Onderzoeken economische schade rookverboden bedriegen het volk
Er wordt veel gemanipuleerd om aan te tonen dat rookverboden in de horeca geen economisch effect hebben. Dat wordt aangetoond door een uitgebreide analyse van de omzetten van bars en restaurants en de bijbehorende ‘objectieve’ onderzoeken, die deze week werd gepubliceerd door de SmokersClub.
De onderzoekers namen de onafhankelijke omzetcijfers van de Amerikaanse Kamer van Koophandel vanaf 1987, maakten onderscheid tussen staten mét en zonder rookverboden en hielden rekening met speciale gebeurtenissen als 9-11 en het effect van lokale ontheffingen op de rookverboden.
Rookverboden blijken erg duidelijk de omzetten van de branche negatief te beïnvloeden…
Conclusions:
Total bar and restaurant revenue growth in California and other smoker-unfriendly states did not keep pace with those states’ other retail businesses or our nation’s overall bar and restaurant retail growth 80% of the time. The overall order of magnitude of the bar and restaurant retail growth losses in all smoker unfriendly states, except Utah, was about 25%.
Bar and restaurant revenue growth in states with no smoking restrictions did as well as states with reasonable smoking restrictions. Claims the public demands smoking restrictions or eliminations, if true, would have caused states with no restrictions to lose bar and restaurant revenue growth relative to other retail revenue growth.
There were no regional business conditions that could have explained the bar and restaurant revenue losses California experienced from 1990 to 1998. Although California’s border states had overall retail revenue growth in excess of California’s even after adjusting for the overall retail growth data, California’s bar and restaurant businesses still lost growth than cannot be explained without considering the smoking bans.
Claims studies can only find smoking bans are bad for business when funded by Big Tobacco or its affiliates, or use anecdotal data are not true. We have shown smoking bans hurt bar and restaurant businesses 80% of the time using data from the U.S. Dept of Commerce. Further, most studies which find bans don’t hurt business are at odds with our conclusions because they use tax revenue and employment data to determine ban effects; and fail to measure for a sufficient length of time before bans take effect and a sufficient length of time after bans take effect.
ECONOMIC LOSSES DUE TO SMOKING BANS IN CALIFORNA AND OTHER STATES