Defiance: WI Madison Page 3

Dave Wiganowsky: Mayor must realize most taverns are suffering under smoking ban

4/14/07
Dear Editor: Let me congratulate Mayor Dave Cieslewiz on his win — all his hard work paid off.

In a TV interview after Ray Allen had conceded, the reporter asked him how he liked the smoke-free environment at the High Noon Saloon. He said it was great and he worked to get the smoking ban passed. He also stated that it had really helped business.

I don’t believe he lied about something as serious as this, so he must just be misinformed. Some businesses say they have not been hurt by the ban and the Restaurant Association supports a statewide ban. However, most taverns have been severely hurt. Hardworking business people have lost their investments and have had to close — Hammertime, Northside, The Runway, The Buckeye, Anchor Inn, Bennett’s on Park, and there are more mom and pop operations that will have to shut down.

People are stressed when they lose their livelihood and lose what they have worked so hard for all their lives.

Madison may have issued more new licenses but most of those are to large corporations for restaurants and four are at the airport.

Madison said this was to protect the employees’ health because secondhand smoke kills, yet the city exempted five clubs and added two more later. If secondhand smoke kills, is the city of Madison then killing the employees of those private clubs?

The mayor claims everyone he talks to is happy about the ban, but he should drive around on most any night, especially Friday and Saturday nights in Monona, Burke, Westport or any other surrounding municipality and then compare their tavern business to Madison’s. Many of the nonsmokers are following their friends who smoke to places outside of Madison.

People are driving farther to smoke and drink, putting more drunken drivers on the road.

The debate is not over if secondhand smoke is good or bad for you — it’s about freedom of choice. People have not quit smoking because of the ban, and if cigarettes are that bad, then why has the city not banned the sale of them?

The Madison/Dane County Tavern League and the Coalition to Save Madison Jobs are willing to meet with the mayor to help find a solution that works for everyone. Remember, Mr. Mayor, you represent all of Madison residents and businesses, not just a select group.

Dave Wiganowsky
Madison

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East Side Bar Closing; Smoking Ban Cited

March 30, 2007
Ben Fischer, Wisconsin State Journal

The Hammer Time bar on Madison’s East Side will close on April 15 after months of money troubles – just the first of many economic casualties sure to be caused by the city’s 9-month-old smoking ban, the owners and their allies said Wednesday.

But financial difficulties already plagued the location when the current owners, Bob Tague and Carla Hammerschmidt, bought it in June 2004.

That was two months after the City Council first approved the ban.

When the couple bought the bar, formerly known as Vial’s Lake Edge Tavern, the asking price reflected $58,800 in needed repairs, money owed to vendors and back taxes, according to court documents.

Also, they were sued by the former owner, Eugene Vial, in November for not keeping up with payments, a claim they dispute. Vial could not be reached for comment.

Despite the past troubles, the bar did well under new management, the couple and a vendor said Wednesday. Revenues only dropped off after the ban took effect in July 2005.

“This was a profitable business for a year,” Tague said.

But the history of financial difficulties at the location, along with the decision to buy a tavern business after the ban was approved, led some observers Wednesday to doubt the connection between the ban and the shutdown.

“Anytime someone goes out of business, it’s unfortunate,” said Ald. Zach Brandon, who voted for the ban. “But to automatically and exclusively say it had everything to do with the smoking ban? That’s not fair.”

In the two years since the ban was first proposed, even the measure’s most ardent supporters have agreed it would likely hurt bars, especially small neighborhood establishments near city limits, like Hammer Time.

Tague defended his decision to purchase the property while the ban was looming.

“I was hoping that maybe the City Council would overrule, or maybe think about what they’re doing on all the bars,” he said.

The Bank of Sun Prairie foreclosed on the property, at 109 Cottage Grove Road, on Feb. 28, after first declaring the mortgage in default in November, according to court records.

Other bar owners reported permanent drop-offs in revenue compared to pre-ban time periods. But none would say whether they were in danger of going out of business.

Homer Simpson, owner of Antlers Tavern on West Broadway, said even if he’s not closing his doors, operating profits have sunk to near zero and the sale value has sharply declined.

“What’s my bar worth now?” he said. “I can’t get out of it what I put into it.”

In a statement, the Tobacco Free Dane County Coalition called Hammer Time’s closing a “smokescreen” and pointed to statistics showing positive growth in the restaurant and bar sector overall under the ban.

Steve Holtzman, a former city councilman who spearheaded the ban in 2004, said Tague and Hammerschmidt bought the bar while others were adjusting.

“Whereas the typical phase- in period for this type of legislation is 30 to 90 days,” said Holtzman. “In this case, we had a full 14 months so people could be well aware it was coming and make changes.”

