Businesses and Smoking

The University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center released the results of it's study, An Analysis of the Economic Effects of Wisconsin's Smokefree Municipal Ordinances on Alcohol Licensed Establishments: 2005-2009 (pdf) today.

The authors of this study concluded that the smoke-free ordinances in five Wisconsin cities, enacted years before the statewide law, did not have a negative economic impact on the hospitality industry. As reported in that study -

The examination of effects of Wisconsin’s municipal smoke-free ordinances
indicates no adverse economic effects throughout the hospitality industry and its subsectors including drinking establishments. The number of alcohol licenses in municipalities remained constant before and after the implementation of the ordinances. Also, as indicated by the very low level of fines, there is no indication that alcohol license holders believed it was necessary to violate the law in order to maintain revenue. Finally, there was no significant difference in employment in any relevant sector of the hospitality industry when comparing counties with smoke-free ordinances and those without protections.

That's all well and good, and is what I would have personally expected not only in Wisconsin, but also nationwide. But, the real question is - Why would I expect these results?

The answer to this question should be obvious to even the most smoke-fogged brain, and may not have been addressed because it could have affected funding to conduct this ridiculous study. The answer is - THE CRITICS OF SMOKEFREE LAWS ARE SMOKERS.

Do you understand the obvious now? Smokers are addicts. Their nicotine addiction causes them to behave and act irrationally. Of course they are going to say that smoking bans will hurt businesses. But yet, for some unknown reason, non-smokers are expected to justify their rational behavior to the irrationally-acting smokers in order to prove otherwise.

We are allowing smokers to manipulate us. Nicotine addiction causes smokers to say and do ANYTHING against prohibiting smoking whenever and wherever they want to smoke, regardless of how their secondhand smoke affects others. So, why are we throwing away money on unnecessary studies just to appease the nicotine addicts' frivolous complaints? Shouldn't we be smarter than that?

Just something to think about.