Here's a really crazy idea :
Get the government out of it and let the owners of the establishments decide whether they will have smoking or not and then the patrons can choose where they want to go.
And employees are cannon fodder?
Oh, boy, don't tell Jackie Danicki about this. She'll get very upset at this attempt to ban freedom. I mean smoking.
I completely agree with Quim.
I also believe that those who do choose to allow smoking should be required to comply with specific benchmarks for ventilation. To me, that's a fair exchange.
Quim & J.N. Atailya, WHY do you believe that? What is your rationale? Do you have examples of other similar "business choices" to support your position?
It seems to me that you assume operating a business of public accomodation is this free-choice enterprise, but I assure you it is one of the most regulated activities a citizen or corporation can undertake in America for numerous reasons.
Additionally, you seem to disregard the operation of our democracy which relies heavily on the people. In our system, if one were to rank free choice of actors by importance, the free choice of the people to vote and regulate or deregulate would have priority over the free choice of a business. Why do you argue this should be reversed?
I would also add, Quim, that the patrons HAVE chosen where they want to go: everywhere.
Simply put, it's nanny-state bullshit and a thinly veiled attempt to legislate morality. I voted against it twice and would do so again. And I don't smoke cigarettes.
A fair compromise would be to allow business owners to choose to permit smoking, then hold them to standards for air quality.
I find it really fucking irritating when people refuse to investigate compromise. Instead, let's ban EVERYTHING.
You can't sell booze and have nude waitress. Chalk that one up to government intervention.
You can't have open flames inside a resturant unless they meet the fire codes, again government intervention.
Why are those not considered partof the nanny state, but the smoking ban is?
Your booze and tits example is not commensurate with the smoking issue, but I'll play along.
Who is harmed by the combination of booze and tits? No one. Okay, maybe someone who has a glass up to his mouth, then a topless waitress bumps into it with her unbridled tits, thereby knocking it into the patron's teeth -- or a waiter's exposed scrotum experiences a sudden increase in elasticity and swings up with enough force to break the glass, the shards of which cut the horny housewife’s hand.
Giving the business owner the choice to allow booze and tits, but with the compromise that the establishment may only be entered by those who are 21 and older, is considerably more fair than banning booze and tits under the same roof. Meeting in the middle is more effective than an all-out ban.
Open flame in a commercial setting is a genuine safety concern, as is smoking in enclosed, public places. That's why regulations -- standards, codes, etc. -- are in place. That's the SAME THING I called for with smoking. Creating and enforcing a standard for air quality would allow business owners to decide whether to allow smoking and force them to comply with rules as part of the compromise in order to give their patrons the choice to smoke.
I understand the arguments here, but you are all ignoring Brian's original point which is that northern Kentucky may be losing business to Cincinnati because of the ban. I definitely believe this could be true, despite chicken-little claims that the opposite would happen.
J.N. Atailya, your use of name-calling and extreme positions (e.g., ban everything) is telling of the strength (i.e., lack of strength) in your position. However, your logic regarding your position on clean air regulation is sound. The flaw to your conclusion (use that compromise) is that the filtered air is still not as clean as most citizens wanted. That is their right to choose so, even if you end up being in the minority. If you disagree with my explanation, then you should have no problem getting the law amended.
the filtered air is still not as clean as most citizens wanted
That was never presented as an option, as far as I know. And I never called anyone names. And those citizens of whom you speak won't be so quiet when the nanny state goes after an interest, hobby, past time, right, or privilege they enjoy.
Booze and titsly yours,
J.N. Atailya
I want the right to masterbate anywhere that I want to, including at my table in a restaurant, right next to you.
Mike - I doubt that. Let's take a fresh look at that article again.
“My guess is they’re going to Cincinnati, ‘cause they hate the smoke. I know we’re losing business because of it,” he said. -Stricker/Article
So this guy is 'guessing' & says 'I know'. Did this bozo even look at a spreadsheet or any numbers? Or more likely is he just saying that because that's what he wants others to believe.
If this was really the case, don't you think bars & restaurants would start going non-smoking left & right (as they are currently free to do? Seriously, what business owner wouldn't do this. If the competition across the river is doing something that is causing them to lose business, wouldn't they do this too in order to gain it back? Well they aren't. Each owner is looking at their own position and deciding what works best for them.
