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Thread: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

  1. #31
    2009: Fail Ltlabner's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Does the drop off in business have anything to do with the economic downturn?
    If the volume of people at traditional resturants on most nights and the amount of people in the Best Buy parking lot on a Saturday are any indication, I'd say no.

    The places that are hurting due to the smoking ban are establishments with niche clintel. The local watering hole. The local bowling alley. The local Moose lodge. The folks who freqent those places are there for a specific set of activities. Take away one of those reasons to go and apparently the alure is not there. You can't say the smoking ban hasn't hurt Applebees because people usually don't go their specifically to smoke. If their business goes up/down it's likely got little to do with the ban (it might tick upward from those who hadn't gone there because of the smoke but I haven't heard of a tidal wave of new business at traditional resturants because they are now smokefree). However, for an establisment where smoking is part of the reason to go there (i.e. sneak to the corner tavern for a cold one, hang out with the buds and grab a couple of smokes), it's pretty obvious what the reason for the downturn is.

    But not to worry. Those who love to legislate their way to nirvana know whats better for you than you do.
    Last edited by Ltlabner; 06-27-2008 at 08:04 AM.


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  3. #32
    Are we not men? Yachtzee's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Quote Originally Posted by Ltlabner View Post
    If the volume of people at traditional resturants on most nights and the amount of people in the Best Buy parking lot on a Saturday are any indication, I'd say no.

    The places that are hurting due to the smoking ban are establishments with niche clintel. The local watering hole. The local bowling alley. The local Moose lodge. The folks who freqent those places are there for a specific set of activities. Take away one of those reasons to go and apparently the alure is not there. You can't say the smoking ban hasn't hurt Applebees because people usually don't go their specifically to smoke. If their business goes up/down it's likely got little to do with the ban (it might tick upward from those who hadn't gone there because of the smoke but I haven't heard of a tidal wave of new business at traditional resturants because they are now smokefree). However, for an establisment where smoking is part of the reason to go there (i.e. sneak to the corner tavern for a cold one, hang out with the buds and grab a couple of smokes), it's pretty obvious what the reason for the downturn is.

    But not to worry. Those who love to legislate their way to nirvana know whats better for you than you do.
    I would say the economy does have an effect. Of course it doesn't affect chain restaurants and big box retailers as much as the locally owned businesses, but it hurts. I've seen a number of establishments go under in the past few years an it has little to do with smoking.

    On the other hand, business is booming at a few places where smoking was a big part of the business model. The local bowling alley is doing quite well because it has shifted its focus from the old school bowlers who love a cigarette and a cocktail with their game to families and other activities. They put beach volleyball courts and mini-golf in front of the alley and more family-oriented activities inside. On weekends they have birthday party packages for kids. Some businesses adapt to the new rules and succeed, others don't and fail. It's just like if the health department put new rules in place on food prep. Businesses adapt or fail all the time. Whining about the smoking laws isn't going to bring in customers. They should try cleaning up their joints and trying to bring in new customers.
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  4. #33
    Waitin til next year bucksfan2's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Quote Originally Posted by Ltlabner View Post
    If the volume of people at traditional resturants on most nights and the amount of people in the Best Buy parking lot on a Saturday are any indication, I'd say no.

    The places that are hurting due to the smoking ban are establishments with niche clintel. The local watering hole. The local bowling alley. The local Moose lodge. The folks who freqent those places are there for a specific set of activities. Take away one of those reasons to go and apparently the alure is not there. You can't say the smoking ban hasn't hurt Applebees because people usually don't go their specifically to smoke. If their business goes up/down it's likely got little to do with the ban (it might tick upward from those who hadn't gone there because of the smoke but I haven't heard of a tidal wave of new business at traditional resturants because they are now smokefree). However, for an establisment where smoking is part of the reason to go there (i.e. sneak to the corner tavern for a cold one, hang out with the buds and grab a couple of smokes), it's pretty obvious what the reason for the downturn is.

    But not to worry. Those who love to legislate their way to nirvana know whats better for you than you do.
    FWIW I think the economy has effected the restaurant business as well as the elecrtonic business. Some restaurants are recession proof, some are very effected.

