Redrant: I am Greg Lang of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I started the website http://FreedomToAct.com as part of an effort to revise the Minnesota Statewide bar smoking ban using the "smoking in theater performances" clause. Before that I made a futile effort against the Minneapolis smoking ban. Financially, I have no axe to grind here.
I will be 60 in a few months and quit smoking when I was around 20. You might say that like Garth Brooks, "I have friends in low places". I tended to frequent bars that, before the ban tended to have a large percentage of smokers. Cheap drinks and working class people. I did find second hand smoke mildly annoying but only mildly so.
My father, who died a month short of eighty-five smoked a pack a day of Pall Mall straights since he was a teenager. This annoyed me more than the bar smoking. He liked going to restaurants with me and lighting up in the smoking section. This did make me uncomfortable because the restaurant smoking was imposing on other people.
At the time of the smoking ban my regular bar was the Poodle Club in Minneapolis. In my zip code but not the closest bar. (The Poodle became McMahons, where the tragic upstairs fire not related to the bar killed six on Good Friday of this year.)
Before the Minneapolis 2005 ban the Poodle had a thriving subculture. They opened a couple of hours before alcohol sales were allowed for breakfast. Lots of City and trades trucks. Not slacking or drinking but gathering for breakfast and planning the day. If someone needed some "trades" work they could often find it there in the AM.
Midday, the retirees would come in for the food specials, often "blue-hairs with their husbands". Usually this would not involve alcohol. It was a chance for local pensioners to get out at low cost.
Next there was the "happy hour" with a free buffet. This was something like a downscale "Cheers". At the Poodle it was a bit like Chumley's of "86" fame where you would have a wide variety of people come in for happy hour. During the nighttime there were drink specials, Karaoke and bands depending on the night. It did get smoky with good weekend bands but I could tolerate that. On September 11, 2001, after the World Trade Center attack the Tuesday Karaoke had a full house. Like myself, everyone there had watched too much TV and wanted to get around other people. Not exactly rational. There were a lot of rumors that the "other foot" would be attacks on Americans in crowds. This was a real concern in Minneapolis which had/has the largest Islamic refugee immigrant population in the US. There were a number of police calls about these people we were celebrating the 911 attacks but these never made it from the police blotter to the news. Not "Politically correct".
Anyway, the 2005 Minneapolis bar smoking ban was like a tsunami to this subculture. You could still smoke in St. Paul and other counties for a while so there was border crossing by the hard smokers. More importantly, even with the Minneapolis ban starting in summer, it broke the pattern with the smokers having to go outside to smoke.
Before the Autumn 2008 stock market crash everything connected with the building "trades" was booming. People in the "trades" were making very good money with lots of overtime. Blue collar/neighborhood bars like the old Poodle Club catered to them and dirty clothes usually meant they had money to spend.
The Minneapolis situation was complicated by the ban being only local to Minneapolis and Hennepin County. The 2005 Minneapolis ban started in the springtime. We had a long warm autumn lasting into early December 2005. Then a very nasty cold spell. This causes a dramatic drop in business at many "blue collar" bars, especially those without smoking shelter set ups. A prime example was Whiskey Junction on the Minneapolis West Bank. Basically a "biker bar" with music but adjacent to a station for the then new Minneapolis light rail. Whiskey Junction was around 80% smokers. Once the cold spell hit business went down almost to zero. I talked to a number of former patrons and they all said it was lack of a smoking shelter. The Joint/Cabooze next door had this set up.
When charitable gambling "pull-tabs" started in Minnesota at least a decade before the ban City Pages weekly had an article that said "Where the bathrooms smell really bad, the pull-tab business will be very good". Somewhat overstated but "pull-tabs" and similar charitable gambling in bars tends to be in bars with a high percentage of smokers. (Again, I want to emphasize that especially before the October 2008 crash, many smokers had a high disposable income, especially with construction booming then.) As part of the Minnesota statewide smoking ban a study of the effect on charitable gambling was ordered. For areas first covered by the statewide ban there was a decrease of 15% to almost 20% in charitable gambling business. This effected actual money raised significantly. These "pull-tab booths" are primarily one person operations so it's hard to reduce fixed costs. The study in .PDF format is available at http://www.gcb.state.mn.us/PDF_Files/Smoking%20ban%20study.pdf Here is a good print article. http://www.abcnewspapers.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5704&Itemid=26
The "bars that serve pizza" analogy in the article is somewhat misleading. A compact counter-top oven can easily cook a frozen pizza. Many bars without kitchens can make a frozen pizza. Also, many bars with kitchens can make a frozen pizza after the kitchen is closed. What I believe was meant was the restaurant versus bar difference. In the case of pizza, it would be the difference between a pre-made pizza or one made from "scratch" where you could specify your toppings. The old Poodle bar, in it's heyday had a kitchen that could do a wide variety but price was the main draw.
Most bars with a lot of smokers before the Minnesota ban had what you might call a "short order" kitchen at most. As you became more "upscale" the focus was more towards food with alcohol. As you went up the scale there were a lot fewer smokers and a lot less impact.
In the article one owner claimed that the smoking ban resulted in a lower employee turnover rate. Probably true but a high percentage of bar/hospitality workers are smokers to begin with or are not seriously bothered by the smoke. After smoking bans are enacted there is a significant drop in bar/restaurant business so the labor market tightens. If you work in this field and other hospitality people start asking you "are they hiring" you appreciated the existing job more?
The higher end restaurant with alcohol tends to be far more impersonal and less "fun" to work at, especially if your single and a bit "vagabond". There was/is this dynamic balance between a hospitality job that is "fun" and one that pays the bills. The "fun" jobs are like the show "Cheers" where "Everyone knows your name".
The anti-smoking zealots are "prohibitionists" who will always push for more until there is a backlash. So far smokers have been relatively passive being demonized as only a step above child molesters. (addicts in denial I heard a lot.) I haven't smoked in 40 years but am passionate about this. (I actually prefer smoke free air but smoke is a minor nuisance to me.) It should be framed in terms of personal liberties and personal responsibility. Prohibitionists don't debate so learn the facts. A weak point with most funded anti-smoking group is nepotism (friends and family hiring), excess compensation and potential conflict of interest with pharmaceutical selling anti-smoking products. It's rather strange that if someone ever took even a penny from big tobacco (disclosure: I have not. Everything is on my own time, my own dime.) but there is no such requirement with money from "big drug" pushing their anti-smoking products. Why not?
The likely rate of adult smoking will likely bottom out at around 20%. It is a very diverse group and many have a good income. The "trades" are slow now with the dearth of construction but a lot of people chose this work so they could smoke (Minnesota passed the first indoor smoking ban in the 1970's. This got a lot of people to chose jobs where they could smoke.). This will continue.
We have a proposals for "smoking bars" with very good signage and strong restrictions for elaborate kitchens, no bands or live entertainment with smoking and a strong ventilation system. This would give the smokers a place to go. The prohibitionists would see this an claim there were denied the right to visit it "smoke free" though they had no interest in visiting the establishment before. Ironically, the greatest support for this was outstate where there are few "social hubs" and the Minnesota smoking ban took the greatest toll. In the cities, where there are a lot of "hospitality" options the "political" opposition is greatest even though close to a quarter of workers are "infrastructure support" and likely smokers. So far they are politically passive but prohibitionists keep pushing and invite a backlash. People could easily avoid smoking bars but the zealot prohibitionist still object.
