ASH has always maintained that smoking bans are good for business. ASH told politicians that the loss of pubs would not happen. They told us that a comprehensive ban was what 80% of us wanted.
We all know what followed – pub and club closures on a scale that defied all imagination. This was in spite of the warnings and practical experience from elsewhere. In Scotland and Ireland, pubs were closing at an alarming rate; both of these countries already had smoking bans.
Since July 1st, when Belgium launched her own smoking ban, the closure rate for bars and cafes rose by 40% over the same period last year.
One has to ask how many other mainland European countries’ pubs, bars and cafes are suffering the catastrophe that the UK and Belgium are suffering due to the health zealots’ demands to persecute smokers? That several countries experience the same disaster from the same cause is not a coincidence; it is not only the price of beer nor is it just taxation. The bar and café owners in Belgium are in no doubt about what has caused this decline – the common denominator is smoking bans!
Holland has learned that smoking bans kill businesses. The Greek people refuse to bow to pressure from the EU, WHO and the anti-smoking lobby. In some parts of Spain the message has already been driven home, as it has in parts of Paris and Germany, that smoking bans kill businesses.
Remember that smoking bans kill businesses. You will hear it again in 2012.