    I just find it ironic that the new smoking ban proposed comes out right now. To me it seems like they gathered data from the early months of the year and combined that with the economic downturn to make their case better. For the record I am a non smoker I have never smoked and I hate smoke. The Government tells me things all the time that I can't do that I would like to do. I can't walk down the street with a beer in my hand. I can't walk from bar to bar with a beer in my hand. I am doing no one any harm yet just going from one location to another with something I paid for. For me I don't think it is all that hard to get up and walk outside to catch a smoke. I get up all the time to go to the restroom.

  5. #34
    2009: Fail Ltlabner's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Quote Originally Posted by Yachtzee View Post
    They should try cleaning up their joints and trying to bring in new customers.
    The example you gave is great. As you say, adapt or die. I'm totally on-board with that in a broad sense (of corse, if it were Wall-Mart forcing people to adapt or die then it's a bad horrable thing...but I digress).

    Then again, to make all of those changes the bowling alley owner had to (1) dip into his own pocket (2) take on more debt (3) jack up prices (4) all of the above.

    It's easy to say, "tough luck, that's the price of being in buiness" but often times people forget that every business is not a huge multi-national conglomerate with trillions in assets. Most of the places having to adapt to the smoking bans are mom & pop shops where the ability to tranform their tavern into a family fun center is just not possible.

    But hey, they shouldn't have been in a business that society deemed yuckie in the first place eh?

  6. #35
    Making sense of it all Matt700wlw's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Quote Originally Posted by Redsfaithful View Post
    Voila, the market works. Adapt or go out of business.
    If it wasn't for the pizza joint, they'd be hurting.

    Smart business, yes, but the bar was doing fine until the the lawmakers decided that running their business the way they saw fit was wrong.

    The owners are non-smokers, but have said if the smoking ban was lifted, they'd allow smoking again...
    Last edited by Matt700wlw; 06-27-2008 at 08:57 AM.

  7. #36
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Quote Originally Posted by savafan View Post
    Most of the bar employees I know smoked. Hell, at the Waffle House I frequent everyone who works there smokes. If you're a non-smoker, you have a choice not to work at an establishment that allows smoking. Nobody holds a gun to your head and tells you where to work. Not yet anyway.
    You're thinking logically and I appreciate that but you need to think like a lawyer. No one forces anyone to work near mold or aesbestos but the employer is required to provide his employees with non hazardous air to breathe. One of the suits that started the litigation against the airlines was a flight attendant that came down with lung cancer. She was a non smoker who worked before smoking was banned on flights. Now I hear commercials from the sister of Christopher Reeves' wife. Mrs. Reeve died of lung cancer and they think she got it from being a lounge singer in a smoky bar.

    See the slippery slope? We're not going back.

    No one holds a gun to someone's head and makes 'em fly a certain airline but they had to ban smoking anyway.

  8. #37
    Are we not men? Yachtzee's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Quote Originally Posted by Ltlabner View Post
    The example you gave is great. As you say, adapt or die. I'm totally on-board with that in a broad sense (of corse, if it were Wall-Mart forcing people to adapt or die then it's a bad horrable thing...but I digress).

    Then again, to make all of those changes the bowling alley owner had to (1) dip into his own pocket (2) take on more debt (3) jack up prices (4) all of the above.

    It's easy to say, "tough luck, that's the price of being in buiness" but often times people forget that every business is not a huge multi-national conglomerate with trillions in assets. Most of the places having to adapt to the smoking bans are mom & pop shops where the ability to tranform their tavern into a family fun center is just not possible.

    But hey, they shouldn't have been in a business that society deemed yuckie in the first place eh?
    It's not a business society deems yuckie as much as it deems dangerous, with serious health care costs borne by society. Yes, to succeed under the new rules, businesses will have to shell out some money. Of course, one could say that those businesses have been able to shift much of the adverse effects of running a smoking establishment onto its employees and the public as a whole for years. I'd guess that most people employed in restaurants, bars, and other establishments that allowed smoking didn't offer healthcare for employees. When those employees then get ill, who picks up the tab? If the employee can pay out of pocket, then he or she pays. If not, it's the taxpayers who pay. So if there were no smoking ban, should business owners who permit smoking be required to provide comprehensive health insurance to employees? Of course they'd still have to raise prices to cover the cost of insurance, but at least then the costs of the negative effects of smoking are shifted to those who engage in the behavior causing those effects.
    Wear gaudy colors, or avoid display. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live. Be like your ancestors or be different. We must repeat!

