting is on the wall. This is knee-jerk anti-smokers who never paid the price to belong here.”

(Yep, you guys litteraly risked your life for freedom, and the nicotine nannies are using that freedom to kick you out of your own place.)

“I think any veteran who wants to come in here and have a cigarette or cigar should be able to,” Dolan said. “We have a veteran who is 82 years old. He comes in and has a drink and smokes his pipe. People know what’s involved here when they walk through the door.”

(Sorry, old man. You once risked your life for your country, but you’re an evil evil smoker, so you must be kicked out in the cold and the rain. Otherwise, it would annoy a nanny, who would never visit the club, and we can’t have that, can we?)

Source: Boston.com 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

CARBONDALE - About six weeks after it went into effect, many local bar owners say the statewide smoking ban is burning their bottom line.

The ban was touted as means of protecting employees from second-hand smoke and attracting business from non-smokers. But throughout the region, bar owners say the ban has kept smokers away and non-smokers have not filled the void.

“Hopefully we are going to get a new generation of nonsmoking alcoholics; it’s all I can hope for,” joked Ely Lane, night manager at PK’s bar in Carbondale. “We are in a pretty bad situation here. It (business) is down about 30 percent. We don’t own the property so we can’t erect a second area like a smoking gazebo. We don’t know what we are going to do so we are hunkering down and hoping for better times.”

At the Perfect Shot in Herrin, part-owner Traci Drew said business during the week has been cut in half; the bar is offering more drink deals to boost business.

At The Cellar in Carbondale, owner Paul Stokes said business is down about 20 percent so far this year. At Mugsy McGuire’s, owner Matt Maier said last January was the worst he’s had in 10 years.

Da-Nite Bar in Murphysboro is reporting similar returns so far, said Manager Julie Crabtree.

“We had folks that used to come in at 3 and stay until six. Now they come in and stay for an hour,” she said. “Some of our regulars are just not coming in at all. I’d have to say I’ve lost at least 15 of my regulars.”

Crabtree added: “It’s cut down on business; it’s also fewer tips for the staff and less money coming in for the owner.”

At Pinch Penny Pub in Carbondale, General Manager James Karayiannis said the ban has
“affected business for the negative” and agreed with Lane at PK’s that non-smokers have not replaced smokers.

“There are some shifts, say Friday afternoon, when we see some new faces; but the week as a whole, there are more people staying home and no one replacing them,” he said. “Certain behaviors go with other behaviors and I think the person who wants to go to a bar during the week was more likely to tolerate smoke.”

Source: SouthernIllinoisan.com. Link

(If smoking bans were good for business, would owners take such elaborate measured to get around them?)

Minnesota bar patrons are lighting up once again in the tavern, in the name of theater. It’s been months since smokers could puff away inside the bars, but a lawyer says a lit cigarette is nothing more than a prop as thespians act in “The Tobacco Monologues.”

Mark Benjamin was dressed in full renaissance garb as he inhaled his Marlboro. “Some of my friends in the VFW’s and legions were suffering as a result of the smoking ban. I thought I would research the law to determine if there was a way I could help my friends,” Benjamin explained. “I found the exception. The way it was written. I realized if we can have Shakespeare in the park, we can have Shakespeare in the bar. It was written just that way, there was no definition of theatrical productions,” the criminal defense lawyer by traded, added.

Staff members at Barnacles Resort on the north shore of Mille Lacs passed out play bills for good measure Saturday night. A sign on the door warned bar customers that “actors would be smoking.”

Jeanne Weigum, Executive Director of the Association for Nonsmokers told the Star Tribune, “This is pretty lame. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. And if it looks like a bar, it’s a bar.”

Benjamin says at least six bars in the state “put on plays” Saturday night. He hopes more bar owners will stand up and take advantage of the theatrical production exception. The State Attorney General’s office is looking into the loophole.

Source: kare11.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

“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

(No numbers in this one, just a well written letter about nicotine nannies.)

To the anti-smoking folks writing letters to the media: There seem to be two major themes coming through loud and clear.

First is a patent hatred of people who smoke. These are your friends, relatives, co-workers, employers and employees, not to mention perfect strangers who have done you no harm. Somewhere between 60 and 90 million of us … depending on who is counting.

