Anti-smokers destroying small business.

[TexKan]

The only non smoking place I know of is the Moose. If you are a member you can always get a good drink - if ya can catch em open and the food usually is pretty good but nuthin compared to other places. Course ya know Cattlemans does have a very large non smokin area where ya can get a good meal and a good drink. There ain't no gutter draggin bar that ain't in a haze of smoke!! I think all the non smokin bars are gonna be closer to those fu fu drinks you speak of!!

[Bubba]

Originally Posted by notyoubob

...Ah, a former smoker can only dream, I guess...

I'm a former smoker, and I don't see a problem. My motto is "Get over it." There are a lot more things in this world that will kill you quicker than second hand smoke. I don't worry about any of them, when it's your time to go, you are going to go no matter what precautions you try to take.

[Made in the USA]

I think the Spare Tyme Bar & Grill, at the bowling alley, is non-smoking on Sunday's---- Besides that, everyone knows that if ya are a drinkin', ya gotta be smoking something---even if it's a brisket------- On the other hand, I want a bar that's smoking, but drinking is not allowed!!

[Bubba]

The Dodge City Commissioners are going to discuss banning smoking in public in Dodge City at the city commission meeting on Monday 10/16 at 7 pm. They are looking for input from citizens. I am planning on going and trying to overcome my fear of public speaking and let them know that I think it is something for business owners not the government to decide. I would appreciate some support to let them know it is a bad idea. They need to know the facts, not the propoganda and faulty studies.

[wordsmythe]

Good luck with that. Fear of public speaking is ranked the number one fear even over the fear of death among business professionals.

[Made in the USA]

Originally Posted by Bubba

The Dodge City Commissioners are going to discuss banning smoking in public in Dodge City at the city commission meeting on Monday 10/16 at 7 pm. They are looking for input from citizens. I am planning on going and trying to overcome my fear of public speaking and let them know that I think it is something for business owners not the government to decide. I would appreciate some support to let them know it is a bad idea. They need to know the facts, not the propoganda and faulty studies.

Bubba, I saw that and was going to attend, but I have to be out of town now. I agree with your way of thinking. Just one more brick in the wall to becoming a socialist country. I heard on the radio that some Garden City Businesses are going to file a suit against the law over there.

[lurker]

A sniplet of Fred Reed's screed about living in Mexico kinda shows us who we are:

Bear in mind that the United States is far more powerful than Mexico, and far richer, and that America and Americans are by nature meddlesome. At the national level the US tries to impose democracy, change “regimes,” and dictate social policy in all sorts of countries. At the level of the individual, Americans, certainly those in Mexico, try to pass leash laws, make horses wear diapers, regulate smoking, and set closing hours for bars. Neither the US nor most of its people grasp that some things are simply not their business.

Protecting Mexico from such intrusiveness is a concern of the government here.

Politics? No, you may not engage in politics. I am not sure why Americans think they should be permitted to, but I know why Mexicans think that they should not. In the Yankee enclaves, they would take over and run things as they wanted, not as Mexicans want. They would want rules, regulations, correct attitudes, laws, laws, laws.

[notyoubob]

Tue Sep 26, 7:58 AM ET
DALLAS (Reuters) - A Colorado city ban on smoking at
workplaces and in public buildings may have sparked a
steep decline in heart attacks, researchers reported
on Monday.

In the 18 months after a no-smoking ordinance took
effect in Pueblo in 2003, hospital admissions for
heart attacks for city residents dropped 27 percent,
according to the study led by Dr. Carl Bartecchi, a
clinical professor of medicine at the University of
Colorado School of Medicine in Denver.

"Heart attack hospitalizations did not change
significantly for residents of surrounding Pueblo
County or in the comparison city of Colorado Springs,
neither of which have non-smoking ordinances," said
the American Heart Association, which published the
study in its journal Circulation.

The association said this was further evidence of the
damage wrought by secondhand smoke.

"The decline in the number of heart attack
hospitalizations within the first year and a half
after the non-smoking ban that was observed in this
study is most likely due to a decrease in the effect
of secondhand smoke as a triggering factor for heart
attacks," it said.

It said the researchers had taken into account other
variables such as air pollution and community-wide
changes in preventive care and concluded that they did
not have an impact on their findings.

The American Heart Association estimates that more
than 35,000 nonsmokers die each year in the United
States from coronary heart disease because they inhale
secondhand smoke.

