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by CigarBoy
on Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:31 am |
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Folks remember when the chamber of commerce used to support free trade, commerce and less government intervention in the marketplace? Forget it, the liberal ideology has taken over in the N. Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.
The N. KY C of C has come out in support of a staewide smoking ban and in raising the tobacco taxes in Ky. Those are the two things that give Ky a competitive advantage over their neighboring states.
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No. Ky. pushes smoking ban
Business group also seeks higher cigarette taxes
BY KARI WETHINGTON AND PATRICK CROWLEY | KWETHINGTON@NKY.COM, PCROWLEY@NKY.COM
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Northern Kentucky's largest business group is calling on state lawmakers to ban smoking in most public places and increase the state's cigarette tax by 25 cents.
While the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce has advocated higher cigarette taxes in the past, this is the first time it has pushed for a smoking ban.
http://news.nky.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/AB/20071130/NEWS0103/711300372
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CigarBoy
Enthusiastic Smoker
Joined: Dec 09, 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Cincinnati, OH
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by CigarBoy
on Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:36 am |
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Peter Bronson
The Enquirer » Local News » 'A dog walks into a bar ... "
'A dog walks into a bar ... "
Norton's Café in Newport, KY is right where a neighborhood bar belongs - in the middle of a neighborhood, at the corner of Elm and Patterson streets. And it's just what a neighborhood bar should look like: Brick as dark as a glass of stout on the outside, and dim and cozy inside, with wisps of smoke coiling in shafts of filtered sunlight.
The regulars have their own reserved spots at the wooden bar, which has been varnished by elbows to the color of aged bourbon. "Everybody knows where everybody sits," says a bearded guy who calls himself "Zig - Z-I-G, that's it."
There are three men at the end of the bar in their usual spots, and one more about five stools away. The bartender, Melissa Boles, pops a can of Bud for a customer. And Henry sleeps on the floor.
Everyone knows Henry. He's 15 years old, one of the regulars. And everyone knows that if someone has a little too much to drink (which has been known to happen), Henry will walk them home.
Henry has blue-gray eyes that show the first gathering clouds of cataracts. In dog years, he's 105. Which is appropriate, because he's a dog: all white, with a feathery tail and the reserved manners of a Southern gentleman. He looks part cocker and all bar dog.
Rumor has it that Henry has a bigger dog family than those prolific Disney Dalmatians. I met him when I stopped in to see what the regulars at Norton's think of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce decision to support a smoking ban like the one Ohio
adopted last spring.
They're against it. Unanimously. Including Henry, I think.
"This side of the river you can name any bar in the West End and I can guarantee you that 99.9 percent of the people in it are smokers," said Boles. "I smoke. I would not work in a bar if I can't smoke there."
Just talking about outlawing tobacco made her light a smoke.
"It will never happen," the guys at the bar agreed.
I think what they meant is that the necktie gang at the chamber of commerce can make any rules they want, and the regulars at Norton's will enthusiastically ignore them.
"Don't they know smoking goes with alcohol?" asks Boles.
I stopped at some other watering holes and got the same opinion.
"I smoke and I work here and I think it would greatly affect businesses," said Amanda Bauman of Clifton, a bartender and cocktail waitress at Arnie's on Third Street.
She says smokers flee the Ohio ban by crossing the nearest bridge to Kentucky. "They say, 'Oh, my gosh, we can smoke in here?'"
Nick Blandford of Covington, another Arnie's staffer, guessed that at least 60 percent of their customers smoke. "If they do that (ban) here we're going to lose a lot of money," he said.
Ted Clevenger, manager of Claddagh Irish Pub at Newport on the Levee, said corporate-chain bars would be fine, "but I think it would affect more of the little local bars."
That's what happened in Ohio, said Jacob Evans of the Ohio Licensed Beverage Association.
"The places that have been in business 10 or 25 years have built a reliable base of regular customers who like to socialize and relax," he said. "If they can't have a cigarette, they have no reason to stop by."
Evans said bar business is down at least 20 percent, and the annual average of 800 to 900 liquor license holders who fail to renew and go out of business each year jumped to 1,700 this year. "A slight uptick might be expected. But when it doubles, you have to ask what changed, and the answer is the smoking ban."
The Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce thinks a ban would be good for "a better quality of life for all" and reduce health insurance costs.
But banning tobacco in Kentucky is like outlawing cheese in Wisconsin. Tobacco is part of Kentucky's landscape like bluegrass. Kentucky lawmakers even smoke in the House while they debate laws to outlaw smoking.
Maybe the chamber crowd should loosen their neckties and drop in to places like Norton's Café, to meet some of the people that could be hurt by their anti-smoking crusade.
Norton's is a throwback, a part of the local character, a neighborhood landmark - and just the kind of place that could be forced to close if anti-smoking do-gooders go on a regulations bender like the one in Ohio.
As Henry might say, let sleeping dogs lie.
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071220/COL05/712200318/1009/EDIT |
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CigarBoy
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Location: Cincinnati, OH
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by dumpstermcnuggets
on Sat Dec 22, 2007 4:13 pm |
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dumpstermcnuggets
Enthusiastic Smoker
Joined: Nov 06, 2006
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Location: Health Fascism Capital of the Midwest, Illinois
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by Junge
on Thu Dec 27, 2007 5:55 pm |
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Kentucky banning smoking is just as stupid an idea as raising the minimum wage.
Just today alone I made a service call to a cellular phone company and was handled by service reps in the Philippines making maybe a couple of hundred pesos a day...a couple of bucks.
Then at lunch my order was given at the drive up but taken by someone...God only knows where..but certainly not in the U.S. and relayed back to the onsite cooks.
I wonder how many American jobs we must drive away before the the nation gives out with a collective.... Well....Duh....
Like I heard someone say recently...nothing is as expensive as a combination of sutpidy and ignorance. |
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Junge
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by dumpstermcnuggets
on Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:14 pm |
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Junge wrote: Then at lunch my order was given at the drive up but taken by someone...God only knows where..but certainly not in the U.S. and relayed back to the onsite cooks.
I wonder how many American jobs we must drive away before the the nation gives out with a collective.... Well....Duh....
That's scary if already, certain fast-food restaurants have already gotten to the point of employing workers in 3rd-world English speaking countries(a la India) to wirelessly transmit drive-thru meal orders to fast food workers.  I couldn't imagine what that would be like, as in my history of occasionally using fast food drive thru windows, I've never encountered any fast food chains utilizing this. |
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dumpstermcnuggets
Enthusiastic Smoker
Joined: Nov 06, 2006
Posts: 258
Location: Health Fascism Capital of the Midwest, Illinois
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