Nicotine Nannies claim smoking bans are good for business. But if that were the case, could this list exist, and could it be so huge? (Please note, this is only a small sample of articles available on the subject.)
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THE smoking ban is threatening the future of the Flimby Working Men’s Social Club.
The Chapel Street club is being forced to sell of land around it because of financial problems and last week staff hours were reduced and heating regulated in a bid to cut costs.
Secretary Jimmy Langley said the smoking ban kept smokers and non-smokers away.
He said: “Since the smoking ban we have been fighting closure. The non-smokers have been denied the right to a social pint or two without smelling like an ashtray, but when the numbers dropped, many non-smokers stopped coming in because of the lack of atmosphere. If this goes, the village has had it.”
Mr Langley said the club had been on the site since 1927, when it was a Miners’ Welfare and had been central to village life.
One year ago, the smoking ban – a law some said would devastate Britain’s pubs – came into place.
Punch Taverns
Britain’s largest landlord has had a rotten year. Its shares have collapsed by 70% as beer sales fell 10% with total like for like sales 3% worse and halfyear profits down 20%. Falling volumes and customer numbers have come at a time of rising energy and food costs.
Enterprise Inns
The sprawling tenanted and leased pubs chain includes many thousands of country locals, which have had to work harder to repair the trade of the lost bar-propping smoker. Its shares have fallen 35% in a year – not as much as others because of a likely change in tax status to a real estate which will boost to shareholder dividend payments. Latest reports talk of an upturn in trade, though profits have been falling more than 10%.
Marston’s
Best known for its Pedigree bitter, its pubs include some stalwarts of the City as well as the Pitcher & Piano chain. With the shares more than halved in a year and the latest figures showing profits down by almost 20%, ‘resilient’ was the best that chief executive Ralph Findlay could come up with when comparing his bars with the competition.
JD Wetherspoon Its shares have cratered 60% since the fag ban, despite it leading the way by banning smoking in much of its estate even before it had to.
Restaurant and café owners whose businesses are located inside enclosed venues and shopping malls have been suffering a 15 to 20 percent drop in turnover since an indoor smoking ban went into force on May 19 have claimed that it is not the ban but unfair competition that is responsible for plummeting sales.
Shopping mall managers say the sharp fall in turnover was mainly caused by eateries located outside shopping malls, where the ban on smoking will not go into effect until next year. Smokers who spend their time in shopping malls walk out to nearby restaurants that offer a smoke-friendly alternative, a situation mall managers say creates unfair competition. Managers demand that the smoking ban in all restaurants and cafés, scheduled to take effect on July 19, 2009, should either be moved up to an earlier date or their eateries should be excluded from the indoor smoking ban until that date.
{This is fairly typical behavior. When bans hurt one sector but not another, the injured parties often demand that the pain be spread around in the interest of “fairness.”}
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?
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.
More than a dozen bars and taverns have shut their doors since smoking was prohibited in almost all businesses, and owners of some bars that remain say revenues have plummeted. Tax receipts on food and drink purchases countywide, however, have increased slightly over the past year, and several clubs have invested heavily to install outdoor beer gardens and patios.
Councilman Tom Didier, R-3rd, disagrees with his former colleague. Didier, who sells food to restaurants and bars, said he’s seen how the ban has hurt mom-and-pop places throughout the city.
“It’s been difficult,” he said. “There are still customers today that are hurting.”
Colorado casino revenues in April fell for the fourth straight month since the smoking ban took effect in January, dropping 7.1 percent from March and down 12.5 percent from April, 2007.
It was the second-biggest year-to-year decrease ever, behind March.
In Cripple Creek, revenue fell 6.4 percent to $10.7 million in April, off 13.3 percent from
April, 2007.
Cripple Creek casinos have brought in a total of $42.6 million in 2008, off 14.7 percent from this point in 2007.
SPRINGFIELD — Illinois casino officials continue to blame the state’s indoor smoking ban as riverboat gambling revenues have fallen for the fourth straight month, a report shows.
