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Has a Smoking Ban hurt your neighboorhods social scene?
Posted by Rags180 • 1/27/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: Bars, darts, pubs, smoking, Social Life
I am an avid dart player. More often than not, darts is a game played in/sponsored by a bar. Bars are built for socializing, meeting people, enjoying a drink or just the environment. We have always enjoyed that, as well as our right to enjoy it regardless of race, religion or smoking preference.
Smoking bans around the country are forcing dart players to seek other venues to play. The bans are also hurting the establishments that lose the dart players as well as the rest of the smoking demographic among their customers. That is taking the rights of a business owner away from them.
Has a smoking ban effected your community?
User Comments
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The bans here, having been applied unevenly and without need have seriously hurt small local businesses.
While the small local businesses must go non smoking, larger multi-million dollar venues and private clubs remain smoker friendly, tearing away business form local places.
The businesses that had previously catered to the non smoking crowd are also now doing poorly due to the totally non smoking environments of chain restaurants - splitting the customers as it were.
It was a bad, bad decision. -
I, for one, couldn't go into an establishment where there's smoking. It shuts down my capacity to breathe faster than anything. I would be as panicked to get out as I would be if an ammonia refrigeration unit leaked out. -
I've lived in two different communities where smoking bans have been instituted (neither unevenly like the one Anok describes). In both, bars lost business for a few weeks, and then went back to normal, probably because, for every hardcore smoker who couldn't stand to be in a bar where s/he couldn't light up, there was at least one person who previously avoided bars for all the smoke. Not only that, but many bars created cool outdoor areas. In the end, if anything, I'd say that smoking bans have improved the local bar scenes.-
Excellent point. Here in South Africa, restaurants must be smoke-free or provide a smoking section that is walled off from the rest of the patrons and has its own ventilation separate from the rest of the business. An exception, however, is pubs.
There is a pub in our area that serves really good food. Their bangers and mash are fabulous. But unless we can get an outside table where we aren't choked by the smoke, we don't go there. I am sure that we aren't the only people who feel that way, and as soon as that pub becomes smoke-free, I and doubtless many others, will go there and replace those who prize their addiction above all else.
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Not really for me...I live in a small rural area where there's not much to do besides go to the pub....
And my uni bars haven't been affected either...but there is now a very amusing 'smoking pen' outside the union! -
it sounds like your system sucks
its so much nicer to go in these places now, we have more buisness than ever here, or at least for quite a few. credit crunch and all -
Can't say it has, really, except smokers never go to IHOP before 4 p.m.
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It has hurt some, but most honestly not so much. Although it has definitely created a littering problem in the streets. I personally think ours was generalized too much and doesn't wholly make sense. As in just because a bar makes food and serves it doesn't make it a restaurant. Seriously frozen food only? Now a restaurant with a bar I can see but there are clear differences. Besides people go to bars to drink, smoke, chat, play game, and then drink some more. Like I said a restaurant with a bar I can understand but I think some of this has gotten a little out of hand. -
It has over here. Montreal winters are long and harsh, and the idea of having to step outside to smoke has often put me off going out.
And I'm not an exception. -
Smoking bans are awful. I think any business owner should have the right to decide whether or not they allow smoking. It's absurd that someone can own a business, but not be able to smoke in it.
It's simple. Allow business owners to decide. When other business owners see that non-smokers won't go to businesses that allow smoking, that business will ban smoking in order to garner all the non-smoking business.
Everybody wins. But no, we need the government to tell us what to allow. It's about as absurd as seat belt laws.-
Uh, what planet have you been living on?
Business owners do not poll their customers as to whether or not they smoke, so they won't know if the non-smokers are staying away because they can't breathe. Besides, this is the way it was for decades...non-smokers had to suffer or stay away. With rare exceptions, leaving it up to the business owners won't change a thing...they are capitalists and they want to maximize their profits, so they'll open the doors to anyone who brings money.
Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you that smoke-free is the default condition of the planet. Why should anyone be forced to inhale toxic vapors if they want to sample the cuisine of one place or another? We are all born smoke-free, so why not cater for the default condition? Why should the child across the road be forced to partake in the addiction of a complete stranger? Why should the woman next door be deprived of a good meal for the same reason? Do you really think a smoker can't control his/her desire for a smoke long enough to eat a meal?
Let me guess...you're a smoker and can't bear the thought of having to be courteous to the legions who aren't. Or maybe you just have authority issues and can't abide having someone else tell you what to do. -
Yeah, god, I feel so oppressed whenever I have to buckle my seat-belt...it's like 1984....
The only thing I can think of that's worse is when my parents forced me--FORCED me, mind you--to brush my teeth...I felt like I was living in the Soviet Union under Stalin...
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It hasn't affected me since I dont smoke but it has certainly affected some of my collegues who happen to be chain smokers. -
All Minnesota is smoke free now... and Minneapolis has been for a few years... has NOT hurt business... die-hard smoking customers still go outside to smoke in sub-zero weather... and i know a lot of people who have quit entirely.
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