The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
The smoking ban has been a disaster for most of the bars in the metro area;
Bar owners are doing what humans do when faced with other peoples' madness; they're trying to adapt:
Tavern on Grand and Glockenspiel are allowing late-night smoking after being toasted recently as fine examples of smoke-free eating and drinking establishments.
Mary Wildmo, who owns both establishments, said dinner business picked up when her restaurants went smoke free but the late-night bar business fell apart. "Everybody's late-night business is hurting because the surrounding bars allow smoking," she said.
Fighting the ban.
Kyndell Harkness
Star Tribune
Wildmo hopes to woo smokers back by allowing them to puff away after the kitchen closes, taking a page from Beltrami County's smoking ordinance.
The officials there are easing into an all-out smoking ban by 2007 by allowing smoking in the northern Minnesota bars and restaurants between 8 p.m. and 3 a.m.
One of the features of the Ramsey County ban is that bars can win exemptions - if they sell more liquor than food. Bar are going to interesting lengths to meet this stricture:
At the Gopher Bar in St. Paul, manager Cheri King said going smoke-free "would have destroyed us," so the owners tried to figure out how to push liquor sales ahead of food and qualify for an exemption.
County officials, however, rejected their first argument: that take-out food shouldn't be counted. "We had to try to find another scheme," King said. The plan: Close the grill at 8 p.m. instead of 10:30. "We have regular customers who order an extra beer because they want to make sure we get to keep smoking," she said.
So it's likely that we will see a rise in DUI because of the ban. What's the old liberal saw - "If it saves one life, it's worth it?" It'd be interesting to do a study on DUI deaths in Ramsey County before and after the ban; I suspect (and am mathematically unequipped to prove) that the death toll will outstrip the number of lives saved by any smoking ban, statistically speaking.
The response?
From the ban's proponents - cluelessness:
Smoking-ban advocates and local officials who spearheaded the bans are shaking their heads over Wildmo's plans to reintroduce smoking after they staged media events at each establishment.
"It just feels crummy," said Jeanne Weigum, president of the Association for Nonsmokers-Minnesota. "I can't believe she felt a need to do this. We're only a month and a half into this. It's just too early to react."
It's interesting to notice the fireworks when community activists like Weigum - who are used to spending year after patient year harangueing bureaucrats and city councils to enact niggling ordinances - meet with business owners, whose livelihoods can be gutted by decisions that take hours to implement and months to undo. It's
never "too early to react" when your business is at stake.
To the centurions of government muscle, though - well, power is the key:
St. Paul City Council Member Dave Thune said the "uneven playing field" that county officials created when they allowed smoking in some establishments merely satisfied some bar owners and caused problems for others. "This is what happens when you have elected officials who are weak-kneed and you have to approve a compromise," he said.
In other words, government needs to be
more arrogant,
more brusque,
more pushy; to this mindset, government is an instrument, and they are Eddie Van Halen.
I'm wondering - what'll it take to convince these people?
Posted by Mitch at
June 8, 2005 03:57 AM
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DUI: I noticed in a City Pages recently, that bars outside The Demarkation Line are advertising "We Welcome Smokers."
How many smokers are going to go someplace outside The Line, and then drive further to get home? Maybe not that many, but surely it's more than one.
I wonder if this will cause a few more arrests, or if .08 will cause more arrests? Because you know, those drivers who are .08-.10 are SO DANGEROUS, as compared to the folks who are .15-.20 or higher!
I'm not advocating drunk driving, but we have to wonder who the problem drivers are, the distance they are going, etc.
Posted by: Shawn Sarazin at June 8, 2005 08:49 AM"The smoking ban has been a disaster for most of the bars in the metro area"
Really?
Then how do you explain comments like this, from the same Star Tribune story you cited?
"Mark Landy, manager at one such spot, the Groveland Tap in St. Paul, said going smoke-free churned up more neighborhood family business for dinners. "I'm really happy that nonsmokers are showing their support," Landy said. But restaurants have to sell a lot more cheeseburgers to make up for the drop in late-night bar revenues, he said."
Okay, he has to sell more cheeseburgers, but that's hardly a 'disaster.' Thousands of Minnesotans killed and made ill by tobacco every year -- now that's a disaster.
Playing the "DUI" card in this discussion is pretty lame, don't you think?
Posted by: Bob from the Lung Association of Minnesota at June 8, 2005 11:33 AM"Then how do you explain comments like this, from the same Star Tribune story you cited?"