It takes a special kind of hate and heartlessness to force people from all walks of life, race, economic status, age, disability, etc. out into the cold to smoke. And outdoor smoking areas –no more than three walls mind you — can’t serve drinks, food, entertainment, TV, heat? This is America?

The second notion is that somehow smokers are forcing you to inhale their smoke. Can someone cite one instance where a smoker forced a non-smoker into an establishment that allows (excuse me, allowed) smoking? Maybe it’s just me, but if there is something about a place I don’t like, I don’t go there. What is so difficult about this concept? A cigar bar? Why then Mr. and Ms. Non-smoker, don’t go there if it offends you. But rather the attitude of these people seems to be “change the world to suit me”. After all, isn’t it “all about me”? No compromise? Again, this is America?

The most successful propaganda is based on the theory that the biggest lie repeated often enough sinks into the subconscious. Then, it becomes religion-like.

Spencer Hendron
Lake Barrington

Source: Daily Hearld. Link

COOKEVILLE — When Toot’s closed its Willow Avenue location in December, a sign posted on restaurant doors partially blamed the state’s smoking ban. Owners Robin and Tanya Holcomb claimed sales had dropped 20 percent at the restaurant.

Others haven’t been so lucky. Both Logan’s and O’Charley’s cite declining sales, and say the ban is at least partially to blame.

Source: Herald-Citizen. Link

MARSHALL, Ill. - A new statewide smoking ban in Illinois has non-smokers breathing a sigh of relief, but some bar and restaurant workers say this ban is bad for business.

“There was about 20 of us in the bar and one person inside the bar and the bartender and everyone else was outside smoking a cigarette,” Frigge said.

Joe says he used to come to places like this, visit with friends and stay for a few hours, but since the ban Joe says he’s spending a lot more time at home.

“Anymore, maybe a half hour and I head home because I’m not going to stand there in the freezing weather to smoke a cigarette,” he said.

Just a couple of weeks ago, before the smoking ban went into place, local hangouts would be packed. Now barely anyone is here, and that can’t be good for business.

Mora works across town at Jerry’s Restaurant where the scene is pretty much the same, empty tables.

A regular used to sit at the counter and stay for hours, now there’s just an empty chair.
“Now with the coffee drinkers not staying or whatever, it makes the parking lot empty and that doesn’t look good for us either,” Mora said.

Source: WHITV.com. Link

James VonFeldt Says 2006 Adjusted Gross Income Was $914.

VonFeldt and his wife are in the process of selling Billy’s Inn, a business that’s been in their family for 40 years.

“The smoking ban killed me,” VonFeldt said. “My business has dropped 41 percent.”

Source: 7 News. Link

Owner says smoking ban hurt business

Larry’s Bar, an establishment which has operated along Pebble Lake Road on the south side of Fergus Falls since 1997, will officially close Dec. 31. The new nonsmoking law was cited as the biggest factor which led to bar owner Donna Seibel not applying for a new liquor license.

Seibel and her late husband, Larry, started leasing the building from the American Legion 10 years ago.

The restaurant business at Otter Supper Club also has decreased since the smoking ban took effect, Buchanan said. On a positive note, the establishment has seen an increase in the offsale (liquor) business.

“I surmise that smokers who formerly would spend an hour in our lounge figure they’re better off buying liquor at our offsale location — and spending more time in the warmth and comfort of their homes,” Buchanan said. “At home they don’t have to leave warm confines and go outside into the cold to smoke.”

Source: The Daily Journal Online. Link

Talk to proprietors who have amassed a pile of smoking complaints, and they’ll tell you the state indoor smoking ban is really hurting business.

Even after she stopped objecting to customers smoking, Risk said her business is still down by 35 percent from last year.

“From what I understand, it about put everybody out of business here in Middletown,” said Gabbard, who manages the state’s leading target of smoking complaints. “That’s the feedback I’m getting from other businesses. And I’m hearing that from just about everywhere in the state.”

In the end, Boston said, he thinks enforcement will create an even playing field for establishments like his and Risk’s.

(And there it is, folks, the “Level Playing Field” defense. Of course, if bans really were good for business, no “level playing field” would be necessary.)

