An argument about smoking behind a bar led to man being stabbed in the throat with a pocketknife…
Ban Damage
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When people like Larry McCoy, below, tell their tales the Antismokers like to dismiss them not just as collateral damage but as “anecdotal evidence.”? We have some news for legislators:? When Aunt Molly stops in and says that Cousin Bridget lost her part time job as a waitress at Stinkin’ Sam’s Saloonery because of lay offs after a ban — that’s anecdotal evidence.? When we present the dozens, the scores, the hundreds reaching toward the thousands of such cases, many with direct quotes from the owners, or even multi-page detailed “Diaries of Disasters” like Sue Jeffer’s chronicle of life for a post-ban Minnesota bar, they are no longer just anecdotes: at those numbers they become real, hard, impossible to refute evidence.? And the “damage” is in no way “collateral” to those who suffer it.
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Here then is an email received by the Club from an old friend this week, Larry McCoy….
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Hi My name is Larry McCoy. I OWNED, a bar, poolroom and Niteclub in Prescott Valley, Arizona. I’ve been in business (not just the bar) for 35 years.
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I like to do a little research before I jump into a new venture. I spent a year going from bar to bar to see just how many people smoke in bars and I recorded it. Now I’ve been on the road for 43 years doing marketing, so I’m not shy. I’d just walk up to the people and ask if they normally smoke or not. Lots said no I don’t smoke but when I have a drink I like to have a smoke too. My findings were that 80% of the people in bars etc. smoke when they drink whether they normally smoke or not.? All of this of course took place way before the smoking ban.
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So I decided that opening a club/poolroom/bar was a pretty good idea. Well I opened up and for three years it made pretty good money. Then the smoking ban came in and the people didn’t anymore. I tried everything I could. TV ads, newspaper ads, flyers on cars (where permitted), bands, different formats for different nites, like Country Western one nite,? Hard Rock, Blues and Retro like 70’s and 80’s nite. Nothing worked, I managed to stay open for 5 years, filtering the profits from another business that was making it ok into the Bar to keep it open. After 5 years I was broke and was forced to close the Bar. I am now going into chapter 7 bankruptcy.?
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It’s my feeling that the smoking ban is what broke me. I’m not quitting: I’ll just find something else to market, there are still plenty of people who want something of theirs sold. I’m 63 years old now but haven’t drawn a salary (hourly wage) for 43 years. I am always amazed that a small but LOUD group of people can force a law into being passed. I believe that if the smoking ban issue were actually put on a ballot and given an honest and fair vote by the people who actually go to bars and restaurants that it would fail without doubt.
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Larry McCoy
(former owner) On The Snap Billiards/Niteclub
Prescott Valley, AZ
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Stakeout Stops Suspected Smugglers
September 10, 2007
KINGMAN, AZ – MAGNET narcotics task force officers arrested two Kingman residents after conducting a contraband smuggling stakeout at the Mohave County Jail. Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Trish Carter said officers spotted a vehicle stop near the jail Thursday at about 1:15pm.
“MAGNET further observed a person get out of the vehicle and put some items inside the gate and get back into the vehicle and drive away,” Carter said. She said the officers pulled over the suspect vehicle a short distance from the jail making contact with its occupants, Arthur Loren Kaufelt, 47, and Genece Rene Merritt, 43.
Both were arrested for taking contraband into a corrections facility. The items dropped inside the gate, tobacco products, were recovered by authorities.
Becky Bartkowski, The Arizona Republic
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“We can’t say there were any former issues,” Ragsdale said. Both men spoke the same foreign language, Ragsdale said.
Smoking Ban An Attack On Freedom
February 23, 2004
By Mark Brnovich
Arizonans Concerned About Smoking is pushing a statewide ban on smoking in private restaurants and bars. The group argues that a ban is necessary to protect the rights of nonsmokers to be in smoke-free environments. But ban proponents misunderstand the nature of rights in a free society.
I have a right to smoke, and I also have a right not to smoke. But I only have those rights when I’m on my own property. When I voluntarily walk into someone else’s bar or restaurant, my right to smoke or not to smoke is no longer an issue, because I’m on his property, not mine. If a bar owner chooses to allow smoking on his property, that’s his choice. He has every right to allow smoking, just as he has every right to serve apple pie.
A smoking ban is an attack on freedom and an attack on property rights. Proponents of the ban want government to grant them the power to walk onto someone else’s property and have things exactly the way they want them. And that means sending the police after business owners who do not bend to their will. Property owners who refuse to comply will risk fines and jail time.
Even if a majority of Arizonans favors the ban, that does not change the basic fact that a ban violates the rights of property owners. America’s founding fathers understood the dangers of unfettered majority rule. The U.S. Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, contains numerous direct and indirect provisions for the protection of property rights against democratic majorities. Similarly, the Arizona Constitution provides that our state and local governments “are established to protect and maintain individual rights.”
Government buildings are different, because they are not private property. Individuals have little choice about whether to enter a government structure. If you’re like me, you do not go voluntarily to the Motor Vehicle Division to get a new license or to the courthouse to fight a traffic ticket.
We could talk about the importance of property rights to the economy. After all, Arizona restaurant and bar owners have invested time, money and energy building their businesses, and they made those investments because they expected government would respect their property rights. If society is to remain productive, government cannot arbitrarily take away people’s rights to use their property as they wish. But the real issue is freedom: government cannot be allowed to infringe on the property rights of individuals.
We could also talk about the health of workers exposed to secondhand smoke, and the scientific research that has attempted-in vain-to find a link between environmental tobacco smoke and cancer. But even if environmental tobacco smoke were proven to cause substantial health risks, there would be no cause to regulate it in private establishments. When you walk into a smoky restaurant or bar, you can tell immediately that smoke is present, and you can choose to stay or leave. For comparison, it is infinitely more difficult to detect the presence of salmonella in a chicken sandwich, so a stronger case can be made for regulating the cleanliness of restaurant kitchens.
If you are looking for a smoke-free restaurant, you are in luck. Almost all restaurants nowadays choose to have separate smoking and nonsmoking sections, if they allow smoking at all. That is the product of the free market: Over the last 40 years, as smoking has declined in America, nonsmokers have demanded smoke-free restaurants, and business owners have supplied them.
If you are looking for a smoke-free bar, you will have a more difficult time. But if a bar is too smoky for you, go to another one, or open your own bar and cater to nonsmokers. Either way, you have no right to use government to force an owner to make his private property smoke-free. By imposing such restrictions, the proponents of a smoking ban risk causing more harm to society than secondhand smoke could ever do.
Mark Brnovich, J.D., is Director of the Goldwater Institute Center for Constitutional Government.