Explain it? Pffft. I say "Good for Mark Landy". He runs a bar in a location where he's able to make it selling food. Bully!
What do you say to the bars that ARE suffering?
"Thousands of Minnesotans killed and made ill by tobacco every year -- now that's a disaster."
Given that all of them take up the habit voluntarily (in the absence of any credible evidence that second-hand smoke is a serious health problem), and that they pay for it through shorter lifespans and higher premiums, so what? Not to sound uncaring - I'm not, I've helped people quit smoking before. But how many voluntary activities of whose "dangers" you disapprove are you going to ban "for everyone's own good?" Fast food? Motorcycles? Rock climbing? Sex?
"Playing the "DUI" card in this discussion is pretty lame, don't you think?"
Ignoring it - no, ignoring it in the form of an ignorant snark - is lame. I think it'd make an interesting study.
Posted by: mitch at June 8, 2005 11:54 AMIt's nice to see Butthead Bob and his pack of lies here again. Welcome Bob! Come on in and stack up your lies as high as you can.
Listen Bob....bars ARE suffering. You just don't wanna listen. Ask the VFWs and American Legions. And I wish you and your snooty, know-it-all anti-smoking nazi zealots stomp into a VFW and proudly annnouce how proud you are that you can destroy these clubs. I know quite a few VFW members from WW2 that are still really good shots and running won't help you.
Posted by: Dave at June 8, 2005 12:06 PMI don't smoke. As a frequent diner at the Tavern (both before and after the smoking ban), I can say that I like going home without the stink of cigarettes in my clothes.
But even at 7 or 8 pm, I do not see the regulars whom I had previously seen assembled at the bar. Men and women who were there nightly over the past decade plus, are not there. Is my family's $40 meal tab gonna make up for all the liquor sales they're NOT making because the regulars are NOT sitting at the bar all night long, NOT smoking?
I like the clean air. But I'm an American. I make choices every day about how and where to spend my money. I used to go to the Tavern and sit on the smoking side of the restaurant because that's where the action and ambience was. Just as I choose, bar and restaurant owners should be able to choose how people in their establishments use legal products.
Posted by: Jim at June 8, 2005 01:26 PMI agree with Jim. We were in some bars up in Winnipeg last winter and we loved not stinking when we got back to our hotel room...BUT, I just don't think the government should be telling business owners/tax payers what to allow in their own establishments (when it's a legal activity). If we don't like the real smoky places we don't go-if enough people don't go an owner thinks about going smokeless....or buys a very good (and probably quite expensive) ventilation system.
We were in the SMOKIEST pub in the world in Westport, Ireland a few years ago. It's owned by one of the Chieftans. Packed solid with very nice, very respectful young Irish (late teens, 20's). We reeked when we came out of there but wouldn't have missed it for the world. I wonder how the ban is going over there-it's so hard to imagine!
Why should everyone that does smoke knuckle under to me? Who the hell am I? If it's my house or my business then OK.
Posted by: Colleen at June 8, 2005 02:00 PMMitch: I see where you are going with your 'slippery slope' point, but we at the ALAMN are only interested in clean air and healthy lungs, not fast food, etc.
Truth is, indoor workplace smoking ordinances help many adults quit, especially younger "social smokers" who mostly smoke when out drinking with friends.
There is plenty of credible evidence that secondhand smoke is a serious health problem, but if you choose to believe otherwise, that's your right. Ask your doctor what she/he thinks on the subject.
Dave: Don't get me started on the service clubs. I'm a third generation veteran who has always supported the clubs. Many veterans I have spoken with like the new laws.
Posted by: Bob from the Lung Association of Minnesota at June 8, 2005 02:31 PMMitch,
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of credible scientific studies showing that the chemicals expelled through secondhand smoke are some of the worst carcinogens known. A small sampling of knwon carcinogens from tobacco smoke, as listed in Robbins and Cotran "Pathologic Basis of Disease:" polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, 4-(methylnitrosoamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) and polonium 210 have been proven to cause lung and laryngeal cancer; N'-nitrosonornicotine (NNN) has been shown to cause esophageal cancer (a real wonderful cancer-just ask anyone who's had it); NNK also causes pancreatic cancer; 4-aminobiphenyl and 2-naphthylamine cause bladder cancer; etc. The list goes on and on. Your choice to neglect these scientific facts merely shows your ignorance.
Posted by: Max Power at July 18, 2005 12:45 PM