Source: Dayton Daily News. Link

The law bans smoking in just about all public places that serve food, except for casinos. But smokers say it goes too far and restaurant and bar owners say it’s ruining their business.

“We do have some people coming in,” says Parker Mills, bar manager at Famous Murphy’s of Reno on South Virginia Street. “But it’s not like it used to be.”

Profits from the slot machines that used to rake in money from the bar have dropped 65 percent since Nevada voted to ban smoking in restaurants and bars with kitchens.

“If people aren’t coming into gamble, you have to raise the prices,” says Mills. “And instead of having five dollar chicken wings, they’re now 11 bucks.”

A lot of non-smokers are saying that’s too bad; and some, like former smoker Carol Mayberry want the act expanded even further.

“I think it’s important for them to stay in their cars or house and away from public places.”

(Isn’t the compassion of the nicotine nannies a wonderful thing? You can just feel the hate oozing from this bitch’s pores.)

Lazzerone says he’s still seen a big economic impact on business, despite the remodeling. And Mills says the promise of an increase in non-smoking customers is a dream that simply hasn’t come true.

“They haven’t showed up in place of the smoking gamblers who disappeared.”

Source: Kolo 8. Link

Revenue has dropped at many taverns - as much as 30 percent in some locations - because of a decline in customers, shooed away by the state smoking ban in establishments that serve food.

The prohibition against smoking, which took effect in January, sent gamblers who want to light up while playing slot machines to traditional casinos or one of the few taverns built before 1992 that have 35 slot machines and are exempt because the businesses were classified as casinos.

Wilcock estimates that 75 of the association’s roughly 300 members gave up food service to keep their gambling and smoking patrons. Most of the membership, he said, is complying with the smoking ban “but are losing their shirts.”

Sachs said the gambling devices made Steiner’s three locations profitable.
Since January, however, revenues from the slot machines are off
29 percent to 35 percent at each location.

“We probably do as well on food as anybody because that’s something we wanted to establish,” Sachs said. “But other places might take a monthly loss of $10,000 on food, but made it up with the gaming. That’s not the case now because the business is not there.”

Herbst Gaming is Nevada’s largest slot route operator with approximately 7,200 slot machines in 700 locations throughout the state.
In the third quarter, Herbst said revenues from the company’s route operations were $66.1 million in the three months ended Sept. 30, a 21 percent drop over the same period in 2006.

For the first nine months of 2007, Herbst’s slot route operations generated $212.5 million, 19 percent less than the same nine-month period in 2006.

“There is no question the smoking ban had a dramatic impact on our route operations and has fundamentally changed the slot route industry,” Herbst Gaming President Ed Herbst told gaming analysts following the earnings release.

United Coin Machine, which operates about 6,000 machines in more than 400 locations statewide, is experiencing similar losses in revenue.

United Coin President Grant Lincoln said the smoking ban created an uneven playing field for the tavern operators, who don’t have the promotional budgets to match the customer incentives offered by the large casinos.

“There’s not a lot we can do,” Lincoln said. “As their volume suffers, our volume suffers. The question is, have we truly bottomed out? The smoking issue has been a fairly crushing blow for the average tavern operator.”

Source: koltv.com. 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

In a June 28th Suburban Journal article, the owners of El Maguey Mexican restaurant and Donatelli’s Bistro expressed concern that a Lake St. Louis smoking ban would harm their businesses. They are right to worry. Elsa Barth, owner of the Seventh Inn restaurant in Ballwin, says her restaurant experienced an immediate 35 percent decline in business due to the Ballwin smoking ban. She explained that if a dinner party included even a single smoker, it would choose an alternate establishment that allowed smoking.

Source: Keep St. Louis Free Blog. Link

In the first month of Ohio’s public smoking ban, the little bar in a blue-collar Summit County neighborhood lost $1,000.

The reason was obvious: The bar’s owner followed the law, telling customers they couldn’t smoke. The bar’s competitors didn’t, and some even ”rented” ashtrays to customers, with the money going into a kitty to defray any smoking-violation fines.

The bar-hopping customers stopped hopping into the little bar. And the regulars, although they kept coming, were buying fewer drinks.

