Secrets of the City

4.15% does not sound modest for a business with razor-thin margins.

Who is ultimately responsible for a business having “razor-thin” margins?

Why the focus on the negative, Dude? Overall, the report is very positive. Liquor sales up. Food sales up. By our count, more bars in Minneapolis now than before the ban.

Healthier air. Healthy profits for most places. Very likely, more Minnesotans have decided to quit smoking (we don’t have those numbers yet).

4.15 percent is a lot. Anyone want a 4.15 percent cut in pay?

And, remember folks, correlation does not equal causation.

Woohoo: I love the smoking ban!!!

Alamn, I hope there is a lot of good karma coming your way from people who quit smoking because of the ban. You’re surely getting a ton of the negative from all the business owner you screwed.

How do these negligible and relatively modest losses compare against projected goals based on increases in previous years?

Happy Birthday! My freedom loving clothes thank you!

This study is seriously flawed. They didn’t control for any number of other variables that might affect revenues. Bad economics.

Any decrease in revenue effects the value of a business, which, in the case of a neighborhood bar, is often the owner’s retirement fund.

Keep in mind that a “modest” 4.15% decrease in sales will decrease the potential sales price of a business by about ten times the dollar amount. (a bar business will sell for about 10 times gross, plus or minus the building or lease and value of its furniture/fixtures/inventory.)

Matt makes a good point. I would advise against anyone embracing any single economic study of this subject, as there are so many variables, both known and unknown. You need some larger context to make sense of the numbers.

With that in mind, we should note that this is the fourth economic study of smoking bans in the Twin Cities area. Earlier studies by the City of Bloomington, Hennepin County and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press had very similar results.

No one expects this latest report from Minneapolis to be the final word on the controversy. The now-familiar rhetoric is just getting warmed up in Saint Paul, which goes smokefree at the end of this month.

However, four different studies from different sources have now come to the shared conclusion that the Twin Cities, like other areas that have regulated indoor smoking, have not seen the widespread economic disaster many ban critics predicted. The sky didn’t fall.

I encourage all my fellow MNspeakers to contine to support your local neighborhood smokefree bar or club. Now, one year later, smokefree bars, clubs and restuarants are becoming the norm and people and business are adjusting well. Time to take the next step and apply the same rules equally and fairly statewide, as Colorado is about to.

“Who is ultimately responsible for a business having “razor-thin” margins? “

Since most places who are down 4.15 percent don’t have a, say board of directors to answer to, that margin is probably enough to help earn them a living and keep the place operating.

Until busybodies like you and your organization decided that you know how to run it better than they do. Your self-righteousness is appalling in my opinion.

I interviewed some people from MPAAT the other day… and asked if they had been to a smokefree bar since the ban. I mentioned that I bring my baby son out now, as many bars serve great food, and I feel good bringing him out to a smokefree environment. The people I talked with said they hadn’t been to a bar. The researcher was going to a Irish coffee shop on St. Patrick’s Day.

This, I believe, is the biggest failure (from a PR perspective) of the smoking ban advocates (Bob excluded– he’s always advocated going out– and he goes out himself). I think MPAAT should have taken the money from one TV ad buy, and organized a smoke-free bar hop. Something to support the small business owners.

ALAMN – thanks for all your work! Statewide would be great. My fiance and I are looking forward to seeing shows at the Turf Club next month — we had sworn it off because of the smoke.

And, just to be accurate. This wasn’t an economic study, it was a politically motivated economic study.

And, remember folks, correlation does not equal causation.

True, although some people seem to think that doesn’t hold when they want to blame the smoking ban for struggling businesses.

What we really need to see is studies performed during the smoking years to see if a 4% drop really is significant or if that’s just within the realm of a normal yearly fluctuation.

Slim: if you wish to believe that all three government studies are “politically movitaved,” that’s fine by me. What about the 12/6/2005 PiPress analysis? The one with the front page headline “Smoking ban fears prove unfounded” — was that politcally motivated as well?

Who in this room thought the Terminal Bar would still be open one year later?

Not me. Sales may be down, but the little neighborhood bars aren’t dropping like flies, as many predicted and I feared.

Hell, even the CC Club is still open

Bob, I have said it a dozen times, and I will say it again. Your efforts to suck all the variety and gamble out of life have served to make this state a much more sterile, and much less enjoyable place to be. Just once I wish you would crawl from your cacoon of safety and take in an actual night on the town. You would soon see that, wherever you go, there are people who do things you can’t control. Rather than legislating the actions of others into conforminy with your own wishes, perhaps you should learn some tolerance to the variety of life.

I don’t want to live in a world where my every decision and action is legally prescribed, and where guys like Bob are writing the prescription. When we abandon the idea of free will and free markets, what sort of message are we providing about the long term value of democracy?

