Dear Lawmaker
If a smoking ban is as popular as the proponents say, we wouldn't need a law to enforce it. This infringement on private property rights is based on a EPA meta study of second hand smoke that was thrown out in Federal Court as being invalid.[1] No study has proven a link with second hand smoke and cancer. Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, commenting on the New York smoking ban, has stated that "the role of environmental tobacco smoke in the development of chronic diseases is without scientific basis. There is no evidence that any New Yorker - patron or employee - has ever died as a result of exposure to smoke. The link between secondhand smoke and premature death . . . is a real stretch".The bar and restaurant business is fiercely competitive, and owners are smart enough to do everything they can to increase their profits. If banning smoking really were good for their business, wouldn't they have discovered it already, and wouldn't that make laws mandating bans unnecessary?
Other states that have passed a statewide ban are experiencing significant economic losses due to their smoking bans.
New York State's public smoking ban has resulted in dramatic economic losses in bars and taverns across the state. This reduction translates into a negative overall economic impact in 2003 of more than $70 million in economic activity, $50 million in lost wages and the elimination of more than 2650 jobs statewide. These dramatic economic losses to the state should be factored into the public policy debate going forward.[2] There are plenty of small bars in many different states that directly link the demise of their businesses and job loss to smoking bans. One upset owner in Illinois placed a sign outside that indicated the smoking ban was destroying his business. Sign reads, "NONSMOKERS WHERE ARE YOU? WE'RE GOING BROKE!"
...White Elephant bartender Jim Harcrow, 32, of Illinois says he doesn't need the state to make health decisions for him. He needs a job: "I'd rather deal with a bar full of smoke and get paid than work 18 hours a week and have to stand in line to get food stamps." Apply the 10% economic loss related to New York's smoking bans to the 2005 North Carolina Division of Tourism, Film and Sports Development's, 2005 Economic Impact of Travel on NC Counties, the smoking ban has the potential to cost North Carolina 18,522 tourism jobs. Or apply 10% to the 15 billion dollars that North Carolina tourism and hospitality contributes to North Carolina's economy and that would translate into a 150 million-dollar drop in tourism revenue. This isn't even considering the negative economic impact it will have on farmers and the ripple effect on the rest of North Carolina's other businesses. Now that the economic downturn of smoking bans has become apparent in places that have passed these bans it has translated into voters turning up in mass to remove lawmakers who voted for bans that cost people their businesses and livelihoods.
Smoking ban proponents say they just want this one ban and it will end. If history is any indication this assurance is patently false, first it was no smoking in planes, then in public government offices, now they want to classify private businesses as public places and ban smoking there as well, here in North Carolina. The non-smoking lobby agenda has been exposed by their actions in California and finally a few are saying enough. You won�t be able smoke outside. You won�t be able to smoke in your car or in your apartment. If you can come up with the $900,000 median price, you can buy a stand-alone house and smoke there � at least for now. This final refuge for smokers is surely the next target of the prohibitionist regulators.[3]
Is the smoking ban a grassroots movement? Hardly smoking bans are well financed by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). RWJF organization, the source of hundreds of millions of dollars for smoking bans,was created by the founder of Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical, Robert Wood Johnson, who also serves as the chairman of RWJF. Johnson & Johnson sales several smoking cession products like, Nicoderm. The success of smoking bans translates into multi-millions in profits. So if they are the funding source for most research that links everything from ingrown toenails to pimples to second hand smoke shouldn't those studies become highly suspect? RWJF's own web site lists all the groups and studies they fund to support smoking bans.[4] The board of directors of RWJF is a whos who of big pharmaceutical, representing several prescription smoking cession products.
Sincerely,
One Concerned Citizen
1. Judge William Osteen of the Middle District of North Carolina, July 17, 1998, ruling throwing out the EPA study on the links of second hand smoke and cancer. http://www.forces.org/evidence/epafraud/files/osteen.htm
2. O'Connor, Brian, Ph.D, ed. The Economic Impact of the New York State Smoking Ban of New York's Bars and Taverns, Ridgewood Economic Associates REA, Ltd. 2004, http://www.faac.ca/content/economic%20impact/smokingbanreport.pdf
3. Smith-Heisters, Smoking-ban expansion should worry, The Examiner, San Francisco, Feb 16,2007,
4. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Official Website http://www.rwjf.org/portfolios/interestarea.jsp?iaid=143