And all that tax revenue will have to be recouped somewhere Governor Blowdry.

Frogs in a pot people, frogs in a pot.

Now that you've gotten inured to governmental infringements like this it'll be just that much easier for them to come after you.

Smoking is banned in this building.

But, but we smoke pipes, so we should get an exemption.

Fark off gramps.

hold it somewhere else.

oooh, a whole four thousand ... out of how many million that live in the area and visit yearly?

I don't think a number that small will be missed.

dillenger69: oooh, a whole four thousand ... out of how many million that live in the area and visit yearly?

I don't think a number that small will be missed.

Well, 4000 people spending an average of 300.00 a day over 2.5 days (food, lodging, taxis, incedentals, etc.) = three million dollars in lost revenue for local businesses.

So yeah, it WILL be missed.

*lights cigarette*...*takes long drag*...I never liked Chicago anyway...

Don't worry, just like with bars and restaurants, when the smokers are kicked out the non-smokers will replace them tenfold. The businesses will actually make *more* money now that all the non-smokers who had been relegated to near agoraphobia can finally come out of their homes.

Gecko Gingrich: the non-smokers will replace them tenfold. The businesses will actually make *more* money

please back this up with proof...thank you...

Gecko Gingrich: Don't worry, just like with bars and restaurants, when the smokers are kicked out the non-smokers will replace them tenfold. The businesses will actually make *more* money now that all the non-smokers who had been relegated to near agoraphobia can finally come out of their homes.

I don't think business owners see it that way.

plmyfngr: Gecko Gingrich: the non-smokers will replace them tenfold. The businesses will actually make *more* money

please back this up with proof...thank you...

Doctor Funkenstein: Gecko Gingrich: Don't worry, just like with bars and restaurants, when the smokers are kicked out the non-smokers will replace them tenfold. The businesses will actually make *more* money now that all the non-smokers who had been relegated to near agoraphobia can finally come out of their homes.

I don't think business owners see it that way.

Methinks you two need new batteries for your sarcasm-o-meters.

Skail: Methinks you two need new batteries for your sarcasm-o-meters.

Well, shiat. Methinks you're right. That's what I get for drinking until ?:?? am. But the good news is I found my pants.

We've had a smoking ban in pubs for a while now and pubs are closing because of lost business

Just one example of the facts (new window)

Gecko Gingrich: Don't worry, just like with bars and restaurants, when the smokers are kicked out the non-smokers will replace them tenfold. The businesses will actually make *more* money now that all the non-smokers who had been relegated to near agoraphobia can finally come out of their homes.

I'm certain you're kidding, and here's why: Any moron knows that, in reality, smoking bans hurt small businesses and might even cause smoking rates to increase.

But I'm sure you knew that, and were just kidding.

/non-smoker

Gecko Gingrich: Don't worry, just like with bars and restaurants, when the smokers are kicked out the non-smokers will replace them tenfold. The businesses will actually make *more* money now that all the non-smokers who had been relegated to near agoraphobia can finally come out of their homes.

Except that has not happened.

This, is one of the few reasons I hate this farking state....all this bullshiat, and know how much the politicians listen to normal citizens out here? 0. Their votes are rigged anyways, so its not like you can vote their lazy asses out either.

I better check the local by-laws for my rapist convention.

But...but..it's for the children!

Pipe Camp? (new window)

Eh. Tobacco will become a schedule 1 item soon enough.

Biggest Pipe Collector's gathering


I'm picturing people walking around with 20-foot meerschaums...

Queue the Niemöller allusions in 3... 2...

With that kind of a major draw, would it not be more in the business' interest to pay the violation fine like *cough* some places do here in Lexington?

I smoked a pipe for 40 years.
Stopped about 6 years ago.

Give it up already. It ain't the past any more.

FTFA "I'm concerned about where our freedoms are going," said Burla, a retired FBI agent.

Amazing someone that worked in the government with some common sense.

If people are willing to travel around the world they won't mind traveling to another state all together.

/Anti-smokers = Terrorist

Oh_Enough_Already: dillenger69: oooh, a whole four thousand ... out of how many million that live in the area and visit yearly?

I don't think a number that small will be missed.

Well, 4000 people spending an average of 300.00 a day over 2.5 days (food, lodging, taxis, incedentals, etc.) = three million dollars in lost revenue for local businesses.

