Bar owners worry about smoking ban's effects
Jump to full article: Austin Business Journal, 2005-04-01
Author: Colin Pope Austin Business Journal Staff
Intro: Alexander, founder and president of Dallas-based Clicks Billiards Inc., told what amounted to a horror story for 20 or so entrepreneurs who gathered on a recent Tuesday afternoon in a dark, smoke-filled room at The Broken Spoke dance hall in South Austin.
The setting for Alexander's story: Tempe, Arizona. The time: Late 2002. The issue: A smoking ban, not unlike the one that Austin voters will consider in a referendum next month.
Alexander says that, before Tempe banned smoking in bars, pool halls and nightclubs, he feared it would hurt his bottom line. After the ban, he discovered the fears weren't unfounded. . . .
The proposal on the May 7 ballot would exempt only nursing homes, fraternal organizations, tobacco shops and some hotel rooms from the ban.
The stricter smoking ban was put on the ballot by Onward Austin, a coalition made up mostly of medical experts backed by the American Cancer Society, the Travis County Medical Society and others. . . .
Many local proprietors are still relying heavily on testimony from out-of-town counterparts such as Amy McCloskey, who owns the Madame X bar in New York City. She says that after New York passed its statewide smoking ban, business fell more than 60 percent.
"And it's not just us," McCloskey says. "I've met with the owners or managers of many businesses in [New York] and the main topic of conversation is how dead our neighborhoods have become since the smoking ban went into effect."
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