An Oregon smoking ban prediction

Posted by Jacob on Dec. 22, 2008

I’m supposed to be in Houston right now. Yesterday my bags were packed and, despite being skeptical that my plane home would depart on time, I trudged my luggage through the freshly fallen snow to the train that would take me to the airport. The train wasn’t running. I checked my phone and now neither was my flight. Thirty minutes on hold with Southwest booked me a new ticket on the 24th and three more days in a paralyzed city.

This is all mildly inconvenient for me, but it’s hell for people in the service industry. December is a vital month for them. Because of the record snowfall — the highest for a Portland December since 1968 — my bartender friends are being told not to come into work. Many places aren’t opening at all. Companies are canceling their Christmas party reservations, taking with them all the revenue they’d promised. Combine this with the national recession and 2008 is turning out to be a glum year for area bars and restaurants.

What does this have to do with smoking bans? Oregon’s goes into effect on January 1. By January 2010, the economic uncertainty we’re facing now will hopefully have subsided. And unless it’s another freak year for weather, December will bring its usual boost to Oregon restaurants. If that happens, smoking ban proponents will be able to cite statistics showing that bar and restaurant business went up after the smoking ban, “proving” that they were right and we who oppose the ban had nothing to worry about.

A similar dynamic played out in New York City in March, 2004, a year after the beginning of its smoking ban. The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued a report showing that the bar and restaurant business had grown in the year following the ban. Critics countered that the study misleadingly conflated bars and restaurants and neglected to account for the economic recovery following the 9/11 attacks.

Who’s right? I don’t know and I don’t care. As I’ve said before, this is a stupid argument. The financial objections to smoking bans aren’t based on how they affect net hospitality industry revenues, but on how they impact individual smoking-oriented businesses. Generalized statistics obscure the impact on bars that can’t get an exemption, lose customers, and justifiably feel like their rights are being trampled upon. It’s cold comfort to tell them to suck it up because, well, at least their competitors are making money.

If 2009 is a decent year for Oregon’s bars and restaurants, I predict that this is the kind of claim we’re going to hear from local ban supporters. I’d like to go on the record now to point out that such crude analysis should be seen for the irrelevant BS it truly is.

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Viewing 5 Comments

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    Thank you. The smoking ban was pushed through here in Madison, WI because the one in New York "worked so well" and "wasn't having any effect on businesses." Never mind the fact that dozens of bars have closed (including one inside one of the local VFW posts), and that I can literally go across the street to a different bar to smoke if I want to (which I don't since I haven't smoked for years) because that municipality allows smoking in bars. All of this was pushed through by the city council without a vote by the general public because - according to the mayor - "it would have passed anyway if it was put to a vote."

    But I'm not bitter about it, thankfully.
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    These bans are for esthetic reasons - even people who smoke, like me, may not care for the smell - but of course the reason given is always the danger of second-hand (or Environmental Tobacco) smoke. Not that any actual study shows such, over fifty years after actually smoking was shown to have some effect: lots of "data dredge" studies, which are statistical monstrosities (one author, in another field, pointed out that an oft-cited "dredge" study showed a ninety-five percent increase for a certain illness given a particular condition - which amounted to one illness per three-hundred-thousand people, with a "confidence factor" equating to seven per one-hundred-thousand, rendering it meaningless).

    Oh, well.

    Occasionally, a bit of humor crops up. One town had banned smoking in any place open to the public, but allowed an exception - for holders of liquor licenses! A group was turned down for the license needed to allow smoking - because the officials did not think an A.A. group would actually serve liquor.
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    I can not believe a country who is based on LIFE, LIBERTY, and THE PERSUTE OF HAPPINESS is banning people and business owners from their liberties and in some cases their persute of happiness, by making them ban smoking even if they don't want to. I AGREE WITH MANY OF THE SMOKING BAN LAWS, but I know of at least 2 taverns that are free standing buildings (so no smoke can "leak" into non-smoking establishments that SHOULD HAVE A CHOISE as to whether the allow smoking or not. After all non smokers can just say no I will not patronize a place that allows smoking. These taverns may find that their business will suffer and that they will ban smoking in the future. But, I think they should be given a choise how to run their own business.
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    Companies are canceling their Christmas party reservations, taking with them all the revenue they’d promised. Combine this with the national recession and 2008 is turning out to be a glum year for area bars and restaurants. Let's just hope were wrong, and remain optimistic, optimistic but prepared.
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    I'm a pro of smoking ban. It would lessen the case of people dying because of smoking. Also it will lessen the pollutants.

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