So is Stasiu’s (with a new owner), Mayslacks, Dusty’s, Stub & Herb’s, U Otter Stop Inn, Gabby’s, the list goes on and on…smoke or smokefree, many of us appriciate a good dive bar.

Apart from not smelling like ass when I get home at night, I also enjoy the ban because it’s much easier to get a table at the bar these days.

As long toe the mark….

As long as they toe the mark….

Incidentally, bar markups aren’t exactly slim. Standard guidelines for the area would price a 12oz bottle of PBR at around $1.80 during regular hours. Even most premium keg beers run for less than $1/pint. … and the cost of labor? Can you say minimum wage? How about even less for the invisible illegals?

The ban should be lifted. But smokers: please keep smoking outside. It’s just a nice gesture.

A clever troll on the part of “Phil(ip) M(orris).”

The “free market” has no interest in the health of the public or the employees of bars and restaurants. If we allow “free markets” and “property rights” to take over, there’s no end to the so-called liberties that a business can decide to take, whether it’s who can and can’t smoke in the building, how cleanly your food is prepared, whether handicapped people can be served, or whether people of certain skin colors are allowed as patrons.

I don’t want to live in a world where my every decision and action is legally prescribed

You are welcome to take your stinky habit and leave any time. It’s not about freedom, jerkwad, it’s about money. Admit it. You are free to do whatever you want in your own grime encrusted home, just don’t make me breathe your smoke on top of your SUV exhaust. My asthma’s bad enough already.

I credit the smoking ban for moving me from casual to nonsmoker. I used to enjoy a 1/2 pack of heaters with an evening of cocktails but never reached the level of full-on addict (though dangerously close). But it’s not worth frostbite. Now I’m smoke free and a runner. Politics aside, I’m on board with the ban.

As always, the devil’s in the details. This most recent study by the Mpls. Health Dept. looks at 353 bars/restaurants that sell liquor in Mpls. There are roughly 600 alcohol license holders in Minneapolis. So why were nearly half of the establishments excluded in the health department’s study? Because they had changed owners since 2003 (taxpayer ID) or are new. Does anyone really think a study that excludes 45% of the affected population means anything? Does anyone really believe, like the study claims, that there are only 40 “neighborhood bars” in Minneapolis? Does anyone really think that a study done by the Minneapolis Health Dept. (which pushed the ban) or media like the STRIB or Press (which take big bucks in advertising from MPAAT and the pharmaceutical companies who are pushing these bans) will not be biased?

It’s worth saying again: this viriulent anti-smoking crusade is the work for neo-Puritans. If they were alive in Shakespeare’s day, they would be out the close the theaters.

I’d just like to say that I’m in favor of the smoking ban and I’m not a “neo-Puritan.” Please don’t try to label me.

Gerg:

What’s next in our sights? Alcohol? Fattening food? Strip clubs?

Fur? Animal testing? Big cars?

Um… nope.

Oh my god. This is the same kind of hysteria that leaps from gay marriage to polygamy to legalized pedophilia to the end of the world as we know it in one great moronic bound.

Chill out, buddy.

I’m just asking where else want to go with this. The “ban” approach obviously works. Someone can work up a pretty good head of steam when they see a woman in a fur coat. There’s lawyers out there holding seminars on how to effectively sue McDonald’s.

We should be able to ban anything we want in this country.

cp – indeed. If we’re going to ban anything else, it should be conservatives from the internet. There are way too many e-mail forwards going around about how terrible it is to be a white heterosexual male in the richest society in the history of the planet.

Rat – I don’t want to go anywhere else with this, I can’t speak for anyone else who is pro-smoking ban, but I’m just asking you not to assume anything about me. Smoking bans have been successfully passed because smoking in business establishments presents a clear on-the-job safety concern. Neither fur coats nor McDonald’s present such concerns. Oh, and please, send me a link for one of these McDonald’s-suing-seminars… Just don’t send me a forward you got from one of your hysterical buddies.

Here’s the man to watch.

Looks like links don’t work

Google John F. Benzhaf. and Sue the Bastards

I just did a study of my own. 100 percent of the people typing this message right now fear for the future of a country where so many people don’t understand that part of the draw of the American style of democracy is freedom.

Freedom to speak freely. Freedom to worship. Freedom to assemble and freedom to seek life, liberty and happiness. When we start giving away these freedoms, no matter how small, we begin to wear at the very fabric that holds us all together.

Let’s keep that fabric reeking of smoke!!!

What was it that Dr. Samuel Johnson said, Phil? “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel?”