In this 2ndary article:
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20070925/NEWS01/709250386/1077/COL02
Stricker states "If we ban it only in Covington, smokers could just drive to Newport."
Oh Really? How does he know this? Is that because that is what is happening with Cincinnati now?
"That was never presented as an option." That is why I said if you disagreed with my explanation then it should be easy as pie to amend the law to include your view, which would be the people did not want cleaner air than filtered air.
One example of your name calling is "nanny-state," which implies that everyone supporting the ban only does so b/c they need care from pappa/momma state or are meddling in the lives of others and there is no legitimate reason to ban smoking.
I agree with funnelcake that it is silly and hard to prove any correlation or causation between a smoking ban and 98% of businesses doing poorly or positively. I do not think the ban has an effect one way or the other. Besides, it is not the point of the ban.
If the ban harmed business we would see it. We have not. If it helped business we would see it. We have not.
Go check out Mainstrasse in Covington if you think it's hurting business (LOL). That place is more hopping & crowded than I've seen it in years.
Yes, Stricker must be making it up because NKY politicians LOVE to go on record saying that they're losing out to Cincinnati. Not.
There's something to this. Stricker talks to more people than just the Mainstrasse marketers. Kentucky will be smokeless in a few years. The question is whether they'll embarrass themselves by being the last in the nation to do it.
Why would someone use an outdoor air standard on the indoors? Most single family home exceed outdoor air standard by 4-6 times when EPA tested. Did they also use outdoor air equipment on the indoor and did they follow EPA protocol? Why was the testing information not released with the article? If protocol is not followed the testing is rejected. Maybe someone can find out which independent NLLAP certified company was used for the testing.
The "guess" statement from Stricker is what stuck out to me.
These antis are starting to say just about anything and everything...and they are starting to slip up in their haste, which is comical on one hand and pathetic on the other.
Bans do hurt live music entertainment, that is bar room based, that is for certain.
How hopping is Cincy NOW.... outside of Bogart's and The Blue Whisp who bring in nationals on a regular basis?
I'd like to know. How about some FACTS for a change?
Are the Joe Schmoe musicians working much in Cincy...and I am not talking about a guitar player singing in an alcohol free coffee shop for tips.
Once I had an anti tell me the symphony and opera productons were full in defense of "smoking bans do not hurt live entertainment venues". Just nipping bullshit in the bud, here. I know my business and nothing has hurt it worse concerning frequency of gigging (also known as REGULAR work, thank you) than has Issue 5 and the Columbus city ban prior.
One example of your name calling is "nanny-state," which implies that everyone supporting the ban only does so b/c they need care from pappa/momma state or are meddling in the lives of others and there is no legitimate reason to ban smoking.
Well, aren't you?
Musician - Well there is TopCats!
Oh, wait. The just shuttered their doors after well over 20 years of business.
Ooo-Ooo. Their's Alchemize. They said business is going great & the smoking ban wasn't hurting them one bit. O... wait, they just closed shop.
Hey, what about Sudsy Malone's! They are a small joint & have brought in some major bands. Ah-screw. They're closed too.
Wait a minute. The South Gate House is REALLY hoping. They are bringing in bigger acts all the time. ...never mind. They are in Newport, KY.
Sounds about right funnelcake. No surprises there. Unfortunate though.
Oh well, we'll all have to go underground. The speakeasies during Prohibition brought us Jazz.
There is always a bright side. 
The antis can keep their milquetoast clear channel tastes to themselves on a "night on the town" dancing to the Electric Side after din-din at Applebee's.
I know it's fun to be negative, Funnelcake, but Northside Tavern, Gypsy Hut, Comet, Poison Room, and others are still going strong. Or maybe the Northside kids just don't like to smoke. Didn't think so.
It's funny that you pick on three Cincinnati bars that had been run into the ground for your examples. Short Vine has been a hole for years--don't think that the smoking ban had ANYTHING to do with that.
Come on. Who brought in nationals on a regular basis before the ban? Alchemize was a short-lived bar, and Sudsy's hadn't been the same in years since it went under the first time. And to suggest that Southgate House is successful because Ohio banned smoking? That's an insult to their bookers and their management.
