Remember the businessman who was murdered in that movie? It mentioned his birthdate as being in 1954. Made me notice as that is when I was born!
Jesus Himself had a few things to say about making predictions like this.
My brother, who works in IT, told me the same thing.
I was 12 years old, and I definitely remember it. It was on the heels of the discovery of Legionnaire’s Disease, which also caused a lot of panic.
Several years later (IIRC 1982) Iowa had a really big blizzard pop up, and some people almost treated it like it was, like, a nuclear cloud or something. As it approached Des Moines, it split, and in Des Moines, we barely even had clouds! It was the weirdest thing, almost like the eye of a hurricane, while towns 10 miles in every direction had a foot or more of snow.
Then that couldn’t have been due to less customers, not in a week. It could only have been due to butthurt owners or some other issue, unrelated. Out here in CA, none closed that I know of, and even few restaurants have closed due to Covid after months, even after having their business cut 50-100%.
It sounds to me like that restaurant was going to close anyway, for other reasons.
So what, business bad for a few days or a week? Business dont close due to that, it happens all the time. You are also suggesting that in your town, instead of the 10-20% smokers, there were 90% smokers- unlikely. We are gonna have to ask for a cite.
Restaurants and bars close all the time anyway, they are terrible investments.
This, and also the risk of children being kidnapped. This was a big thing in the 1980s. Turns out the average number of stranger-abducted children each year in the U.S. is under 100, and most abductions and kidnappings are the result of custody disputes or any number of other situations where the people involved know each other. On top of it, 99% of missing children are teenagers who have run away from home, oftentimes for some very good reasons.
Yes, and they abandoned "Stranger Danger’ as it was more hurtful than help.
Moms- it is not the “creepy stranger”- it is your kids trusted swim coach.
I don’t remember that specific type of ambush attack being predicted (not saying you’re wrong) but I do remember people expecting that there were going to be car bombings.
I said no such thing. I said that a week after the smoking ban took effect there were zero customers at the bar and the dining room was down by around 80%. That sounds to me like a very good business decision by the owner.
Sure, bars and restaurants close all the time. I’m talking about 4 out five places in a very small town (all of which had been long-established on-going businesses for many years) closing within a few months following the smoking ban – and places all over the county having similar results. I don’t know what happened in the rest of the country (or world), but I know what happened here.
Cite? Just call bullshit on it like a previous poster in this thread; that’ll do since I can’t possibly provide a site this stuff.
It’s funny because where I am, restaurant business increased after the ban. Bars pretty much stayed the same. But now, bars have customers staying longer, as they have to interrupt their drinking to step out for a smoke. And the customers standing outside smoking help attract customers.
It’s hard to imagine customers where you live choosing to just stay home instead of eating out or going to a tavern simply because they have to step outside for a smoke. I’m not doubting your observations, I’m just surprised.
Sure, you can give us the name of the restaurant.
Link to a local town news that talks about all the eateries closing.
But the business down by 80% would assume 80% of your town are smokers. That is insane.
No, if one half of a couple smoked, but both stayed home, then the figure could be 40% smokers.
In retrospect this kind of thing is obvious if you pay attention to world affairs, it’s generally the US who are the bullies of the world and for the resources the middle eastern countries have it’s unlikely there would have been sleeper cell operations (though the same fear echoes with immigrants in Europe)
Accompanying the growth in smoke-free laws nationwide has been a parallel increase in false allegations
that smoke-free laws will hurt local economies and businesses.5 In fact, numerous careful scientific and
economic analyses show that smoke-free laws do not hurt restaurant and bar patronage, employment,
sales, or profits.6 At worst, the laws have no effect at all on business activity, and they sometimes even
produce slightly positive trends. For example:
• The National Cancer Institute, with the World Health Organization, in December 2016 conducted an
extensive review of the economic literature on tobacco control, concluding, “. . . the evidence clearly
demonstrates that smoke-free policies do not cause adverse economic outcomes for businesses,
including restaurants and bars. In fact, smoke-free policies often have a positive economic impact on
businesses.”7
• An analysis of more than two decades’ worth of employment data (1990-2015) found that smoke-free
laws “do not generally have any meaningful effect on restaurant and bar employment.” The study
found that in the United States, a one-percentage point increase in population covered by a smokefree restaurant law was associated with a small increase (approximately 0.01%) in restaurant
employment. The percentage of state population covered by a smoke-free bar law was not
associated with any change in bar employment.8
• CDC’s Community Preventive Services Task Force analyzed two reviews of over 170 studies (1988
to 2012), concluding that “Smoke-free policies did not have an adverse economic impact on the
business activity of restaurants, bars, or establishments catering to tourists; some studies found a
small positive effect of these policies.”9 The Task Force is an independent panel of experts appointed
by the Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• A 2013 study of smoke-free policies in nine states found that smoke-free laws did not have an
adverse economic impact on restaurants or bars. The study analyzed employment data from 216
smoke-free cities and counties in Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. For North Carolina, the study examined the impact of a
2010 statewide smoke-free law that applies to restaurants and bars. In one state, West Virginia, the
local smoke-free laws were associated with a small increase in restaurant employment.10
• A 2010 analysis of economic outcomes of smoke-free laws stated, “[T]here is clear evidence that
smokefree legislation does not hurt restaurant or bar businesses, and in some cases business may
improve.”1
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4908501_The_Effect_of_Smoking_Bans_on_Bars_and_Restaurants_An_Analysis_of_Changes_in_Employment
Using county-level data on employment from across the US, we find that communities where smoking is banned experience reductions in bar employment compared with counties that allow smoking. Smoking bans have a larger detrimental impact on bars in geographic areas with a high prevalence of smokers. The relative effect on restaurant employment is neutral or mildly positive. The positive effects are concentrated in areas with fewer smokers. We also find that bans have a positive effect on restaurant employment in warmer regions of the country, especially during the cooler winter months, and in the summer in colder regions.