Working-class Pueblo has a higher percentage of
smokers -- 22.6 percent -- than the statewide average
of 18.6 percent.

"Adopting a non-smoking ordinance has the potential to
rapidly improve the cardiovascular health of a
community," Bartecchi said in a statement.

Pueblo forbids smoking in indoor workplaces and all
public buildings, including restaurants, bars and
recreational facilities such as bowling alleys.

"You can save lives with drugs and expensive,
sophisticated devices, but this single community
action led to 108 fewer heart attacks in an 18-month
period," Bartecchi said.

"Each hospital admission for a heart attack costs an
average of $20,000 here in Pueblo," he said. "So in
addition to saving lives, non-smoking ordinances also
save a lot of money."

[Bubba]

After reading that article, it brings to mind a quote by Paul Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, who once said, "If repeated often enough, a lie will become the new truth."

A study can have any outcome you want it to, it all depends on who is doing it, what information they are looking at, and who is paying them to do the study. These and many other factors determine the outcome of a study.

In the 18 months after a no-smoking ordinance took
effect in Pueblo in 2003, hospital admissions for
heart attacks for city residents dropped 27 percent,
according to the study led by Dr. Carl Bartecchi, a
clinical professor of medicine at the University of
Colorado School of Medicine in Denver.

For all anybody knows there was a 27 percent decline in the population in the 18 month period after the ban took effect. That would be one way to have a 27 percent decline in heart attacks. Another way to show a decline is to exclude certain groups from the study, maybe they excluded the elderly, or maybe they excluded smokers, maybe they excluded patients with a previous history of heart disease. They are an endless number of ways to skew a study to get the outcome that you are looking for.

[Highwayman]

Originally Posted by Bubba

....A study can have any outcome you want it to, it all depends on who is doing it, what information they are looking at, and who is paying them to do the study. These and many other factors determine the outcome of a study....

From the Colorado Springs Business Journal;

....But Milloy, the publisher of JunkScience.com and Junk Science Judo: Self Defense Against Health Scares and Scams, said the study methodology used in both research projects was inappropriate for linking banning smoking with fewer heart attacks. Milloy has a bachelor's degree in natural sciences from Johns Hopkins University, where he also received a master of health sciences in biostatistics, a juris doctorate from the University of Baltimore and a master's degree in law from Georgetown University's law center. He has written several books and reports debunking scientific studies that he calls agenda-based.The Helena and Pueblo study are his pet peeves, Milloy said. The Helena study was all about cherry picking. There was no historical context, and it (the decrease in heart attack rates) appeared to be a part of a cyclical pattern, he said.Milloy also said that one of the hospitals included in the Helena study lost its cardiologist, so fewer cardiac patients were sent there. It was a poor study design, he said. There were no patient histories considered, so there was no determination of individual cardiovascular risk profiles or the actual cause of observed heart attacks in individuals. There was not enough historical date to compare. No doubt heart attack rates vary through time.It's a lousy analysis with no biological plausibility - a crude statistical study. I am not saying we shouldn't look into this, but we shouldn't be drawing conclusions from this. It's junk science. Dan Ponder, an associate professor of political science who teaches statistics at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said Milloy is right about the study's lack of history. I'd like to see data from the last 10 years, Ponder said. They just studied this for a year and a half, and the conclusions could be coincidental or caused by other factors. He likened the Pueblo study to one that had been done in the 1950s in Connecticut about a seat belt ordinance. A year-to-year comparison following implementation of the ordinance concluded that it was responsible for a significant decline in vehicular fatalities. However, Ponder said, data also showed that the year prior was a record year for ice on the road.....

How’s business in Pueblo?

....Some business owners in Pueblo were concerned about the affect the smoking ban would have on their livelihoods and campaigned against the ordinance, said Rod Slyhoff, president and chief executive officer of the Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce. From our observation, the small taverns - venues that don't specialize in food - felt a bigger impact, Slyhoff said.He said the Green Light Tavern's business is off 30 to 40 percent and the staff has decreased from four to five employees to two. But they just got a permit to build a sidewalk cafe on the side of the building. Slyhoff said a few neighborhood bar owners - those most affected by the ordinance - have built patio areas to mitigate their losses. He, too, questioned the lack of history behind the study.....

Steven Milloy debunks claims that Pueblo's smoking ban helped Colorado Springs Business Journal - Find Articles