I will smoke just to be spiteful now

[threeplusfire]

I would just like to give a big hearty FUCK YOU to the City Council of Austin for passing a smoking ordinance that will ban smoking everywhere except pool halls. Pool halls? What the fuck?

Don't fucking legislate my perfectly legal self destructive behaviour thank you very much. And expect some hateful furious emails tomorrow Council people. I'm out for blood.

How long til Metro gets a pool table I wonder?

Comments

[puella.livejournal.com]

Well I said they would be afraid of losing business because all of the clubs and bars here in Austin were very against the no-smoking policy because they said they would lose business. Also because no clubs have actually done that yet, because it's a big hassle and they don't have to and people will come anyway.

I agree that it seems like it wouldn't make them lose business. It seems to me like they wouldn't. I just think the clubs won't do it unless they have to.

Re:

[sammka.livejournal.com]

Of course a strict no-smoking policy will make them lose business. Non-smokers don't want to go somewhere that will make them go outside to smoke. The thing I was talking about is not a strict non-smoking policy, it's a compromise that doesn't seem to hurt their business at all.

I think the 'people will come anyway' theory depends on the region as a whole. Sure, there will be some people in every place that don't mind clouds of smoke, and some clubs cater specifically to those crowds. But other clubs know their clientele wants separate floors, and they make the move to accommodate them.

Look, clubs are businesses. If they have any serious reason to think a lot of people aren't coming to their club because it doesn't have a two-floors policy, they'll institute a two-floors policy. They're not going to need legislation in order to do something that will get them more business. And if one club owner is stupid enough not to adopt that policy, some other club owner will adopt it, and take all that business away from the first one. That's how the free market works.

Re:

[sammka.livejournal.com]

By the way, there don't seem to be any DC laws forcing clubs to have separate non-smoking and smoking floors, since I just remembered one that doesn't. So there must not be any such legislation. But the Black Cat, as I remember, does have the two-floors policy. So I feel pretty safe thinking that was just an idea they came up on their own, that happened to work out.