Smokers will still go to all the same places that they went before the ban so it really doesn't affect anyone except the non-smokers....who now don't have to breathe in other peoples poison through no choice of their own.
And that same logic could be applied to jcr's post. Smoking ban should have little to no effect on a business.
I'm a smoker, I smoke a lot. I despise secondhand smoke. I am totally for banning smoking in public places. However, I do believe there should be more designated smoking areas (at least in America). I'm the type of smoker that will hide my cigarette if I pass children or I will hold in the breath if I am next to someone without cigarette. I feel that if I don't like secondhand smoke, as a smoker, than they wont like it either.
In regards to clubs and bars and the like, just go outside. Elderly that are too cold to sit outside for fear of death probably shouldn't be out to eat in the first place and stepping outside and smoking actually helps me sober up and drink more.
Pub trade suffering from smoking ban Pubs across the country have lost so much trade as a result of the smoking ban that some are now entitled to a tax cut. By Patrick Hennessy
Published: 1:21PM GMT 08 Nov 2008
The hardest-hit establishments could be in line for reductions in their business rates, potentially worth thousands of pounds a year, according to newly-disclosed official documents.
The decision has come about because tax inspectors, after consulting legal counsel, now accept that the smoking ban represents a "material change" to the trading position of pubs.
Related Articles When the ban was first introduced in July 2007, amid claims by health campaigners than smoke-free would attract more drinkers into pubs, tax inspectors said that the new law would not represent a material change in either direction to their trading position.
As a result of the initial flawed advice, the Government's Valuation Office Agency (VOA) refused to give pubs any rate reduction for loss of business.
Last night the Conservatives accused ministers of "ripping off" of pubs and "covering up" vital information that could stop locals going out of business. Currently four are closing every day according to the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA).
The blunder was exposed after Tories obtained previously-unpublished guidance from the VOA on how firms should be charged business rates.
Pubs can now use the finding that the smoking ban is harming their trade to make a claim to lower the "rateable value" of their premises – cutting their bills every year. However, they can only do so if they make an application, fill out complex forms and, in the words of the VOA, "satisfy the general requirements for validity including sufficient wording to identify the nature and date of the change".
The Government has made no announcement about the potential for tax reductions for pubs.
Eric Pickles, the shadow local government secretary, said: "Whilst massive pub chains may be making money out of Labour's 24-hour drinking laws, small everyday pubs are suffering from the onslaught of higher beer taxes, a weakening economy, supermarkets selling alcohol below cost price and the public smoking ban.
"Whatever people's views on the smoking ban, it has been a significant change that has affected many pubs. The Government's own tax inspectors have now admitted that pubs may be eligible for refunds on their business rates, but pub owners are being intentionally kept in the dark on this U-turn. This is yet another tax cover-up from the same bureaucrats who have conspired to hide council tax errors.
"Thanks to Whitehall secrecy and this stealth pub tax, local firms are going to the wall and everyday pub goers are being hit in the wallet."
The VOA's guidance on setting ratable values, updated in June this year to include advice on the smoking ban, states: "It was not considered that this change [the smoking ban] could constitute a MCC [material change of circumstance] and earlier versions of this advice reflected this. Advice from counsel now shows this view to be wrong that the ban on smoking can be a matter affecting the physical enjoyment of a hereditament.
"In considering smoking ban proposals, VOs [valuation officers] need to envisage what rent would be have been paid for the hereditament at the AVD [original valuation date] assuming the ban was then in place affecting both the subject premises and other premises ... Proposals citing the ban on smoking should be re-examined."
Unlike council tax, business rates are based on the 'rateable value' of the property. For every pound that this rateable value is increased or decreased, the final business rates bill will rise or fall by 44p – so a reduction in rateable value of £5,000 because of the smoking ban would see a pub's business rate fall by £2,200 a year.
The BBPA estimates that pubs – hit by the effects of the ban, declining consumer confidence and the credit crunch, are now closing at the rate of 27 a week. This is seven times faster than in 2006 and 15 times faster than in 2005.
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http://www.telegraph...moking-ban.html TelegraphNews
Politics Get feed updates News Get feed updates Drinks Get feed updates Tobacco Get feed updates Finance Get feed updates Smoking ban leaves pubs worse for wear Robert Lea and Simon English, Evening Standard
16 June 2008, 1:21pm
Reader comments (1) One year ago, the smoking ban - a law some said would devastate Britain's pubs - came into place.