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WisPolitics: Madison Mayoral Candidates Debate Smoking Ban, Business Climate
3/8/2007
By Andy Szal, WisPolitics Staff
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz Thursday tried to pin down challenger Ray Allen on whether he would fight to preserve Madison’s smoking ban today at a WisPolitics luncheon at the Madison Club.
Allen said he would defer to the state Legislature if lawmakers decided to approve a state-wide policy, saying it was the best route because it would create a level playing field.
“I think the smoking ban is best done at the state level,” said Allen, who declined to answer a question from Cieslewicz on whether he would veto any attempts by the City Council to repeal the measure. Cieslewicz has actively supported the 18-month-old ban, saying that he “weathered a recall” over his actions.
Read More

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Bar owners go after ban on smoking

December 6, 2006
Bill Novak

Bar owners in Madison are once again rattling their sabers, or perhaps their lungs, in another attempt to make changes to the city’s smoking ban.

Using results from their own informal survey, the Coalition to Save Jobs claims some parts of the city favor smoking in bars and taverns.

But anti-smoking advocates, including Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, say the unscientific survey is just a smokescreen, and most Madisonians want to keep the 18-month-old ban just as it is.

Multiple attempts to repeal the ban have failed, as has an effort to put the issue to a referendum. Now, it appears there is no council member willing to put the issue back on the table.

Despite this, the coalition – led by north side bar owner Dave Wiganowsky – continues to push the issue in advance of this spring’s City Council elections. They sent their survey to five aldermanic districts that Wiganowsky called “swing votes.”

Five hundred voters were selected at random in each district to receive the 14-question, one-page survey, and between 60 to 90 people in each aldermanic district responded to the survey, the coalition reported.

The first district to get the survey, a part of the southwest side represented by Ald. Zach Brandon, was a calculated move, Wiganowsky said.

“He came to my bar and said 83 percent of my district doesn’t smoke,” Wiganowsky said of Brandon. “We told him to ask people about smoking in taverns, so he said if we could prove it, he would change his vote.”

Not so fast, Brandon said.

“I’ve asked to see the raw data from the survey and they refused to show it to me,” he told The Capital Times. “I offered them a hardship exemption without the bar owners having to show proof of hardship, and they refused. I offered a referendum without having to get signatures, and they refused. I gave every possible concession short of overturning the law, and they refused.”

One of the survey questions was a direct dig at Brandon’s business, Laundry 101, a laundry service at 437 W. Gilman St. that has a liquor license.

The survey question, “do you support laundromats being licensed to sell tobacco or alcohol?” was met with a resounding no.

Brandon said he’s never allowed smoking in his business, so the question was a bit unfair to him.

Brandon also is upset how the coalition has attacked him personally in interviews.

“They threatened to boycott my business and picket in front of my home,” he said. “Enough is enough. They can’t figure out why I don’t trust them.”

The unscientific survey was answered by 71 voters in Brandon’s district. Of those, 49 percent said “no” when asked if smoking should be banned in bars, while 40 percent said “yes.” But 48 percent said they were in favor of the smoking ban overall, while 42 percent said they were not in favor of it, and a vast majority, 85 percent to 11 percent, said smoking should be banned from restaurants.

Similar results were shown in the four other aldermanic districts surveyed by the coalition, including those represented by Paul Van Rooy, Noel Radomski, Lauren Cnare and Larry Palm.

Former Ald. Dorothy Borchardt, who helped form the Coalition to Save Jobs, said she was encouraged by the survey results.

“The survey tells us citizens are more in tune to the hardship the smoking ban has brought to small businesses and their employees than the alders that represent them,” Borchardt said in an e-mail to the alders whose districts have been surveyed.

Wiganowsky said the coalition had been moribund in recent months, with little positive coming out of their efforts, including three votes by the city council to reaffirm the decision to ban smoking.

“We may not get conditions back to where it was, but maybe we can get the law changed to where if you have 70 percent of your sales in alcohol, you can smoke,” Wiganowsky said.

While Wiganowsky was buoyed by the survey, city leaders and anti-smoking activists threw water on the fire.

“The public is overwhelmingly supportive of the smoking ban,” Cieslewicz said. “I still get people telling me they are so thankful for us doing it. I don’t see any chance for changes to the city ordinance.”

Radomski, who isn’t running for re-election , said surveys wouldn’t stop him from again affirming the smoking ban.

Maureen Busalacchi, executive director of Smoke-Free Wisconsin, said the city can’t afford to allow smoking in bars anymore.

“This kind of thing saves lives,” Busalacchi said. “These are the kind of policies that are going to help reduce health care costs.”