New York'S Ban On Smoking In Bars And Restaurants

NEW YORK'S BAN ON SMOKING IN BARS AND RESTAURANTS

Restrictions on the time, place and manner in which public smoking may occur have been increasing over the last several years. While the early focus of anti-smoking initiatives was on consumer education and industry advertising restrictions, over the past two decades, smoking opponents have increasingly taken their battle to state and local governments, seeking prohibitions on smoking in a wide variety of public establishments. Advocates of these bans claim to be protecting the nonsmoking public and workers from the adverse health effects of secondhand smoke. Opponents of smoking restrictions dispute the existence and/or severity of these adverse consequences and claim that bans have the unintended consequence of hurting business.

Nationwide, the number of local communities implementing full or partial bans on smoking in public facilities - including worksites, bars and restaurants - has increased more than eight-fold over the past two decades. More than 200 U.S. municipalities had local clean indoor air laws in effect during 1985; by April 2004, over 1,700 communities had enacted such laws. Almost one-third of the U.S. population now is subject to some type of smoking restriction, with various combinations of constrains being imposed.

In August of 2002, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg signaled his intention to prohibit smoking in establishments that had been exempted from the City's earlier smoking ban enacted in 1995. Free-standing bars, smaller restaurants, pool halls, bingo parlors and bowling alleys were now required to implement smoke free policies and environments. Predictably, there was much acrimony in the months that followed, as representatives of the city's 13,000 bars and smaller restaurants that had allowed smoking complained businesses would suffer, while public health advocates pushed the case for protecting the tens of thousands of customers and workers in those

establishments from second-hand smoke. By the end of the year, however, New York City has adopted its new law and businesses had three months to prepare their facilities and clientele for a smoke free environment by the end of March 2003. Many bars and smaller restaurants took advantage of those three months to construct separate smoking areas and install costly ventilation systems that they anticipated would qualify them for exemptions from the ban, as had been negotiated. However, just days before the New York City ban was scheduled to go into effect, the New York State Legislature approved a statewide smoking ban in workplaces, including bars and restaurants, that was considerably more stringent than the City ordinance and superseded most of the exemptions that had been included in the City version. New York joined just five other states - California, Delaware, Utah, Vermont and Maine - that had implemented smoking bans at that time, and the severity of its provisions was only surpassed by the original Delaware law (which was subsequently weakened with respect to bars).

Since the passage in July 2003, a significant amount of evidence has suggested that New York's statewide smoking ban has negatively affected bars, clubs, and taverns across New York State. Countless media accounts have described a dramatic drop in customers for bars throughout the state, as well as a steep decline in bar revenue and significant jobs losses. To date, the only statistical evidence put forth to gauge the ban's economic impact has analyzed the combined revenue and job totals from both restaurants and bar industries. The following economic study is the first detailed economic analysis focused exclusively on the economic effects of the state smoking ban on New York State's bars. The major finding are that the passage of the state smoking ban in 2003 has directly resulted in a dramatic loss in revenue and jobs in New York's bars, taverns, and clubs. Specifically, the following statewide economic losses have occurred in New York's bar and tavern industry as a direct result of the statewide smoking ban:

* 2,000 jobs (10.7% of actual employment)

* $28.5 million in wages and salary payments

* $37 million in gross state product

In addition, there are indirect losses to other businesses which supply and service the state's bars and taverns:

* 650 jobs

* $21.5 million in labor earnings

* $34.5 million in gross state product

In summary,