Each of the state’s nine riverboat gambling sites took in less money in April than they did in the same month last year, for an average loss of about 19 percent, according to the Illinois Gaming Board’s monthly report. Each casino also saw its revenues and attendance drop from March to April.
Revenue drops between April and the same month last year range from a nearly 27 percent drop in Alton to a 5 percent decrease in East St. Louis. Casino Rock Island posted a loss in the same period of 17 percent. Metropolis showed a 25.5 percent loss. The Empress Casino in Joliet lost about 26.5 percent in revenue over last April and Harrah’s Casino in Joliet lost almost 18 percent.
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.
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.
Charity bingo games are being hurt by bans on indoor smoking, with attendance dropping as patrons turn to casinos where they can still light up while playing, the New York Times reported April 24.
Charity gambling revenues fell 13 percent after Minnesota adopted a statewide indoor-smoking ban, with the smoking prohibition blamed for half of the decline. Bingo players who once flocked to the American Legion post in Fergus Falls, Minn., now go to casinos or cross the border to North Dakota, where veterans’ groups are exempt from the state’s smoking ban. “It’s had a profound effect on us here,” said Charlie Lindstrom of the American Legion post. “We’ve sponsored several baseball teams here in the past, but we can’t give as much now because the smoking ban has really reduced our revenue.”
Charity officials in California, New Jersey, New York, and Washington also report that smoking bans have hurt attendance and revenues on bingo nights. Some say that smokers typically outnumber nonsmokers three to one at bingo games, and despair of finding nonsmoking players to replace the departed smokers.
In Minnesota, which adopted a statewide ban on smoking in all indoor workplaces in October, revenue from all charity gambling dropped nearly 13 percent in the last quarter of 2007, compared to the same quarter the year before, according to state officials. More than half of the drop — the equivalent of about $100 million annually — was attributed to the new law, they said.
On a good night, Mr. Lindstrom said, bingo at the post used to attract 50 to 75 players. Nowadays it is more like 30 or 40.
“It’s had a profound effect on us here,” Mr. Lindstrom said. “We’ve sponsored several baseball teams here in the past, but we can’t give as much now because the smoking ban has really reduced our revenue.”
Still, revenues are down. In 2006, the bingo operation at the children’s center, which then belonged to Big Brothers Big Sisters, generated about $325,000 a year, after expenses, and employed 17 people. A year later, under the auspices of the center, it produced $150,000 and employed 13 people.
Washington used to be home to 100 bingo halls that raised money for charity. Now there are fewer than 20.
Punch Taverns Plc, the largest U.K. pub landlord, said first-half profit declined 24 percent after the company sold outlets, a smoking ban kept drinkers at home and consumer spending slowed.
The company had never posted a first-half profit decline since its 2002 initial share sale. Rivals Enterprise Inns Plc and J.D. Wetherspoon Plc have also suffered since England banned smoking at bars and other public places in July.
Punch said today it has reduced the number of pubs it owns by 9 percent to about 8,450 since the first half of last year.
Sixty-four per cent of pubs in England are losing trade since the smoking ban was introduced, according to a survey published by YorView on behalf of pro-choice group Freedom to Choose. Of those establishments, 98% blame the smoking ban for some or all of the loss of trade.
Many landlords report that they have cut staffing levels or opening hours. One landlord commented “the smoking ban is just driving people out of pubs.”
Godfrey Bloom MEP, author of the foreword to the report, said: “With over 20 pubs a week closing, I feel a major cultural platform is being removed from the British people.”
Mick Hudson, treasurer of Seaton Carew Social Club, said: “We are £18,000 down on beer sales in the last six months – and we are one of the clubs that is just about coping.
“When you look at the membership, our figures have dropped from about 450 to around 300 in the last year, so we have lost a third of the members.
“People can buy cheap drink in the shops and stay at home, they don’t want to be standing outside in the cold, smoking. When the members drop, there is a knock-on effect everywhere. The money over the bar drops, we have to put prices up, we don’t make enough to cover the costs of putting entertainment on and so on.
DENVER — Revenues at Colorado casinos took their biggest hit in year-to-year comparisons since the inception of the statewide smoking ban in January.