Don’t wrap your cigarettes in my flag, Phil. I won’t take it from Westover, I certainly won’t take it from the likes of you.

I love it. We have a government that is unapologetically spying on anyone they want without a warrant and is continuing to set up a huge database to track that information. Yet so many of the people that I talk to that are going ape about the smoking ban don’t say boo about that. “Give me my cigarettes and I’ll consider myself free”.

Freedom to speak freely. Freedom to worship. Freedom to assemble and freedom to seek life, liberty and happiness. When we start giving away these freedoms, no matter how small, we begin to wear at the very fabric that holds us all together.

Freedom to drive drunk. Freedom to shoot your neighbor when they annoy you. Freedom to comment on your hot co-worker’s nice rack. Who is protecting these essential freedoms for us?!?

Your argument is specious. Freedom to give yourself cancer? Absolutely. Freedom to give me cancer? No so much.

(And whether or not you buy the evidence of the dangers of second-hand smoke, you also don’t have the freedom to make me and my clothes stink. I can do that just fine myself and I don’t need a heater to do it, thankyouverymuch.)

Sorry Philly, but I’m just gonna go ahead and confirm your suspicions: I consider the freedom to smoke drastically different from the freedom to worship, speak, assemble, etc.

And, as an American, I can’t help being offended by your supposition that smoking ban advocates don’t understand the draw of freedom. But, you’re obviously a person that thrives off making broad assumptions and offending people, so I know I’m giving you what you want. Oh well.

I do have a freedom to seek life, and part of that is a freedom not to get lung cancer or emphysema. Explain to me how smokers infringing on that freedom is less bad than smoking bans infringing on your freedom to smoke?

“you also don’t have the freedom to make me and my clothes stink”

It’s come to this. Every jot and tittle of daily life has be regulated for the purpose of keeping you comfortable!

Living among society day in and day out is messy. We encounter people who do things we don’t like. How much of these annoying little encounters do you want do you want to see rubbed out?

Rat… way to wimp out. Taking something somebody said as a humorous footnote to a legitimate argument and latching onto it to make some big, disconnected statements is so…… predictable.

Ok, so they do really downplay the adverse effects on the businesses who said they were going to suffer for it (and did). Sure, most businesses are taking in more money, but guess who was not only left out of those increases but lost ground? The people who were afraid of just that happening.

It might only be a ‘modest 4.15% decrease’ but you have to also account for the lack of increased revenues that they’re missing out on (which usually help offset various effects of inflation/etc. … plus who wants to run a stagnant business?).

I’m still trying to quit smoking and I was already used to smoking outdoors because of the last place I lived (MA), but trying to say “look, no adverse effects on the people who were worried!” is just dishonest. I’m not necessarily opposed to the smoking ban, but I do think they should at least own up to cutting into the margins of bars and clubs.

Oh, and they should fucking allow sunday liquor sales here already. Even the puritan posterchild state has done this (MA), so why the hell is it still illegal here? Does Wisconsin have a big lobby keeping it illegal here to keep up sunday business or something?

Hennepin County is doing these businesses a huge favor, and they don’t even know it. As soon as ONE of their non-smoking employees in a Bar or Restaurant that doesn’t ban smoking gets cancer and sues, that bar is done. It will just be a matter of time before you cannot smoke at any public place. It is NOT the government getting into your liberties, it is a matter of economics.

Smoking causes cancer and has a negative economic impact on those businesses that supply health insurance. Having a smoke free environment is one way to lessen the liability for health insurance. The rest of us have been paying more to allow smoking to continue in bars and restaurants. This will not last. Once insurance companies start knocking employers for non-smoke free work environments, smoking in a place of business will end. All businesses.

The governments of cities and states are getting a jump on things, because it wishes to save a few lives before this becomes and economic enevitability. Bad for them! Also, they will free up some potential court time for the law suits. Bonus! If you think it is anything else, you are sadly mistaken!

St Paul’s smoke free soon too! Hoooray! Sorry folks, but the ban is here to stay…

The report published by the advocates of the smoking ban (Mpls Health Dept) comes to conclusions that the actual published data doesn’t support. Examine the data with a critical eye instaed of taking the summary at face value, and you will see that the summary of the study is a lie, and the document provides it’s own confession when you read the footnotes. Also consider that for the study, HOtel revenues are lumped in with bowling alleys. I fail to see how $55,000,000 of Hotel room rentals (about 1/3 of all revenue studied) equates to bar sales figures.

we’re all getting used to the smoking ban and everytime i think i’m fine with it, alamn goes ahead and posts something so extremely annoying that it all boils up again.
leave us alone!!

I have yet to see or hear of a single lawsuit filed by a worker who contracted cancer and sued their employer.

