Fw: Barnacles Story Greg - Another one to post. My story. Sheila Kromer

Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 2:18 PM
Subject: Barnacles Story
Since the smoking ban was enacted in October, I have watched our numbers slowly dwindle from a 6% loss in October to a 26% loss in January (our busiest month of the year). Please feel free to check my sales tax records. Prior to the ban, this trend was not happening and was going in the other direction. We have had to cut our employees hours and send them home early due to lack of customers in the bar. The band is playing on a Saturday night and there are less than 10 people in the bar. We are going to have to cut out our bands on the weekends..cannot afford them any longer. One day in October, I was out cleaning the garage and my husband came outside and said to me, "I was wondering where every one went", well here there were more people standing outside our bar (smoking) than there was in the bar. Approximatley 75% of our clientle smoke and 25 % do not, we have a lot of overhead and our smoking customers limit their time in our bar. You cannot blame them , it is way too cold up north by the lake to be standing outside when you can be nice and warm in your fish house relaxing and having a drink and smoke. We are worried about our customers in the winter time, even though we put salt down by the doors and entryways (because of the ice), several customers have slipped and fallen. One of these days someone will get hurt really bad if not tragically. We do our best to shovel and keep the walkways clear but sometimes mother nature just takes over and it is a losing battle. One of our employees has a small child and needs all the hours we can give her...but we just don't have the hours anymore and the tips of course are way down also since the customer base has dwindled. We have the same quantity of ice houses going out (if not slightly more) but less people coming into the bar and less time spent in the bar.

Sheila Kromer
Barnacles Resort