Reader sees it clearly: smoking ban has depressed sales

Editor, NRN:

It's time to clear the air! New York City agencies consistently have misled New Yorkers with their rosy smoking-ban statistics, "NYC restaurants weather smoking ban," April 12, page 98. Headlines such as "Bar business up 8.7 percent since the ban" have been debunked as totally inaccurate. The city deliberately dumped statistical data from hundreds of chain establishments, such as Starbucks and McDonald's, and bars and taverns. Spending on Big Macs and skim lattes tells us nothing about the effects of the smoking ban. To understand the ban's effect on bar and tavern business, one must look specifically at post-ban revenue totals for bars and taverns.

To date, only one such survey has been done, and it revealed what we in New York City's hospitality community already knew: Business is down. The survey, carried out by International Communications Research, found that 76 percent of New York City bars and nightclubs have had a 30-percent decrease in customers, and 34 percent have cut staff. Those are not exactly encouraging statistics. The survey endorses the unheralded findings of a previous survey done by the New York State Restaurant Association's NYC Chapter.

We're against the ban for one reason: It is undermining businesses and jobs. Please contact your local New York City city councilor or your state senator and assembly member and say that you support S.6372, the amendment to the Clean Indoor Air Act that would allow smoking in certain areas of bars under controlled filtration and purification circumstances.

--Brian Nolan

executive director

United Restaurant & Tavern Owners of New York Inc.

New York

COPYRIGHT 2004 Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group