So that is study after study that shows no overall decrease in business. Vs your personal anecdotes.
So, what is your town so we can search out those locations?
From your cite:
As far as restaurants: more men than women smoke. If a husband doesn’t want to eat out because of the ban, it’s no skin off his back; his wife will likely be the one cooking his meal for him. So I can see men smokers refusing to eat out if they can’t smoke.
While it may seem unlikely to us that what Turble said happened is common, don’t forget that those studies are averages. In places with high rates of smoking, there could be outlier communities.
This. As a timely comparison, we certainly see vast disparities in local mask-wearing rates just now. Rural older working class areas often had/have huge smoking rates.
I believe it also depends on when the smoking ban occurred in @Turble’s area versus the national timeline.
In the early days there was a lot of justified fear of the then-unknown effects of a smoking ban. Whereas some county enacting a ban now in 2020 has the benefit of multiple decades of national experience as cited above to reassure business owners that the overall effect is benign.
Public smoking was a much more common activity nationally than it is today. If you weren’t an adult in the 80s you almost can’t believe how much more was going on then vs now.
One thing that did come out during the restaurant / bar smoking bans enacted in the 90s and early 00s is that total bar / restaurant business was unaffected after a multi-month adjustment period.
IOW, large numbers of would-be patrons had learned to not go out to eat / drink because they hated being smoked out. When the ban kicked in, many actual smoking patrons started staying home immediately both as a well-reasoned response to a change in their dining ritual and as a petulant act of defiance to the authorities.
Sales duly cratered at many restaurants & bars.
Over the next few months the non-smokers slowly ventured out, discovered they liked non-smoking venues (especially once they’d been deep cleaned and repainted to remove the stale cig smell). Meanwhile the smokers slowly dribbled back in while grudgingly accepting sneaking outside to smoke as needed. Business went back to roughly normal but with a significantly different customer list and only after a significant delay.
Some bars & restaurants didn’t have the financial staying power to weather the sudden slowdown.
Does any of this sound familiar in the era of COVID?
Are there stats to show that “sales duly cratered at many restaurants and bars” in communities that enacted public smoking bans? I’ve seen nothing in this thread beyond unconfirmed anecdotes.
It doesn’t seem impossible to me that some marginal businesses somewhere might have been hurt enough by petulant smokers staying away (on at least a short-term basis) to shut down. There’s good evidence however that even in places with a strong historic support for tobacco growing and above-average smoking rates, public smoking bans have been neutral to favorable for restaurant and bar revenue. One such study involving Lexington/Fayette County Kentucky:
"Results
A positive and significant relationship was observed between the smoke‐free legislation and restaurant employment, but no significant relationship was observed with bar employment. No relationship was observed between the law’s implementation and employment in contiguous counties nor between the smoke‐free law and business openings or closures in alcohol‐serving and or non‐alcohol‐serving businesses.
Conclusions
No important economic harm stemmed from the smoke‐free legislation over the period studied, despite the fact that Lexington is located in a tobacco‐producing state with higher‐than‐average smoking rates."
Yet one of DrDeth’s cites said
Using county-level data on employment from across the US, we find that communities where smoking is banned experience reductions in bar employment compared with counties that allow smoking. Smoking bans have a larger detrimental impact on bars in geographic areas with a high prevalence of smokers.