Bands need to stop their bitching, get off their asses, and market themselves. I have to laugh, as so often local musicians bitch about successful local bands, when there remains the expectation that the audience should just find them.
It's also funny that most people can't accept that Ohio is simply far ahead of Kentucky on this issue. Maybe they'll catch up with us, and the rest of the nation, some day.
In my town we have lost Little Brothers and the Blues Station since the first of the year.
Many small bars also. Many smaller bars are going "DJ" for the first time, too, playing crap. Frankly I would rather hear a bad cover band than a DJ with their little fakey dry ice BS and strobe lights.
What crap.
There is enough room in this world for ice cream social type bars and places for adults to hang.
Jacob, the "progressive" little band wagon approach concerning Ohio's "progression" and implying that KY is "backwoods" is so unoriginal I'm surprised you even posted something like that.
That Southgate bar is adding PO'd Ohioans crossing the river to their happy native KY clientele. They don't care why the bar is booming, they welcome the dollars. They care about the bottom line. Good takes.
If banning smoking would bring more folks in they would have already done it.
Case closed.
"There is enough room in this world for ice cream social type bars and places for adults to hang." The insinuation that smoking is somehow "adult" is so unoriginal that I'm amazed that you would even post it. I don't so much associate smoking with adulthood, but rather with lung cancer and deep mucus-ridden coughing.
If Kentucky doesn't want to be behind the times, they can ban smoking like the rest of the country is doing.
Rest assured, all is not rosy in KY, and Stricker's comment is just the beginning of the murmuring. They'll ban smoking in the next three to five years, and they'll be embarrassed by waiting so long.
The bandwagon mentality you display is just typical anti rhetoric.
"Quit being hicks in KY, get with it like Oheilo".
Now there's a campaign slogan for you, free of charge.
How to know you're part of the problem, continued....
4. You believe that Cincinnati is ALWAYS behind the times in everything, except...
5. In cases where Cincinnati is an early or relatively early adopter of a national trend, Cincinnati is just hopping on a bandwagon. This is because Cincinnati is ALWAYS behind Northern Kentucky, since everything they do is good for business, regardless of any evidence to the contrary (e.g. NKY politicians saying smoking is hurting business).
To J.N. Atailya: No. But thank you for proving my point.
Blah, blah, blah ... shut yer cock holster.
Take note of how smokers rights activists support their claims that smokefree workplace laws harm business. They have their anecdotal stories but no other evidence. And conveniently, anecdotal stories are notoriously difficult to verify. Did a bar really close because of a smokefree law or because of something else? We can never seem to confirm it.
Bar and restaurant businesses fail for a number of reasons, but someone could start listing closings from states that allow smoking indoors and use those anecdotal stories to "prove" that those businesses are failing because there is NOT a smokefree workplace law. The logic would be identical.
Rather than rely on elusive anecdotal stories that cannot be validated, we can look at actual studies -- at least a hundred or so studies have been done by impartial research organizations -- studies that measure actual revenue increases or decreases while controlling for other factors. Oh, sure, the tobacco industry has a handful of studies, also, but they mostly measure what people predict will happen, not what actually happened. And, of course, there is the obvious conflict of interest in having the tobacco industry serve up information to the public which is helpful to their cause.
But one thing we do know from research on health effects of secondhand smoke--restaurant and bar employees in Kentucky will be exposed to a cancer-causing toxin in the air they breathe, while Cincinnati employees will not. That can be measured. And it's all preventable.
Of course, the smokers' rights activists will try and convince readers that the smoke that comes out of the south end of a cigarette is not toxic like the smoke coming out of the north end. And they will try and convince readers that customers will demand cigarette smoke pollution and will flee from any business that has clean air. And of course, the anecdotal stories will continue.
"53K" is anecdotal.
This news story we are commenting on is anecdotal and based on nothing more than "a guess".
Wonder if this is the same Roger who works so hard on this issue when he is not running a Chicken Dance/Electric Silde DJ service....hmmm.
If not, sorry to mix you up with someone who likes to call himself a "musicman" which is quite anecdotal.
Roger, if you own a hospitality related business that is booming because of the smoking ban, by all means speak up and show us some receipts.
Otherwise, everything you have said would just be one of those anecdotal things you mention.