I’m happy as hell about the smoking ban, as are others here. I can eat at places like the Uptown Bar & Cafe without reeking afterward, and the Fine Line’s much more enjoyable now. I’m also glad that all the whining smokers haven’t managed to overturn it.

I’ve asked this of several people and they never answer — what’s so great about smoking? Aren’t there better rights to defend? And are cancer and emphysema all that desirable?

Of course none of that’s desirable, and I’ve never started smoking. My Dad died of emphysema.

But I think a guy who owns a bar should be able to do what he wants at his own place. If a bar owner doesn’t want smoking he can ban it on his own.

The Rat is making my point quite succinctly.

All the Antis argue that I am forcing them to inhale my smoke by partaking in my chosen filthy habit in a bar.

This is not the case. Bar owners want me in their establishment, and they are fine with me smoking. But the Antis got their panties all in a bunch, and now have used government to force business to make a decisions they otherwise wouldn’t have made. If there are truly thousands of people who have been avoiding bars because of the smoke, why weren’t Bob’s bogus study finding showing that? Want to know why? Because the only minority smaller than smokers in this debate are the raving loonies from the Anti camp. The bulk of Minnesotans understand that bars are smoky, and to avoid smoke, they can NOT GO INTO BARS. And, yet others have successfully lobbied their local bars to volunarially go smoke free. But believing in the power of demand in market economies was too hard for Bob and his crazies, so they decided to force their prefered version of life on everyone.

Ask the dozens of workers who have been laid off as a result of the various smoking bans which is better. Cigarette smoke in a full bar, or the smoke free comfort of unemployment.

Or, would that be too rational?

You know, when they went and banned heroin use in bars, everybody got angry too. But, as a non-heroin user, I’m just finally glad not to have to walk into my local bar and have all the addicts there pull the syringes out of their arms and spray their blood-infused junk all over my face and clothes. Bar owners complained, but what are you gonna do.

And I can’t tell you how happy I was when they banned spontaneous, explosive, voluminous ejaculations from those with social diseases. Sure, it’s a free country and all, but too many bartenders were winding up with the Clap.

That sounds like something Hitler would say.

Just a quick Google and voila! I tried to avoid non-smoking advocasy sites, because they may have a bias, but there are a great deal more examples of employees suing employers for exposure to second hand smoke. trigonalmayhem, perhaps you should look more…

http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-5661-f0.cfm#i3
http://www.gasp.org/etssuit.html

Hip,

I’ve been impressed with many of your posts, but that last one did not rate with your usual production.

Rebutting your flawed logic would serve no purpose and would just make my head hurt.

You’re better than that.

Phill M.: That sounds like something Hitler would say.

This discussion is now over! Winner: Smoking ban advocates!

Gerg, I had not heard of Gowin’s Law until you cited it in your post. Cool.

Consider the matter settled…we (all of us, pro and con) win!

“employees suing employers for exposure to second hand smoke….”

Working in a bar, and suing your employer for smoke in the place.

That’s akin to moving to a place around Lake Nokomis and picketing the airport in your pajamas because you don’t like the jet noise. Why the hell did you move there?

Minneapols, MN–
Today the city council passed an ordinance banning hardcore pornography. City council members who voted for the ban say it is pyschologically damaging to the sex industry workers who produce, distribute & retail it. “No-one should be exposed to that environment,” says Sary Ghiff, the council member who one both terms when his opponents faced federal indictments weeks before election day.

“All video industry workers deserve to work in a place that values their mental health & self esteem,” he added.

“I love the porno ban,” said I. M. Alightweight, Uptown resident. “Now I can go to any video store, website, or theatre and not have to worry about being exposed to porno. Also, my clothes don’t smell like semen.”

Video store owners are compaining about adverse affects to their business. They claim sales are down and their investment is at risk.

Local experts don’t agree. Mob Bofitt, local media guru of the Anti-Nudity & Sex League offers this critique. “Why are the porno bosses blaming the ban? Why don’t they look to their supposedly ‘loyal’ customers? It’s the customers who hung them out to dry. Everyone should make an effort to patronize these video stores and rent lots of PG movies.”

“These porno shops are based on a flawed business model,” says Zandrew Ammerman, local food critic turned business expert and moral judge. “If they can’t make it without porno, they don’t deserve to be in business. Lots of businesses survive without porn.”

It seems that since the silent majority does not see the need to protect porn, or your right to choose, the ban has little chance of repeal.

Rat: Working in a bar, and suing your employer for smoke in the place.

That’s akin to moving to a place around Lake Nokomis and picketing the airport in your pajamas because you don’t like the jet noise.

