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How does Big Tobacco fool restaurant and bar owners into thinking cost-free smokefree measures are business poison — and the only antidote is an expensive, ineffective ventilation system or remodel?
- It pays for biased surveys and business studies.
- It distorts or ignores research results counter to its own propaganda.
- It repeats its own lies so often, people start to believe them.
How can you tell if smokefree measures affect the hospitality business? It's simple: look at actual business results before and after.
Methodologically-sound studies have examined the real impact of such measures on business revenues or employment in more than eighty U.S. locales and other places around the world. These studies are sound because:
- They use objective data (sales reported to tax authorities, or government employment or tourism statistics) collected by a neutral party with no interest in the secondhand smoke issue.
- They collect and analyze data for several years before the law went into effect so underlying economic trends, and seasonal and random variations, can be accounted for.
- They cover all hospitality businesses, not a biased few.
No properly conducted study shows a negative economic impact. Some even show that a smokefree measure improves business.
In the meantime, as evidence mounts about the dangers of secondhand smoke, so does the legal liability of employers — including restaurants.
In addition, here's what restaurant owners pay out of pocket so Big Tobacco can turn billion-dollar profits:
- Higher maintenance expenses (carpets, drapes, cloths, paintwork).
- Higher insurance premiums (fire, medical, workers comp, liability).
- Higher labor costs (absenteeism, productivity).
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