Wow, finally the mainstream media has caught on to the fact that the smoking ban isn't needed because restaurants are taking care of the problem themselves. The N&O takes a look at eateries going smoke-free freely.
Of course, it took the business reporter to unearth this radical idea. But we're glad to have them along and finally seeing the light.
The market is working as customers demand that restaurants go non-smoking:
week ago. "But in today's economy, people are really choosy with where
they spend their money, and I don't want to not be on that list because
of smoke."
Bolick was prompted to go smoke-free as complaints about smoke at her 2-year-old restaurant increased.
Amazing what happens when you let businesses decide for themselves what is their best way to operate and how customers (the market) rewards or punishes those it doesn't like.
It was also helpful that the article posted a link to the NC Health and Wellness Trust fund which has a listing of all restaurants in a county that are smoke free: http://www.stepupnc.com/do/smokefreedining.shtm
Just for reference, in Wake County there were 583. In Mecklenburg, 1467.
If more and more restaurants are responding to the market every day, why do we need a law?
Thanks for the links!
After over a year of experience here in Chicago, now that the fanfare has worn off and the lobbyists have moved on to other states, it’s clearly obvious that trying to ban smoking in small neighborhood “shot and beer” bars is pretty useless. Many small bars in my area ignore the ban to keep their customers, neighbors, and local police (many are patrons when off duty) satisfied. In areas where real crime is an issue, the problem of undesirables being attracted by groups of people outside the bars and causing disturbances on the PUBLIC street, property that the owner has no control over, far outweighs the issue of people peacefully smoking inside a bar, bothering absolutly no one, Bars ignoring the ban also result in fewer kids being exposed to more smoke than ever before at home when adults gather at their homes, instead of at a local bar. Having kids exposed to smoke at home just gives the ban fanatics a reason to want to ban smoking in private homes, which is already happening in California. Once started, these bans never stop.