Ireland to ban smoking in pubs
Lest I bury the lead, you can find the article here. The Republic of Ireland's passionate health minister is pushing for a complete ban of smoking in all places of employment (including the some 10,000 pubs in Ireland) and a new campaign against drinking (up some 46% since 1990). Critics in Ireland see this as a massive blow to one of the mainstay's of their economy which will result in the loss of thousands of jobs. Proponents of the ban say that such an assertion is about as "reliable as the Bush administration's intelligence on Iraqi weapons."
I dunno much about economics. I leave that to Scott. But I recall when I was working at La Dolce Vita in downtown Chattanooga, when the part owner(s) at the time decided it was a good idea to ban smoking at the bar.
This dealt a serious blow to restaurant business at a time when the restaurant was already struggling because of a weak economy and an increasingly competetative Chattanooga restaurant scene. Having access to the books and figures for each weeks sales, I watched bar sales (which traditionally made up about 60% of the total restaurants sales) drop over 70%.
Bans like this make sense to me in increasingly liberal and progressive areas like California and parts of the northeast, where smokers make up a relatively small portion of the demographic. In areas like the Southeast, where entire universities have been built with tobacco dollars, it seemed like suicide, and it was at La Dolce.
But beyond simply the financial side of the ban, it feels like a blow to a long-standing tradition. It always seemed to me that a pub by its very nature is a place to come, let your hair down, have a beer, have a smoke too if you wanna, and just hang with your friends. It's supposed to be a place of comfort and even a supsension of judgement (just think about how much we're willing to forgive if one of our friends gets a little "tipsy"). It seems that this ban just go contrary to the very nature of a pub, that being a little personal liberty.
Josiah Q. Roe | By Josiah Roe | 10:15 AM
Comments
I don't know about the economics on this either, but I have heard anecdotal stuff simiar to what you say here. When you worked at that bar, you actually saw regulars no longer come in, or what?
For a lot of people, the entire experience of going out and drinking is inextricably linked with smoking. Rather than resulting in less aggregate smoking in the population, I suspect it'll probably just mean that smokers will substitute other activities for bar drinking so that they can still smoke. For instance, I've heard of restaurant reports in which they noticed a drop in desert sales after the NYC ban. Patrons would leave after the meal, rather than smoke, eat pie and drink coffee. Bans rarely have the desired effect.
Posted by: scott cunningham at August 6, 2003 11:51 AM
Scott, the regulars got downright ticked off over the ban. They were already a bit mad at the restaurant for other reasons (namely, that these "partial" owners were stepping in and screwing with things to begin with), but no smoking killed the bar, which in turn killed people spending cash on more food and desserts. It was a sick domino affect.
And on that note, for America, for the Economy, for Dale Earnhardt, I'm headin' outside for a smoke.
Posted by: JosiahQ at August 6, 2003 11:55 AM
No. 3! We'll never forget!
Posted by: mesh at August 6, 2003 12:05 PM
after reading that, i am too. sheeit.
Posted by: dp at August 6, 2003 01:25 PM
Arrgh, the idiocy. Since when should people with guns be allowed to tell other people whether or not they can let people smoke in their OWN BUILDING?
Posted by: nick at August 6, 2003 03:09 PM
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