"And, of course, there is the obvious conflict of interest in having the tobacco industry serve up information to the public which is helpful to their cause."
_____________________________________
And, of course, there is the obvious conflict of interest in having the American Cancer Society serve up information to the public which is helpful to their cause.
Why would the American Cancer Society care about smoking? If there was no link to cancer, they would not. Just like they do not care about you eating or ingesting other things that are not linked to cancer. Anon, I think you need to focus your thoughts.
If they did they truly would do all they can to totally make the product illegal.
The antismoking lobbyists like their paychecks too well to be altrustic in any way, shape, or form.
Geting focused .......on the truth about these lobbyists would be a good start for you BAM.
No receipts from Roger.
Oh well, no surprise.
Must have been one of those anecdotal things.
When you do not like the message, attack the messenger.
LOL, as if you are guiltless concerning this posting procedure BAM.
I never claimed to be guiltless on that account, but if I did make the mistake (i.e., a way of avoiding substantive issues in a discussion) I would admit it when it was pointed out to me.
Roger had a very respectable post, and someone tried to trivialize it by bringing up a "kill the messenger" type response when the identified messenger was not even used by Roger.
A smoking ban will never encompass all of NKY unless it is done at the county level. I doubt this will happen as Kentuckians aren't as enamored with the politically correct northeast as guillable Ohioans are.
Guillable young Ohioans will vote for almost anything in order to be seen as "progressive" and "fitting in" with the plans of the New World Order. Hi welcome to Ohio, we're guillable as shit!
To the credit of the Cincy area the guillable people largely congregate north of southern Ohio around places like Columbus, Toledo, Cleveland, etc.
Anon, I do have to agree with that.
Some of us a little further north march to our own drummer going in the opposite direction of the lemmings headed over the cliff.
Don't blame the 42% of us that voted down Issue 5. The nannies think they have it all wrapped up in a box with their window dressing facades of "the overwhelming majority", but anyone can see that is one of their false bravado soundbites.
Otherwise none would bother to comb the internet to post a thing concerning Issue 5 on a blog such as this.
Do "victors" keep returning to the battlefield, just to continually "make sure" they won? No. But dogs do return eat their own vomit because they don't have the sense not to.
(sorry to compare antis to dogs...it's insulting to the dogs)
That being said, we all know happiness and contentment is not a character trait for nannies, especially ones that have to remember all the lies they told in the order they told them to "save face".
I would have to say that would be exhausting and should invite some compassion from us.....
If I was charitable concerning their personality disorders, I would feel pity for them.
However, I am not charitable concerning one of the biggest con games that this generation has ever seen with the tactics used to pass these smoking prohibiton laws.
You could argue just as well that plenty of Cincinnati residents are going across the river where they have the freedom to smoke.
There's absolutely no way a smoking ban will have any lasting result other than costing tax payers a fortune to "enforce." Bars and restaurants are already protesting and specifying they will take this issue to the Supreme Court if they have to, as they should. Instead our tax money is going to pay lawyers fees all in the name of keeping us healthy because we apparently can't do it ourselves. Give me a break!
I don't smoke. I'm a runner with one full marathon under my belt. While smoke irritates me, I realize I can go somewhere else and vote with my money.
John,
Other than the few small bars that smell so bad of smoke they only attact hardcore smokers, what bar owners are complaining?
John,
All the Inquirer articles I have read to date....other than this one we are commenting on..... have talked about the Ohio smoking ban being a boost for the Newport/Covington night life.
Wonder what nanny wanted equal time to get the fiction published of Kentuckian anti-smokers "fleeing to Cincy's smokefree restaurants and bars".
Perhaps we all have been duped and this article was really in the comic section of the Inquirer.
I’m from Ohio and I love our smoking ban. I enjoy not coughing in restaurants, and breathing in foul smelling smoke. Smokers are in the minority, and we should not have to compromise our health for their addiction. If people choose to smoke, they can smoke outside or in their own homes. The only problem with the smoking ban is that it encourages people to smoke right outside the doorways even though they are not supposed to. This means that you have to go through a cloud of smoke when entering or leaving a building. I also love the ban because children are not exposed to smoke as much. Not allowing smoking inside public buildings sends a message to kids that smoking is bad, so hopefully the number of people smoking will drop.
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