Shot In The Dark: Smoke Screen

It's usually the case in small business, that you're either growing a little, or you're dying a little. When it comes time to replace the furniture, or the refrigeration, or the furnace, or the van, or remodel the restroom, or just pay your taxes, everything costs twice as much as it did when you opened the place. You have to keep growing the business a little every year to make up the difference.

Posted by: RBMN at March 21, 2006 10:10 AM

Just manipulated figures like the crime problem in Minneapolis where the Boy Mayor toots a 6% decrease in street crime while people are being murdered in the streets....

Come to Uptown as the KSTP idiots on the Willie Clark show was bloviating this morning. No crime here....

Posted by: Greg at March 21, 2006 10:13 AM

Just manipulated figures like the crime problem in Minneapolis where the Boy Mayor toots a 6% decrease in street crime while people are being murdered in the streets....

Come to Uptown as the KSTP idiots on the Willie Clark show was bloviating this morning. No crime here....

Posted by: Greg at March 21, 2006 10:13 AM

Mitch, you missed the most glaring manipulation:

"The study compares sales revenue of establishments licensed to serve alcohol from April to September of 2005, 2004 and 2003."

April to September..hmmmm, isn't that what we call "summer"...you know, the time marked by scores of people sitting at tables on the sidewalks of Minneapolis...the time when you can get any seat inside any bar you choose because they are M-T.

Er, what happens during the winter do you think?

Pfft, this report is actually pathetic.

Posted by: swiftee at March 21, 2006 12:34 PM

"Also, as far as I can see there is no control for the number of establishments being added to the city's stock of bars and restaurants."

It does appear that the study only looked at total sales. You are correct that this is not the proper measure. A proper study would compare "same store sales" throughout the period.

Swiftee's point on the outdoor-friendly months timing is excellent as well.

I think your hypothesis on ownership type is worth a look. The study has a few obvious holes and problem some not so obvious ones as well. I hope you can get the raw data. I'd love to crunch some numbers on it.

Posted by: Nordeaster at March 21, 2006 12:58 PM

Mitch - Here are some numbers for ya. The study included 353 alcohol license holders out of a total of 600 in the city. In other words, over 40% of the total bars/restaurants were excluded from this study (conducted by the city's health deapartment, by the way ... hardly an unbiased party to the debate). Why were the 40% excluded? Because they had changed ownership (taxpayer ID) over the last two years or were new. What kind of bars/restaurants change hands quickly? Not chains, for sure. Also, the study could only find 40 "neighborhood bars" out of is total of 353. Obviously, a lot of the small fry were excluded. The city health department also found 220 bars/restaurants serving "hard liquor". Oddly enough, none of them were on the north side and none of them in So. Mpls. east of 35W or south of 94. All 220 were in downtown, uptown or by the U. How odd? Or how convenient???

Posted by: Corey at March 21, 2006 02:28 PM

By my read of the report, about 1/3 of the revenue examined in it is derived from Hotel room sales. Hotel revenues are lumped in with bowling alleys. Amazing! $55,000,000 in supposed "food sales" post ban are actually Hotel revenues. In the same category, about $3,000,000 is reported as liquor revenues. Rather telling.

Posted by: Dan at March 21, 2006 04:24 PM

I noticed the hotel rooms, too. Can you believe they threw in $146 million dollars in hotel rooms to skew the numbers?? When you take out hotels, their "growth" rate of 7.1% falls to 4.7%. The study itself says that inflation in food/beverage was 3.6% in Mpls/St. Paul in this time period. Factoring that out,the entire hospitality industry in Minneapolis grew by a whopping 1.1% in the first six months of the ban, during an economic upturn. Wow. Big deal!

Posted by: Corey at March 21, 2006 05:26 PM

I think you've got a real story here. Run with it, try and get it someplace the dailys and news channels can't ignore.

Posted by: Bill Haverberg at March 21, 2006 08:24 PM

The dailies and news channels have already "run with" this story, Bill. While Mitch can complain about the report's methodology all he wants (kudus to Mitch, he actually reads info before he post a gripe), the fact is this is the 4th such study, all from different sources, they all came to the same general conclusion.

The smoking bans did not cause "economic disaster" in the hospitality industry. Overall, revenues are up, not down. New places have opened. Old place have adapted to the change.

One year later, the smoking bans are a success. Now, let's do the right (and fair) thing and make them statewide.

Posted by: Bob from ALAMN at March 23, 2006 07:16 AM

It's truly pathetic to see the Lunger trying to defend the indefensible. I almost feel sorry for him.

618 liquor licenses in Mpls. Bob why did the study only use 353?

Posted by: marcus aurelius at March 24, 2006 02:00 PM

Posted by: Clark Boggart at May 3, 2006 06:02 PM

Posted by: Clark Boggart at May 3, 2006 06:03 PM