”They’d spend 20 minutes at the bar drinking a beer, then 10 minutes outside smoking,” said the owner, who spoke anonymously to protect himself from health department inspectors. ”Instead of drinking five or six beers, they were drinking one or two.”

After losing a grand in May, the bar owner changed course in June.

”I figured if that pace kept up,” he said, ”I’d be out of business before anyone else. So I said, what I’ll do is I’ll let them smoke until we get caught. The next month, instead of losing $1,000, we made $2,500 more.”

And he hasn’t been caught.

”I had to make a decision,” he said. ”I just decided to break the law and be done with it. It’s like speeding on the highway — you’re breaking the law, but until you get caught, you’re going to keep speeding, I guess.”

In Akron, Corky’s Thomastown Cafe on South Arlington Street has drawn the most complaints: 37.

Owner Billy McFrye is facing a $100 fine, on top of a loss of customers.

”People aren’t coming out,” he said. ”I’ve got numbers from last year to this year, and you can see it. It’s unreal. It’s gross. It’s down at least 25 percent.”

He remembers hearing the argument that nonsmokers would come out to take the place of smokers who stay home. But that hasn’t happened at Corky’s.

”Nonsmokers don’t go out anyway,” McFrye said. ”They’re the cheapest people breathing air. I’ve been in business 23 years, and I know there’s nothing cheaper than a nonsmoker. I’m really upset with it. I wish the people who voted for it would get cancer, that’s how pissed I am about it.”

McFrye built a patio for smokers so they could go outside and smoke without having to deal with rain, wind and snow. The health department, however, told him he couldn’t allow smoking on the patio because the patio’s roof and walls make it an enclosed space — and the law prohibits smoking in enclosed public spaces.

McFrye has an attorney fighting his fine and the health department’s ruling on the patio. In the meantime, he’s going to continue to let customers light up.

”I’ve got the signs up and ask them not to,” he said, ”but I’m not going to fight with anyone over smoking.”

Christ has heard that before.

”I’ve had owners tell me that as long as they’re open, they’re going to allow their customers to smoke,” she said. ”The next fine is $500. That might have a little bearing on that decision.”

At the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church on Portage Trail in Cuyahoga Falls, {bingo} business dropped by 25 percent after the smoking ban went into effect, parishioner Matt Pagni said.

Instead of breaking the law to allow smoking, the church bought propane heaters to put just outside the gym doors, along with free coffee. This spring, the church built a patio with chairs, ashtrays and an awning. Volunteers will play patrons’ bingo cards if they have to slip out for a smoke.

Now the church’s bingo business is back to at least 95 percent of what it was before the smoking ban. (So after all that extra expense, they’re still making less money.)

Bars, though, are in a different situation, said Jacob Evans, spokesman for the Ohio Licensed Beverage Association.

”We’re hearing from a lot of bars who are talking about drops in sales ranging from 30 to 40 percent, some 80 percent,” he said. ”And some say they’ve had a 100 percent drop because they’ve had to go ahead and close their doors.”

And, now, winter is on the way.

”What’s going to happen now when people have to step outside (to smoke)? If it’s bad now,” Evans said, ”it’s going to be devastating with the cold weather.”

Nationwide, 15 states have laws banning smoking in all bars and restaurants. Kentucky’s Annual Economic Report did a study about 100 percent smoking bans.

One portion found banning smoking in bars means reducing the number of jobs in bars by 17 percent, which is nearly one in five jobs. Another study done by two smokers with their own money, says that smoking bans hurt bar and restaurant business 80 percent of the time.

Source: WSAZ.com. Link

DETROIT LAKES, Minn. (AP) A Detroit Lakes area bar owner is blaming Minnesota’s new smoking ban for putting him out of business.

Kent Tweten (TWEE’-ten) owned T-F Boonies south of Detroit Lakes. Tweten says he’d owned the bar for only a few months and was working to build a customer base when the statewide smoking ban took effect October First.

Tweten says his “happy hours” were growing when the ban hit, but after that his after-work business shrunk to nothing.

Tweten, a former Moorhead bar owner, says most established bars may be able to hang on but he predicts some will have no choice but to close because of the smoking ban.

Source: KSMC News. Link