According to the Colorado Division of Gambling, casinos made $63.3 million in adjusted gross proceeds in March, down 15.2 percent from $74.5 million in March 2007.
Revenues for January were down 3.6 percent and 10.1 percent in February as compared to last year.
With memberships in decline, once-busy clubs are closing as owners struggle to break even.
But the clubs are not as crowded as you might expect. In fact, if you can find one still open, you should be able to breeze in for a frame pretty much any time.
Club owners warned this week that traditional snooker and pool halls across the country are shutting up shop after a downturn in trade. Many believe the decline is an unforeseen by-product of the smoking ban, now nearly one year old.
Kentish Town Snooker in Holmes Road – once thriving with 18 tables across two floors – closed last year, and next to disappear of the map is the Camden Snooker Club in Delancey Street, Camden Town.
It faces demolition this summer after its regulars were unable to convince a planning inspector – despite a 500-strong petition – that there was enough interest to save it from the bulldozer.
“We have just found out that 50 clubs have closed in the past two years.”
“The whole snooker scene is quieter these days. It is definitely much quieter since the smoking ban. There are fewer young people too.
Kevin Young has been a bartender at A.C.’s Bar & Grill on King Street for over a decade. He is a non-smoker who has worked in a smoking environment for most of his adult life, until now. Since the smoking ban went into effect, Young has consistently worked eight hours longer than he used to each week and earns roughly $200 dollars less each week. Visiting my friend Kevin at work in the early evening is much easier these days, because the ban has literally cut his bread-and-butter happy-hour shift in half. He says, “Bring back the smokers.”
His boss agrees. Says A.C.’s owner Jim Curley, “Profits in 2007 were down 80 percent compared to 2006, and that’s with the smoking ban being in effect for only half a year.” Jim admits there are other factors for the loss, but the smoking ban is unquestionably the “primary factor.”
Frankly speaking, more than a few experts agree that former Surgeon General Richard Carmona’s contention that exposure to secondhand smoke is as damaging as inhaling a pack-a-day ranks right up there with President Bush’s assertion that Saddam Hussein had WMDs.
As I write this commentary, I’ve actually been sitting in A.C.’s, simultaneously gabbing with Kevin behind the bar who has had only one other customer for the last hour — and that customer just went outside to smoke. It wouldn’t have bothered Kevin or me in the least if he had remained in the bar to enjoy his cigarette, but the government has already made that decision for us. As a grown man, it’s a bit offensive. As an American, it’s a little disheartening. And as a citizen, it’s ridiculous.
There was a time in this country when most Americans would have agreed, even those who hated smoking,
believing that government should have reasonable limits. But in an increasingly unreasonable world, such arbitrary power promises to become increasingly limitless, undermining and overtaking even the most basic American notions of property and principle.
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”.
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.
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.”
Affirming what American Legion hall operators and mom-and-pop bar owners had warned, a new report shows that Minnesota’s statewide ban on smoking appears to have cut into charitable gambling revenues from bar-game pull tabs and bingo.
Gross receipts from charitable gambling were down 12.8 percent in the last three months of 2007, which correlates with when the statewide smoking ban took effect. Even taking into account a weakening economy, the ban is likely to be responsible for a decline in gross receipts of 7.5 percent to 8 percent, or a loss equal to $95 million to $105 million a year, the report noted.
The nearly 13 percent drop represents the largest decline in receipts since lawful gambling was first regulated in the state in 1985, said the report released Monday by the State Gambling Control Board, which
regulates the industry.
Charitable gambling plays a unique part in the fabric of Minnesota life. The state’s charitable gambling industry is by far the nation’s largest, with $1.2 billion in gross receipts a year. It funds such nonprofit organizations as youth sports, veterans groups and volunteer firefighting organizations. There are more than 1,400 licensed charity organizations and 3,000 locations where charitable gambling takes place.
Charitable gambling officials predict revenue declines of 16 percent to 18 percent through this year. Anticipating the effect, the industry has been pushing for several pieces of legislation that would give them more flexibility in their operations.
Wilson said that many organizations terminated their licenses because of funding problems last year and that the number is likely to increase this year.