So yeah, it WILL be missed.

Three million out of a Ten Billion dollar convention and tourism industry.

/don't think it will be missed that much.

Maybe NAMBLA can take that weekend, that's still legal, right?

I was a pipe smoker for 24 years. The way things are now, I'm glad I quit 16 years ago.

Can't smoke in restaurants
Can't smoke in movie theaters
Can't smoke in bars
Can't smoke in the park
Can't smoke at work (or even in the parking lot)

Now, employers are firing people who won't quit smoking, even on their own time.
Homeowners in condos and townhouses are being told they can't smoke in their own gaadam homes because the neighbors are "sensitive."

It almost makes me want to start up again, just to piss all those annies off.

Doctor Funkenstein: Skail: Methinks you two need new batteries for your sarcasm-o-meters.

Well, shiat. Methinks you're right. That's what I get for drinking until ?:?? am. But the good news is I found my pants.

step two is washing out that stain

/Profit!

daverrod: /don't think it will be missed that much.

3 million is 3 million and it isn't in Chicago, it's in St. Charles which is about an hour west of Chicago. 3 million is a big impact for the hospitality industry in that area, its not the hotel and convention center capital that the Loop is

Know your facts before ya look likes da fool!

daverrod: Three million out of a Ten Billion dollar convention and tourism industry.

/don't think it will be missed that much.

Those facts were before the smoking ban (2005). I'm sure with the turn in the market, $3 million is way more then you think it is. Got anything for fiscal year ending in 2006 or 2007?

daverrod: Oh_Enough_Already: dillenger69: oooh, a whole four thousand ... out of how many million that live in the area and visit yearly?

I don't think a number that small will be missed.

Well, 4000 people spending an average of 300.00 a day over 2.5 days (food, lodging, taxis, incedentals, etc.) = three million dollars in lost revenue for local businesses.

So yeah, it WILL be missed.

Three million out of a Ten Billion dollar convention and tourism industry.

/don't think it will be missed that much.

So, the mom & pop or otherwise small businesses (motels, restaurants, etc) that are losing this money next year are supposed to take solace in this fact?

Using this logic if you got fired and had NO INCOME but your neighbor got a HUGE raise so the mean amount of income between your house and his stayed the same that would be just fine with you, right?

Evolve or die

If your establishment can't survive on it's own merits without relying on being a smoking haven (i.e., if it's only value is as a place for social smokers to congregate, but it sucks otherwise) then maybe your time is ending. Or you could just adapt, make your place more attractive to other people by tidying up the place, having decent beers on tap, serving decent bar fare instead of substandard swill (if your establishment serves food), having a jukebox with a decent selection or having good live acts come and play (if you are licensed to host music), employing competent staff who aren't douchebags, etc. etc. If your place is a shiathole that only gets by because smokers are allowed to light up there, then maybe you don't deserve to carry on.

You think that's bad? The paper mill and rendering plant in my town both closed last year. Imagine what that did to our economy.

Damn it, I know when and when not to use an apostrophe (it's vs. its). I'm kinda out of it on prescription pain meds and an antibiotic from hell right now...

Dire: Evolve or die

If your establishment can't survive on it's own merits without relying on being a smoking haven (i.e., if it's only value is as a place for social smokers to congregate, but it sucks otherwise) then maybe your time is ending. Or you could just adapt, make your place more attractive to other people by tidying up the place, having decent beers on tap, serving decent bar fare instead of substandard swill (if your establishment serves food), having a jukebox with a decent selection or having good live acts come and play (if you are licensed to host music), employing competent staff who aren't douchebags, etc. etc. If your place is a shiathole that only gets by because smokers are allowed to light up there, then maybe you don't deserve to carry on.

or individual owners can decide what patrons are allowed to do within their establishment not to government

Yay, another smoking ban thread! This time with pipes!

At first, this kinda pissed me off, because it's a smoking convention--why shouldn't they smoke? And they did go through all kinds of red tape to absolve themselves of liability.

However, the difference between this and a private club is that these guys don't own their building. They're renting it. So any smoke and tobacco residue and air quality changes will still be there when they leave. Smoking isn't allowed in this building, anyway. So from this point of view, the county is right in banning smoking indoors.

