For many smoking and drinking mix, but the reality is that a smoky bar really reduces your ability to enjoy a craft beer, good wine or well made whiskey because the smoke clouds your ability to smell and taste the beverage. That's before we even get to the health implications of second hand smoke.
Having lived in New York after a ban on restaurant smoking, I now live in North Carolina and have returned to having to deal with smoke-filled bars and eateries. Owners fear any talk of going smokeless, saying it will hurt business. No comes a report from a major pub company in the United Kingdom that refutes that claim.
Greene King announced today that the smoking ban that went into place in Scotland in March 2006 did not have the devastating impact on sales that had been predicted. The 205-year-old brewery said sales at the pubs it manages are up 3.6 percent for the first half of its fiscal year, while tenant-owned pubs are up 1.3 percent. It noted that sales in pubs in its Belhaven division in Scotland were off 2.8 percent, much less than had been expected.
It is good news for pubs across the U.K. England and Wales are set to join Scotland as smoke free in July.
3 comments:
I always find it amazing that bars and restaurants say they will lose business if a No Smoking ordinance goes into affect. In my native state of Texas, two large cities and a third is about to be added have no smoking ordinances and business hasn't gone down or been hurt in fact its gotten better. I fully understand this effect. I may go into a smokey bar to grab a beer, but you can bet that I am not going to stay, relax and order another, and maybe even another.....I just can't take smoke that much. I have a feeling that thats a good reflection of a lot of people. Give no smoking ordinances a chance and I bet business goes up.
I like my whisky neat and my air clean.
I lived in Maine when the state banned smoking in all public places. The owners screamed that it would kill their businesses but in the end business levels went up. Smokers didn't stay home and become recluses after the ban and those people who had avoided smoky bars and restaurants started going out. You do see small groups of people puffing away outside the doors but at least they aren't inside.
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