  9. #38
    2009: Fail Ltlabner's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    I'd guess that most people employed in restaurants, bars, and other establishments that allowed smoking didn't offer healthcare for employees. When those employees then get ill, who picks up the tab?
    And this tidalwave of resturant workers with lung cancer directly linked to exposure in the work place is where exactly?

    I'm not advocating that smoking exposure is good for you, nor do I doubt that exposure is bad. But in the absence of actual scientific data that links an explosion of bar workers with lung cancer traced to thier specific employers I'd say your argument falls flat. You can't really argue about increased health care costs when there hasn't been evidence that those costs actually rose.

    Again, 2HS ain't good for you. But most people extrapolate that into broad sweeping statements and support those statements with, "I knew this one non-smoking bar worker once who got cancer and died". While tragic, it's purely antidotial and perhaps even irrlevant (i.e. she had liver cancer and had a long family history...sure she had cancer, but hard to say its because of all the long nights at the Dew Drop Inn).

    Not to mention, your notion that the business owners "shifted the burden" overlooks one sailent point. The workers and patrons exposed themselves of their own free will. They accepted that burden despite knowing since the 60's that smoke exposure wouldn't help you grow up strong and fit.

  10. #39
    breath westofyou's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Quote Originally Posted by Ltlabner View Post
    And this tidalwave of resturant workers with lung cancer directly linked to exposure in the work place is where exactly?

    Study Proves Smoke-Free Workplace Laws Protect Health


    Passive Smoke In Workplace Increases Lung Cancer Risk

    U.S. Details Dangers of Secondhand Smoking

  11. #40
    2009: Fail Ltlabner's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Yep. As I said 2HS is bad for you. And that's what all those articles say (and what I said in my original post)....your risk goes up. No argument there.

    But yet, no tidalwave of actual people dieing in droves from lung cancer directly linked to exposure in the workplace. Direct contact...sure thing. Indirect...nope. Most of the research I've seen has either been sponsored by a group with direct ties to the outcome (i.e. your first link) or has fuzzy connections at best.

    We can't even cure the stuff, but we are expected to believe a straight line can be drawn from lung cancer in a non-smoker to that month he worked at the Lizzard Inn back in '87?

    But again, I'm not arguing that 2HS is good stuff. It isn't. I'm just refuting Yatchees argument in post 37 regarding huge cost increases because of all the sick employees.
    Last edited by Ltlabner; 06-27-2008 at 10:42 AM.

  12. #41
    breath westofyou's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Most of the research I've seen has either been sponsored by a group with direct ties to the outcome (i.e. your first link) or has fuzzy connections at best.
    And the other side is a guy who owns a bar who only has the last six months of business in a ledger in front of him.

    I know which side I'd listen to first.

  13. #42
    2009: Fail Ltlabner's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    I know I'm in the minority on this one and I don't want to waste a day going round and round. You'll not change my mind and I woln't change yours.

    My gripe with the ban has nothing to do with smoking (never smoked....didn't even try it). To me smoking is pretty nasty and certinanly doesn't impove your health. My parents will likely die earlier because of their life long smoking. I wish most people would quit and nobody would start. But my wishes and what other people choose to do are two seperate things.

    I just don't like the imposition of sweeping bans on an activity that I've successfully avoided or dealt with for 36 years. Don't need the gumbn't nor my fellow voters to step in when (IMO) it was a situation easily dealt with by individuals. But it's way easier to let the law speak for you when you are afraid to do it yourself, I suppose.

  14. #43
    2009: Fail Ltlabner's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Quote Originally Posted by westofyou View Post
    And the other side is a guy who owns a bar who only has the last six months of business in a ledger in front of him.

    I know which side I'd listen to first.
    When they put it up for vote in your state you can chime in.

    Otherwise you're another call on the west of the Rockies line.

  15. #44
    Be the ball Roy Tucker's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    So, you're saying there is something unique about restaurants/bars that prevents people working in these establishments from getting various smoke-related cancers when it seems well-documented the effects of second-hand smoke?

    http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=44459
    She used to wake me up with coffee ever morning

  16. #45
    breath westofyou's Avatar
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    Re: An ease to Ohio's smoking ban proposed...

    Quote Originally Posted by Ltlabner View Post
    When they put it up for vote in your state you can chime in.

    Otherwise you're another call on the west of the Rockies line.
    Already have... it passed

    Plus I lived in California when it passed too.

    But thanks for writing off my opinion so easily.


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