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Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58
FWIW, a buddy of mine owns a sports bar in a town here that imposed a smoking ban 1/1/2007.
I was there Tuesday for lunch and he told me his revenue increased by over 60% and is rising since the ban took effect. Seems the smokers stayed loyal, and dealt with the ban, while a new client base emerged from people that refused to go there before because the smoke was so bad.
Considering that only 21% of Americans smoke, I'm not sure why owners are complaining. There are 4 times as many non-smokers that could refuse to visit an establishment based on smoking being allowed, versus that small 1 in 5 they MIGHT lose when a ban takes effect.
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This is the part that I don't understand. If there is a demand for non-smoking establishments (it seems there is such a demand) and all of these places are making better money since being forced to go non-smoking, are all of the business owners in this country idiots? From this kind of evidence it would seem that they all missed a golden opportunity to go non-smoking and increase their revenue. It took the government banning smoking to help their bottom line. Go figure.
This is why I think this whole argument is silly. It absolutely should be up to each business owner and the customers are then allowed to vote with their pocketbooks. From the way it sounds, if we got rid of the bans a lot of places would stay non-smoking, it is better for their bottom line.
This is certainly a freedom of choice thing. Not for the smoker vs non-smoker, it should be about the freedom of the owner to cater to the customer base they want to attract.