Public smoking heavily restricted in San Antonio now?!

[Plaidman]

In some places you can't step outside. If you do, you can't come back in.

How does that work? You go into a bar only once, and your flat out never allowed to come back? What if your had your id, but forgot your money in the car? Your not allowed then? That doesn't make much sense that bars would basically ban a person for daring to step out just once.
Besides If that's truely the case....
I'm sure there going to be a whole seprate area for the smoker customers, so that they can go out to smoke and come back with minimal fuss.


Ether that, or those extremly greedy bar owners are going to be attempting to charge a high cover charge to come in each time, and lose all his customers.

[daleduke17]

How does that work? You go into a bar only once, and your flat out never allowed to come back? What if your had your id, but forgot your money in the car? Your not allowed then? That doesn't make much sense that bars would basically ban a person for daring to step out just once.
Besides If that's truely the case....
I'm sure there going to be a whole seprate area for the smoker customers, so that they can go out to smoke and come back with minimal fuss.


Ether that, or those extremly greedy bar owners are going to be attempting to charge a high cover charge to come in each time, and lose all his customers.

You go in, pay, and enjoy your time there. If you leave the bar, you cannot come back in without paying the cover again. Sorry for not explaining that in full detail.

[Greenday]

You go in, pay, and enjoy your time there. If you leave the bar, you cannot come back in without paying the cover again. Sorry for not explaining that in full detail.

That'll change with the bans. They have the line on one side of the building outside waiting to get in, and people smoking on the other. Or tons of places made an outdoor patio where people can smoke since it's not inside. Bars will work it out so people can still go there and smoke when they feel they need to.

[Peppergirl]

I live in a city within a state that has a smoking ban. Across the river, there is no smoking ban.

One can *literally* walk across one of several bridges and be in this state, and smoke in bars.

At first, many small bar owners in Ohio were negatively impacted by the ban. Many owners (and I happen to agree) complained that the vast majority of their particular clientele were smokers, and why should they get rid of them to cater to the small minority who dont smoke?

However, I've noticed a trend...many bars (even hole-in-the-wall, dive bars) have built some REALLY nice patios and smoking areas for their patrons. One of them actually has one of those HUGE heater units on it for the winter months.

It really became a matter of adapting to the ban to survive and not lose their customers to Kentucky.

While I don't agree with the smoking ban in small, privately owned places - I am happy that many owners have rolled with the punches and catered to their majority clientele to the best of their ability.


PS - I quit smoking in January, but I'll *never* become one of those obnoxious ex-smokers - I promise.

[crashhelmet]

People bitched and moaned that it would kill business in California, and it didn't. They bitched and moaned in other places like NYC too, and it didn't.

Here in Vegas, they changed the laws up a bit. Smoking is banned where food is served, unless it's a "gaming establishment" and has more than 15 slot/video gambling machines (most bar and grills have less than 15 to be a non-gaming establishment, thus resulting in less taxes and other requirements). the difference here in Vegas is the fine for smoking where it is banned is not on the house, but the smoker themselves. It's a $100.00 fine and only enforceable by the Dept of health, if I remember right.

Some places have shut down their kitchens to keep gambling smokers, most others don't care. They don't have ash trays anywhere on their bars, but will gladly give yo a glass with water to ash into.

CH

[ArenaBoy]

Usually when new things are introduced people predict the worse or say it won't happen. Record execs freaked when cassette tapes were introduced for example but they still made money.

Smoking bans aren't the end of the world anyway.

You go in, pay, and enjoy your time there. If you leave the bar, you cannot come back in without paying the cover again. Sorry for not explaining that in full detail.

Odd. Most bars I've been to usually stamp your hand so you don't have to pay to get back in.

[MadMike]

I'm a drinker who doesn't smoke, and it would be nice to be able to go to the bar without coming back smelling like a walking ashtray. That being said, it just seems like there are too many drinkers who are also smokers for this to be practical.

Pennsylvania did enact a smoking ban almost two years ago, but it's so riddled with loopholes and exemptions that it's pretty much worthless. Yeah, PA screwed something up, who'd have thought it, right?

Almost all the bars in the area were unaffected, and the few that were affected lost a lot of their business to the bars where they could still smoke. Maybe if the ban was applied evenly, there would have been little or no loss in busines.

[Greenday]

How exactly did PA screw it up? Unless it's a bar that doesn't serve food, or it's an outside bar, there is no smoking allowed.

[MadMike]

They can serve food if the food only accounts for a certain percentage of sales, or something like that. Somehow almost every single bar seems to have fallen under that category.

[KitterCat]

I may be in the minority on this, but I agree with ZedOmega. Its private business and personal choices. If a business owner decides that they want to allow smoking in their establishment, it should be their choice to do so, not some bureaucrats want to pass a feel good law. After all smoking is perfectly legal, it is way for various forms of government to get tax revenue.