I’d say it’s more akin to working in a steel plant and suing your employer for not installing the proper safety mechanisms on the dangerous equipment you work with. Thank God, that is a perfectly acceptable on-the-job safety issue. I look forward to second-hand smoke being treated in the same way.

Secondhand smoke = molten steel.

Yeah, I get it.

But companies are also required to monitor and mitigate their employees’ exposure to carcinogens, and cigarette smoke = carcinogen.

So, in reading here, cigarette smoke is carcinogenic, and thus, unfit for human consumption.

Why isn’t ALAMN pushing for a ban of the sale and/or posession of cigarettes?

There seems to be no scenario in which they are good for us, so why wouldn’t that be a more logical step than slowly phasing out where they can and can not be consumed?

Russ, I buy into your slipperly slope-style arguing as much as I buy into the right-wing’s arguing that honosexual marriage will necessarily lead to beastiality. Listening to music is perfectly legal, but, if you play your stereo too loud the cops are going to show up. Sex is perfectly legal (for the most part), but, if you do it on the sidwalk in front of the capitol building, you’re going to jail. Smoking is perfectly legal, but, if it ruins my night out and causes the people who work in a smokey environment to get sick — and sometimes die — I’m not going to complain if it’s banned. When a place allows smoking, the smokers dominate it, leaving non-smokers with two choices — inhale second-hand smoke, or don’t go. I’m tired of smokers making that choice for me.

…and I am tired of non-smokers telling me that I can’t enjoy a smoke with my beer.

I wonder how it feels to be so morally superior that you can tell all of us weak-willed smokers that you have found the path to enlightnement, and you know what is best for us. It is as if you are saying, I know they say on the packs of smokes that they aren’t healthy, and a world of research has found that smoking probably isn’t beneficial to your health, but since you choose to partake, I will take it upon myself to tell you how you must act in public.

I bet moral superiority is a high that even a cigarette can’t beat.

smoking people: you guys lost the argument here 20 posts ago… you’re not going to win now by sheer stamina and name-calling.

You know, Phil M, I go into a bar and light up nothing, it effects nobody. You go into a bar and light up a cigarette, it effects everybody. Smoke with your beer, I don’t care. Just don’t do it near me.

And it sounds to me like you’ve got a pretty good handle on moral superiority.

Here’s an intersting scenario that been posed by other before. It goes to the idea of smoking as some kind of vice for weak-willed people who are easy to look down on.

You have a kid in college: Would you rather that kid cheat on his tests and in research papers; or not cheat, but smoke cigarettes like a fiend?

interesting? not so much. interesting in the same way that asking someone “do you still cry yourself to sleep?” is interesting.

what i would rather have? how’s about neither? you present it like in reality it’s surely some sort of either/or thing, when it’s anything but. if, just if, i had this kid who was cheating and smoking, i’d ask him to quit smoking for his own health, and to quit cheating because its unethical.

my advocacy of the smoking ban has nothing to do with moral superiority, so for the last time would you smoking advocates quit trying to label me? hell, i had a cigarette LAST NIGHT (in my car, where no one had to deal with my secondhand smoke). i have several friends who smoke and, get this, whom I respect. keep trying, maybe sooner or later you can successfully change the subject to your advantage.

“what i would rather have? how’s about neither?”

Neither would be preferable, but I didn’t offer that as and option. My answer: I’d much rather the kid smoked. He’s not going to die of it tomorrow. Cheating has more immediate consequences.

How about an answer Gerg?

Freedom to drive drunk. Freedom to shoot your neighbor when they annoy you. Freedom to comment on your hot co-worker’s nice rack. Who is protecting these essential freedoms for us?!?

So I’m not supposed to commenting the racks of my hot co-workers? That explains the all the strange looks.

Back on topic: What really annoys about the smoking ban is all the new amature dippers out there. Have you seen the floors in the bars lately? It is just gross! Had some guy spit on my leg last weekend. I’d rather deal with the second hand smoke, then trying to get chew stains out of my clothes.

what i don’t get (and maybe you smokers can help me on this one)…

why should we non-smokers allow something that between 20-25% of the US population does, affect us negatively?

what makes you guys so special that you’re allowed a free pass to invade on our health & wellbeing, not ot mention our smelly ass clothes?

How about an answer Gerg?

how about a question? just because you pose something hypothetically doesn’t make you sound like a smart theoritician. i gave you my answer, which was a hell of lot more reasoned than the question deserved.

I think The Rat has just invented an entirely new logical fallacy. Let the kid smoke for all I care. As long as he doesn’t blow the smoke my way. It’s his goddamn lungs.

why should we non-smokers allow something that between 20-25% of the US population does, affect us negatively?

Only 12.3 percent of the American Population is Black. Why should we afford them equal rights?

