How Does Banning Smoking Affect Restaurants?
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Smoking Bans
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In 1990, San Luis Obispo, California, became the first city to ban smoking in all public places. Since that time, smoking bans have become fairly commonplace around the world. Smoke-free air is better than air filled with cigarette smoke, which is not a secret. However, secondhand smoke is thought to play an intricate role in physical disorders that are directly related to asthma, lung cancer and heart disease.
According to the Center for Disease Control, in the United States, heart disease is the leading cause of death, which equates to an American having a heart attack every 25 seconds.To stop this medical outcome, smoking has been banned in specific public places, such as restaurants.
The Effect
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Smoking bans in restaurants and other public places have reduced heart attacks among non-smokers. Before smoking was banned in most public places, in 2006, over 126 million non-smokers were exposed to cigarette smoke on a regular basis, according to the surgeon general.
The comprehensive smoke-free laws that ban smoking in public places (i.e., the workplace, bars, and restaurants), protect 41 percent of people from second-hand smoke in 21 states, according to Stephen Feinberg, a statistician at Carnegie Mellon University. This particular health benefits means smoking bans have had a positive effect on restaurants and society as a whole.
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Economic Effect
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Smoking bans have impacted health-related issues in a positive way, though some business owners believed this would negatively affect their profits. Currently, over 60 percent of the United States population lives in a place where there are smoke-free laws. However, smoking bans have not had any significant impact on restaurant owners' bottom line. According to the Washington State Department of Revenue, businesses that were thought to be negatively affected by smoking bans showed an economic gain in 2008.
Turnover Rates
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A restaurant employee survives off tips, and because smoking and eating were thought to go hand in hand, representatives of the hospitality industries were concerned that turnover rates would increase in establishments where smoking laws were enforced. In order to dismiss this worry, researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Minnesota conducted a study.
Researchers used data collected from the Minnesota Department of Employment from 10 cities in Minnesota that had smoke-free laws. The study concluded that there were no noteworthy changes in employment from 2003 to 2006.
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