Profits up in smoke: Pubs have suffered after the smoking ban
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The big landlords have endured a tough 12 months, but critics say they have hardly helped themselves. The industry has been slow to adapt to consumer demands, failed to lure in different customers at different times of the day with a diverse range of offers - decent coffee, free Wi-Fi and complementary copies of the Evening Standard - to go with beer and proper food in the evening.
Steven Moore, analyst at Growth Equities & Company Research, said: 'A key differentiator looks to have been the swiftness and ability of companies to respond with the provision of outside spaces with covering, lighting and heaters.
'Although the climate the companies now find themselves in is undeniably challenging, there is some encouragement.
'The evidence from Scotland, where the smoking ban came in earlier, is that customers are drifting back as they get used to the ban.'
Which pub groups are still sparkling and which are suffering from a major hangover?
Mitchells & Butlers An annus horribilis for the owner of All Bar One and O'Neill's. A disastrous piece of financial engineering intended to bring value out of its properties left it nursing a loss of £274m. In the six months to April, M&B had sales of £995m. while profits dipped £5 million to £84m.
Best London pub: The Flask, Hampstead. Punch Taverns Britain's largest landlord has had a rotten year. Its shares have collapsed by 70% as beer sales fell 10% with total
<a href="http://www.thisismon.../like-for-like" target="_blank" class="jargon">like-for-like sales 3% worse and halfyear profits down 20%. Falling volumes and customer numbers have come at a time of rising energy and food costs.
Best London pub: The Three Compasses, Hornsey. Enterprise Inns The sprawling tenanted and leased pubs chain includes many thousands of country locals, which have had to work harder to repair the trade of the lost bar-propping smoker.
Its shares have fallen 35% in a year - not as much as others because of a likely change in tax status to a real estate
investment trust, which will boost to shareholder
dividend payments. Latest reports talk of an upturn in trade, though profits have been falling more than 10%.
Best London pub: Portobello Gold, Notting Hill. Marston's Best known for its Pedigree bitter, its pubs include some stalwarts of the City as well as the Pitcher & Piano chain. With the shares more than halved in a year and the latest figures showing profits down by almost 20%, 'resilient' was the best that chief executive Ralph Findlay could come up with when comparing his bars with the competition.
Findlay quipped that he would not bar the Chancellor of the Exchequer like other chains have done over the latest duty hikes; Marston's, said the chief executive, needs all the trade it can get.
Best London pub: Pavilion End, Watling Street in the City. JD Wetherspoon The most controversial pub chain among beer drinkers. It goes out of its way to offer a wide range of beers, and at cheaper prices - often a fifth less expensive - than you might find in the next pub up the road.
However, its pubs, which are all managed, are often decried as soulless, manufactured places. Its shares have cratered 60% since the fag ban, despite it leading the way by banning smoking in much of its estate even before it had to.
Sales are down by 1.5% over the last reported nine months. However, there seems to have been a pick-up in trading during the spring as it turned its pubs into all-day drop-in centres that offer breakfast, tea and coffee from 9am.
Best London pub: Hamilton Hall on Bishopsgate. Greene King It's not long since the company behind IPA and Old Speckled Hen was unveiling record profits. The chain of pubs, which includes the Loch Fyne seafood group, made £71m in the six months to December, but since then things have slowed.
Mark Brumby at Blue Oar Securities says: 'In a difficult market, Greene King understands the importance of staying very, very close to what's happening on the ground.
'The company is an immensely solid operator but times are tough.'
Best London pub: The Salt House, St John's Wood Fuller Smith & Turner Chairman Michael Turner has boldly gone where few have dared to tread, insisting that 'wet' pubs (ones that don't do food) can still thrive if the beer and the surroundings are good. In the 12 months to March, it pushed profits up by 4% to £23m. While others say pubs that don't do food will die, Turner insists beer is the future.
Best London pub: The Pilot, Greenwich. Public smoking ban hits pubs' beer sales Pubs have sold 175 million fewer pints in the past year as a direct result of the smoking ban, according to market analysts AC Nielsen.
Jake Shepherd, marketing director AC Nielsen, said: 'The winter months were particularly bad. Sales fell nine per cent through November to January when smokers would have been reluctant to stand outside in the cold to have a cigarette.'
Sales of wine were not hit as hard, dropping four per cent after the ban. Shepherd said: 'Wine has held up somewhat better than other drinks, benefiting from the increasing importance of food and women to the trade.' Cigarette sales have dropped 6 per cent since 1 July last year with smokers buying 2 billion fewer cigarettes between 1 July 2007 and April 2008.