You want to know why? Because in this country, we embrace diversity. We are the original melting pot, and no matter how much you want to deny it, there are people in this country with differing views on the world.
If we all wanted to be exactly the same, we would have skipped the Revolutionary war, and let King George tell us what we can and can’t do.

What part of personal freedom is so hard for people to understand. If you want a non-smoking bar, open one. The reason they don’t exist, is because there isn’t a market for them, so you are forcing bar owners to make bad business decisions because you want to be able to go to a place that would not exist in a free market.

I would love to have a bar where gin and tonics cost a dime, and hot wings are delivered free of charge by large breasted Brazillian swimsuit models. But you know what, the cost of importing the waitstaff alone would be prohibitive, so no one has done it (yet). Should I beg the legislature to force my local bar owner to provide this service because I can prove most of the guys in my neighborhood would favor it?

Where does the puritanical meddling in business by the mother hens of this state end?

God, Phil, you really don’t recognize the patent absurdity of claiming that smokers are a despised minority like African-Americans?

How about this counter argument, then: Bar owners should have the right to decide for themselves what they want and don’t want in their bars without the nanny state telling them what to do. If they want to exclude blacks, they should be able to. If blacks want their own bars, they should just go and start one. How dare we have the state force us to make that decision for the bar owner.

Listen, the bar owners I know would serve poison to their customers if they could geta way with it, and would charge them $100 a glass if they could make us pay. I’m sorry that you don’t like that the food and entertainment industry has some restrictions against things that are unhealthy. Doesn’t mean you’re oppressed, though. You can still drink poison and charge yourself $100 a glass in the privacy of your own home.

Just out of curiousity (and I swear I am not doing this to be provocative) but has it ever been proposed that some bars are licensed as “smokers” and some as “Non-smokers?” I don’t smoke; I quit going to bars because I have asthma and I couldn’t stand the smoke; I would have gone to some over the past several years if I could have without smoking other people’s cigs. Why not both and let the bar owners decide. Maybe make smoking bars pay more for their license on some public nuisance grounds and use the revenue for public health advertising about the dangers of smoking. The argument that the employees don’t get to decide I think is a bit specious. They can work somewhere else, after all. (I know you libs don’t want to hear that, but hey…)

Excluding blacks would make the rules MORE restrictive.
Excluding smokers will make the rules MORE restrictive.

While I applaud your Dean Johnson like grasp on telling stories correctly, I am afraid your most recent effort ranks with his in futility.

I am arguing that, like allowing minorities into restaurants, as a society we should strive for MORE diversity, not less. Not a single person has been able to answer the question as to why smoking bars have to be forced into existence through rule of law. You all love to say that 75-80 percent of people don’t smoke, and yet, there are only a handful of bars that have voluntarially gone smoke free. Why is that? If 75-80 percent of customers would support a plan, wouldn’t you think there would be a line of bars waiting to go smoke free to tap this previously untapped market?

Why doesn’t that happen.

I’m running to put on my hip waders, so as to wade through your attempts to answer….

I would not be oppposed to that, but there would need to be a limit and probably a lottery, or every freakin’ bar in town would simply pay more and go back to being smoking bars.

Except those who would attract me by remaining off the weed. If it’s true that only 25 percent of adults smoke, it seems to me that a business that catered to the other 75 percent of us would have an advantage.

“it seems to me that a business that catered to the other 75 percent of us would have an advantage.”

You’re assuming that all of the other 75 percent care whether the bar is a smoking bar or not. Going purely on hunch, I would say that most of that 75 percent have other factors, that draw them there: proximity, music, hipness or unhipness, menu…whatever

I am arguing that, like allowing minorities into restaurants, as a society we should strive for MORE diversity, not less.

Diversity is not an absolute good. Having neo-Nazis teach Holocaust denial in colleges would make the curriculum more diverse, but the students’ education would suffer. I don’t want a diversity that could actually hurt me, and your argument that I should just find a non-smoking bar (although somebody pointed out that such a thing wouldn’t ever actually exist) seems to point out that you’re not really interested in diversity, you’re interested in preserving the privilege of 25 percent of the population who want to smoke whenever and wherever, and to hell with everybody else.

Oh, and The Rat, 59 percent of the population would prefer smoke free bars.

OK, but would the presence of smoke keep them away?

Obviously not, or there would have been non-smoking bars all over the city.

Still, no answers to the gigantic question in all of this.

If 80 percent of people don’t smoke, and 60 percent of people prefer smoke free bars, why are these new smoke-free laws necessary?

I didn’t do well in economics class, but I seem to remember how supply and demand works. And, this would seem to be a perfect example of how this massive demand for smoke free bars should create an adequate supply of bar owners who want to provide to this huge untapped market.

