Monday 20 June 2011

Nevada allows food service in (smoking) bars

Acting on representations from the catering and hospitality trade Nevada prepares to allow food service in bars, and smoking in family restaurants where a separate room is available.

It appears that in Nevada, it is accepted that smoking restrictions (forcing establishments to choose between allowing smoking and providing a food service) have led to sharp drops in income for businesses. No guff about supermarket prices here.

The overturned bill that voters approved in 2006 banned the provision of food by smoking taverns. Although unlike Scottish law it allowed some provision for smokers, it still cost the hospitality industry heavily. More here. Here. the American Lung Association is protesting about potential loss of life – a tad melodramatically, since  secondary smoke is certainly not as lethal as they claim and quite possibly not lethal at all. Furthermore, nobody is banning the provision of proper air management/cleaning systems that clean air thoroughly.

More again here, from Marcus Aurelius, including a link on undue influence (Nicorette).

6 comments:

Xopher said...

How long before we get a 'Miracle increase' in heart attacks study but most important ---- how soon before increased trading figures are published?

Anonymous said...

Maybe a month ago, one of the LV papers talked about an upcoming anti-smoker's convention being planned in LV - just so they could come and b*tch about all the smoking in the casinos. Actually, it's not that bad. The casinos have heavy-duty air cleaning systems. But to think, anti-smokers would on purpose schedule a convention in a place known to permit smokers, which is a mainstay of the NV economy. This new law also may have permitted smoking on convention hall floors for conventions held by tobacconist societies. LV lost a huge multi-million dollar convention several years in a row now when smoking was banned on convention floors and there was no way to sample their wares. The largest tobacco convention in America ended up rebooking in New Orleans and said they would never come back to LV or NV again. This latest amendment to the law may have permitted that now too, hoping to woo back what was a huge, huge economic loss. NV's economic problems all began within months of when the smoking ban went into effect. It was the only thing anyone talked about on all the NV blogs and discussion boards, in Reno and Las Vegas both, bars and restaurants going under, people losing their business, employees losing their jobs. The state has been economically devastated beyond belief and all of it began within months of when the smoking ban first went into effect.

Belinda said...

What do they blame the economic downturn on in NV? In UK/Scotland it's always recession and supermarket prices.

Anonymous said...

The NV smoking ban was like the elephant in the room there too, blame was put on general recession nationwide overall along with housing ponzi crisis which has destroyed homeowner equity and put the vast majority upside down on their mortgages in combination with high unemployment. The official unemployment is somewhere around 9 to 10 percent, but someone in LV told me personally that everyone working cut-back hours these days already knows it's more like 33% cannot find work at all and it's back to the old juice-system, where you have to know someone to find work - there's just so little of it.

But because NV is stuck in the middle of nowhere with few other industries to support it - some ranching and mining, with gambling, drinking, smoking, eating and resort/hospitality industries as the main source of all economy, it may have been when they permanently lost the largest tobacconist convention in the US which booked in New Orleans and said they would never return to LV, that they woke up and smelled the gravy.

But smaller operators began complaining from day one that their businesses declined overnight, yet it took this long for anyone to do a serious amendment to the ban.

Realize, NV voted their ban in by popular election - but it was not an overwhelming majority, maybe only 51% to 54% range who said yes to the smoking ban.

The campaign was deceptive and anti-smoking used pure lies in their campaigning, such that immediately following the election, lawsuits were filed calling the whole thing such a lie filled campaign to request the courts overturn the ban entirely.

If you look at this year's George Mason University's annual ranking of US states by amount of liberty and freedom provided (http://mercatus.org/freedom-50-states-2011), you will see that NV comes in quite high at #6, where-as adjacent CA with its strict outdoor bans, NY and NJ, all come in at lowest of the low, bottom of the barrel, no freedom at all and ridiculous with the outdoor bans now inside CA cities, especially SF with its $500 fines for outdoor smoking and smoking at curbside only.

So in some ways, NV by doing this, helps re-enforce it's reputation of being a very libertarian state, still inhabited by freedom loving rugged individualists.

I hope this amendment remains permanent now but time will tell.

Belinda said...

That's interesting ... 'what does by popular election' mean: a ballot? Is the turnout known?

Anonymous said...

Yes - it was put up for popular vote in a standard 2006 election.

If you Google it online, you may find some propaganda pieces claiming it was "overwhelmingly" approved.

But the actual results were close and more like 52% to 54% voter approval (of those who bothered to vote which is never 100% election turnout). And that is not "overwhelming" voter approval or a "landslide" victory for the smoking ban.

However, there were two propositions put on the NV ballot that year, one to ban smoking, the other to legalize marijuana. And the anti-smoking people tricked some voters into voting for the smoking-ban by implying approval of one proposition would negate the other and vice-versa.

Thus they campaigned on a falsehood in general and also tried to scare people about legalizing marijuana, saying that illegalizing smoking would be more in the public interest - and thus voters would receive two "good" things. One, marijuana remains illegal. Two, tobacco smoking is banned.

So anti-smoking's influence in that election was believed to have resulted in getting a general "no" vote for marijuana legalization and a general "yes" vote to a comprehensive smoking ban.

I remember one of the first lawsuits filed against the smoking ban went to the issue of anti-smoking using outright lies, especially saying one proposition would pass if the other one did not, and vice versa - but the court turned down hearing the case.

But it was on a ballot that year, up for popular vote, in NV, OH and AZ and in all three states, the smoking bans were approved by voters.

Other states, such as CA for example, there never was a popular vote, it was simply dictated from on high about 16 years ago, effective immediately in all indoor areas except for bars, with bars being smoking banned starting a few years after it was banned everywhere else - since then of course moving to nearly all outdoor areas, but always by dictate, not popular election.