Now if smoking makes you feel sick, you don’t like the smell or any of the other various complains, here’s a simple thing to do. Use your personal choice and don’t go to establishments that let people smoke. Use your feet and go to a different bar/restaurant. Personally I don’t smoke, don’t like the smell, and after having kids it makes me nauseous. I found a really simple remedy of not going to restaurants that had smoking, or at least had a smoking section. When I’ve been with a group of friends who do smoke its my choice to go places with them or not. I use my ability of free will and make decisions based on what I’m willing to deal with. I dont pass the buck to some politican to make choices for me, thuse causing me to only be able to use what they've decided for me.

Its also really hypocritical of government officials to say on one hand that smoking is bad for you, you shouldn’t do it, raise the state/federal tax on the things to supposedly get people to quite and then wonder why they didn’t get a windfall of money from the increased taxes. Look at Maryland, they raised the tax to $2 in 2007. “Pennsylvania, for instance, had been seeing a steady decline in cigarette sales since 2002. In 2008, though, as Maryland cigarette sales were falling, Pennsylvania sales increased by more than 7 million packs. Cigarette sales in the District of Columbia and West Virginia also increased from 2007 to 2008.*” You also cant then make it nearly impossible to actually take part in the activity due to regulations forbidding you to smoke in most public space.




*http://articles.baltimoresun.com/201...ales-tax-hikes

[Arcade Man D]

Now if smoking makes you feel sick, you don’t like the smell or any of the other various complains, here’s a simple thing to do. Use your personal choice and don’t go to establishments that let people smoke. Use your feet and go to a different bar/restaurant. Personally I don’t smoke, don’t like the smell, and after having kids it makes me nauseous. I found a really simple remedy of not going to restaurants that had smoking, or at least had a smoking section. When I’ve been with a group of friends who do smoke its my choice to go places with them or not. I use my ability of free will and make decisions based on what I’m willing to deal with. I dont pass the buck to some politican to make choices for me, thuse causing me to only be able to use what they've decided for me.

I'd agree with you on this if it were actually an option. Before the smoking ban here in Onondaga county there were zero bars in the entire Syracuse Metropolitan Area that disallowed smoking or had a separately ventilated smoking area. Only one or two (non-chain) restaurants, too. So if I wanted to go out for a nice sit-down dinner, or even out for a couple brews, I'd have to submit myself to the acrid smell of burning tobacco.

Also, no bar or restaurant shuttered their doors as a direct result of losing business from the ban, though there was one shuttered by the ban, but that's because they kept violating the ban, leading to fines and eventual removal of their liquor license.

[Greenday]

Before the ban, there was NO such thing as a smokeless bar. It was either deal with all the smokers blowing smoke in our faces and down our lungs or not be able to go out.

It feels great to have just gotten back from the bar and I don't smell like smoke at all tonight.

[KitterCat]

I'd agree with you on this if it were actually an option. Before the smoking ban here in Onondaga county there were zero bars in the entire Syracuse Metropolitan Area that disallowed smoking or had a separately ventilated smoking area. Only one or two (non-chain) restaurants, too. So if I wanted to go out for a nice sit-down dinner, or even out for a couple brews, I'd have to submit myself to the acrid smell of burning tobacco.

Here’s a wonderful idea when your in an area that doesn’t have smokeless bar. Don’t go to the bar. If your that concerned and that worried about your health don’t go. If you don’t like the smell, the atmosphere of being around the smoke, don’t go. It’s a really simple solution. Your in an area that doesn’t have a smoke free bar, find another area to go to or don’t go at all. Either enough people will not show up, and cause the owner of the business to change how they run their privately owned business or they’ll decide they like the clientele that they have and keep the smokers, or they end up shutting down due to loss of clientele.

Also, no bar or restaurant shuttered their doors as a direct result of losing business from the ban, though there was one shuttered by the ban, but that's because they kept violating the ban, leading to fines and eventual removal of their liquor license.

And you don’t see the irony in even saying that? Com’on think about what you just said there. Until a ban went into place a business wasn’t having problems. Only after the ban is in place and broken, resulting in many fines does the business go under. It wasn’t the fact that smoking was taking place, it was the fact that smoking had suddenly become illegal resulting in many fines that brought that business down.

[Greenday]

Uh, it's not like the bar didn't know about the new laws. The bar wasn't being fined for people smoking before the law. Only after. They were breaking the rules and they knew it and kept doing it anyway. They got what they deserved.

[Hobbs]

Here’s a wonderful idea when you're in an area that doesn’t have [a] smokeless bar.

Sadly, however, we live in a society where the most sociable location for co-workers etc, is the local bar. Take my own detachment, for instance. Almost weekly there are invites to hit a bar or dance hall. I decline because, for a long time, I didn't have a car. But now that I do, I think that my position within the corps, especially considering my prospects for next semester, I feel that I will have to venture to at least some of these get togethers.

Of course we have non-bar get-togethers like bar-b-cues etc (this is Texas), but they are far-outnumbered by the weekly gatherings. As one show I watched put it, going to a bar is an "occupational hazard," especially for professionals.