But rather than that, you have managed to jump into an already weak seactor of the economy and force a new regulation down the throats of private business owners to force them to open up to a market that has yet to prove that it exists.

I am not a republican, but if government action like this is what the democrats stand for, well, I can’t imagine I have any place with them either.

If a bar is smoky enough, I have turned and walked out. And I know I’m not alone in this. But I can’t find any studies which document how many people actually steer clear of bars because of smoke. But the discussion was never one of “What’s best for the bar owners bottom line,” or we would be asking why bars can’t sell to children and don’t offer to-go cups, which would certainly improve most barowner’s sales. The discussion about smoking in bars is one of health.

Again, it’s not about economics. Untramelled free enterprise is demonstratably bad for people, which is why the US goverment has a long history of imposing health regulations, which the business owners almost always object to, saying that it will hurt their bottom dollar and their employees can always go work somewhere else if they don’t like it.

“I am not a republican, but if government action like this is what the democrats stand for, well, I can’t imagine I have any place with them either.”

You have more of a place than you know. I’m a Democrat, worked on several campaigns in the state and I think the party is adrift and hijacked by the left wing. They’ll take to irrelevancy if enough people don’t put their foot down.

They can. If you want to argue that there are certain people in this world who can ONLY work at a bar, I would love to hear your logic.

Until smoking is made illegal, people should be allowed to do it. And if bar owners want people to be able to do something legal in their establishments, it should be their right. It is illegal to sell food that is not prepared properly. It is not illegal to smoke a cigarette.

And why won’t Bob push for a total ban on smoking in the state? He seems to think it has no benefits, and it costing the state a boatload in smoking related health care costs.

Well, because he knows that not only is the state addicted to the tax revenue derived from the sale of tobacco, he also knows that if there were no smokers, he would have to go get a REAL job. So, rather than have the courage to push for a ban on smoking that would likely cost him his source of income, he is willing to let all of us stupid smokers kill ourselves so he has more stuff to write about in the fancy brochures he sends out as he is attempting to raise more funds for weak battles like this.

I woujld say a trained bartender might, in fact, be able to trade his profession for another, but should he have to just because you think that because something is legal it should be done anywhere you want?

It’s legal to be naked in your shower, but should a bartender really have to put up with it if you want to strip in your local pub? Should other patrons?

It’s legal to drive, but it’s not such a good idea in a bowling alley. There’s nothing hypocritical about outlawing cars in bowling alleys, and yet keeping them legal in the streets.

Question for Phil: how about smoking in other work places, like my office? Or other public places, like the airport?

First, for HipMN:

1) It is illegal to be naked in public.
2) It is illegal to drive your vehicle through a building.
3) It is legal to smoke cigarettes.
4) Until recently, it has been legal for bar owners to allow legal activities to occur within their establishments.

To the esteemed Mr. Bartel:

Offices and airports do not derive a bulk of their business from catering to a smoking crowd. That is why buidling owners/airport operators didn’t fuss this much when those bans took place. Bars recognize that the bulk of their business is tied to smokers, or friends of smokers who drink. Studys can say whatever Bob wants them to. In the end, the bar owners are fighting this because they know that the studies are bogus. Booze isn’t good for you either, and rather than roll over and wait until alcohol is outlawed at bars, these courageous bar owners are standing up for their rights to allow a legal product to be consumed in a legal manner.

When I see people huddled outside in the cold near an office having a cigarette, I see something wrong taking place. What are we doing to each other?

I’ve heard other people say this, but health concern is starting to take on the appearance of a religion in this country. And we know the capability of religious zealots. We see it in the news every day.

Being chilly…
Breathing in second hand smoke…

Yeah, that’s the same.

And now it is illegal to smoke cigarettes in bars. I fail to see your point.

And there’s no courage in insisting your employees and nonsmoking customers be exposed to carcinogens just to make more money. It’s pretty much the opposite of courage. Next you’ll be claiming it is couragous to dump toxic waste in the Mississippi River. Hey, there was a point when it wasn’t explicitly illegal, wasn’t there? How dare the government bas a prefectly legal activity.

At this point, your arguments are just winding in slow circles, without really addressing my responses. Ultimately, it’s about health. If you can make the case that there is no health problems associated with second-hand smoke, I would be interested in hearing them. Otherwise, you’re arguing you should have every right to hurt other people.

I can not make the case that there are no health ramifications from inhaling second hand smoke.

But I am willing to bet that you can not provide me evidence of a person who was forcibly subjected to inhale second hand smoke.

You seem to have no problem telling me that I have the right to stay home and smoke, but you fail to accept your current ability to stay home and not be subjected to second hand smoke. Why should I have to ceede my established routines just so that non-smokers can try out the bar scene, and see if it is for them?