Unless the convention were to somehow be able to completely clean away any residue and smoke after they leave.

Dire: Evolve or die yadda yadda yadda

What if those dives don't have the income to accomplish all what you are asking, because they were dives that smokers liked to hang out in and once they leave, a small business goes under? All over the ingestion of a legal product?

Welcome to Soviet America: where freedom is just a word to get politicians elected.

Dirtball: All over the ingestion of a legal product?

Do you mean, "inhalation"? When was the last time you saw someone eat a cigarette?

/although it might solve the problem

Puke: Welcome to Soviet America: where freedom is just a word to get politicians elected.

your login is how that makes me feel

Dire: Evolve or die

If your establishment can't survive on it's own merits without relying on being a smoking haven (i.e., if it's only value is as a place for social smokers to congregate, but it sucks otherwise) then maybe your time is ending. Or you could just adapt, make your place more attractive to other people by tidying up the place, having decent beers on tap, serving decent bar fare instead of substandard swill (if your establishment serves food), having a jukebox with a decent selection or having good live acts come and play (if you are licensed to host music), employing competent staff who aren't douchebags, etc. etc. If your place is a shiathole that only gets by because smokers are allowed to light up there, then maybe you don't deserve to carry on.

Oh yawn.

If there truly was money to be made this way every bar under the sun would have voluntarilly gone smoke free ages ago.

Here in IC (and the smoke ban is due this July, BTW) non smoking bars opened at an average of about 2 a year for the last three years.

None of them lasted 6 months.

It won't end here either.

People will now complain about walking past the smokers who have been pushed outside.

Or merely smelling smoke on smokers who went outside for a puff.

Look:

The reason so many Christians did/do hate Jews is that Christians believe that only through Jesus can one get to heaven and Jews are basically "Feh, that's okay, we'll pass."

It irks them to no end that a group of people could dismiss what they believe to be the "Way the truth & the light" or what not.

Non-smokers hatred for smokers is much the same.

It has nothing to do with health (as so many non-smokers are unhealthy in so many other ways) or "smells" (as they never raise a stink about bus exhaust, bonfires, people grilling meat, etc, and only cripe about cigarette smoke - truly a disorder that ought to be in the DSM V,
Psychosomatic Pavlovian Olfactory hypochondria or some such) and has everything to do with the hatred of a group of people who have dismissed what they believe to be the truth.

If somebody got a special license for a bar that was smoking only and started booking really cool bands there non-smokers would still pitch a fit that they couldn't go to the bar and would seek to have it shut down.

Non-smokers (who raise a fuss about smoke) are by and large zealots on a quasi-religious crusade who won't rest until everyone else is like them as the fact that some people choose to live differently is an affront to their very belief system.

All this anti-smoking hysteria and hubbub are little more than Jim Crow laws updated for the 21st century.

People have always needed a group of "others" to put down in order to feel superior about themselves and now that casual or institutionally systemic racism & homophobia have become culturally taboo smokers are an easy target.

Unamused.

austerity101: Do you mean, "inhalation"? When was the last time you saw someone eat a cigarette?

You know what I mean. It sounds like Dire just doesn't like dive bars and that's a shame because I've had the best times in all my local dives.

I've got 4 of them less than a block from my front door.

Holy balls you just equated this to Christianities hatred (WTF???) of the Jews?

Dire: Evolve or die

If your establishment can't survive on it's own merits without relying on being a smoking haven

A year and a half ago the last coffee house (downtown San Diego) that you were allowed to smoke in closed down, Bassams. What a beautiful place to go. Due to the smoking ban they had to close shop and move to a place with lower rent, due to the loss in sale of tobacco products. Bassams (new window)

plmyfngr: *lights cigarette*...*takes long drag*...I never liked Chicago anyway...

To be fair, this is DuPage County, out in the boring, whiny, and seemingly never ending suburbs of Chicago. Much of chicago is actually pleasant, but the 'burbs? fark 'em

4000 people's business that drove another 20,000 worth of business away.

Suck it. *and by "it" i mean an unlit tobacco-less pipe.

Wait... what is it? I see CANCER in your future!

it will be replaced by another convention. geezus. stfu, whiners.

Theres nazithing wrong with the smoking ban in Illinois. Its not like its illegal and wrong.