What you are arguing is, that since I am in the minority, I deserve to be treated as such. I tend to think that we, as a society, have evolved past these ideas of class systems, but, perhaps I am wrong.

Well, if it’s simply a question of who has to stay home because of your smoking, then the answer is you should. Sorry about disrupting your routine.

Once again we’re hearing people who wants special rights — the right to do whatever they want, even admitting that it hurts other people — claiming to be a mistreated minority. Sorry about the break in your routine, man, but your routine is not good for other people. You’re still welcome in all these same bars, mind you. Just don’t light up your cigs.

Then, why won’t anyone push to make tobacco illegal? You argue that it has no redeeming qualities, well, then I say make it illegal. Heroin is illegal. Cocaine is illegal. Meth is illegal.

Why not cigarettes?

Because we are a society of hypocrites who want the tax dollars derived from smoking, but want the smokers to disappear. For the amount I pay in taxes, I think I deserve MORE privlidges, not less.

Don’t care. Smoke. Just don’t do it in bars.

And, while we are at it. Whites only in restaurants.

Hey, Phil. I am on your side. I think the smoking ban is silly. I say those who don’t want to breathe in smoky bars, don’t go there. I stopped going to bars long ago. Of course, I’ve started going again since the smoking ban. I like the idea of having positive and negative incentives such as taxes to influence public policy. Outright bans are not so elegant.

On the other hand, I do favor banning smoking in offices. Not everybody can work somewhere else.

And if I were in that business, I’d have a non-smoking bar and advertise the hell out of that fact. I think I’d have a competitive advantage that I’d like to exploit.

“Smoke. Just don’t do it in bars.”

Or in the workplace, or at the airport, or a ballgame. Check out Calabasas, California’s new law. It can’t be done, basically in public, even outdoors.

This has all the earmarks of zealot religion. What’s the difference?

There’s no way to respind to you politely anymore, so I will bow out.

Like friend hipmn, I won’t waste time arguing online with Phil Moron. He had one statement that caught my eye, though:

“Studys can say whatever Bob wants them to…”

Watch out for Bob. Him have magic powers. Him make studys talk….

I wonder if I can make studies talk, too?

I’ve heard people talk about ballgames. Many people curse like sailors, but no one can smoke. Used to be the other way around.

You have the magic powers alamn.

And you know it.

Tom-

As much as this will probably make you cringe, you hit the bulk of my point right on the head.

The smoking ban is silly, and a waste of government brainpower. Seriously, if this is the biggest issue facing any municipality, then, the need for municipal government has probably been extinguished. I am sure a lot of bar owners would agree with a tax incentive for going non smoking, but cities neglected to collect more than token bar owner input. Banning smoking in offices and other places of skilled labor make sense, but doing so in bars, where smoking is one of the pilars upon which the business was built, and where workers needn’t advanced training to work, well, that is overkill.

I would truly be interested to see how a voluntarially non-smoking bar would do. But, I guess we will never know. Because the majority has decided to tell the minority that they disaprove of a legal act, so rather than educating the minority as to the hazzards of their ways, they have decided to outlaw the minority class.

Only 12.3 percent of the American Population is Black. Why should we afford them equal rights?

Blacks don’t choose their skin color, people CHOOSE to smoke (at least those who don’t have to breathe in others anyway). that was a totally moronic statement to make

also, my only interest in bars is seeing live music. i see anywhere between 80-100+ shows a year and i rarely drink when i go to shows (2-3 drinks at the bar = another show).

last year around this time i was diagnosed with Adult Asthma, which was attributed both to my allergies and most likely my over-exposure to smoky environments (100 shows a year in smokey dive bars will do that to you). as someone who grew up in high school running long distance and who was a state finalist 3 years out of the 3 seasons i went out in track, you can’t imagine how much it sucks to have problems breathing day to day now, when just 10 years ago i was able to run a 4:20 mile, and now i’d be lucky if i could run sub 6:00 without my chest feeling like it’s going to cave in.

now yes, going to that many shows was my own decisions and nobody elses, so i suppose in essence i do deserve a bit of the blame, but without smoking at those shows, i have to wonder if i’d currently have my breathing troubles…

all i know is that now i can go to my concerts and not worry nearly as much about my health, and that makes my life a whole lot better.

Jerking off is plenty legal, but doing it in a public place isn’t, even though it doesn’t cause any physical harm to anyone (as long as you’re not standing too close to me i suppose).

Banning smoking in bars in fine with me. Just dont ban getting drunk in bars. Appearently that is what they are up to in Texas - so I expect Burnsville to be next.