Certainly, Theodore J. King must not know what he's talking about either.

In Michigan, the smoking ban enacted May 1, 2010 has had a profound impact.  According to numbers obtained from the Michigan Department of Labor, which oversees the Michigan Liquor Control Commission, 176 bar licenses have been lost and an additional 63 liquor licenses have been placed in escrow with the Liquor Control Commission since the law went into effect.  According to The Protect Private Property Rights in Michigan Movement, which obtained these numbers, since May 1 bars have suffered a 50 to 85% drop in revenue compared to previous years before the ban, resulting in the loss or suspension of these liquor licenses.

Yah!!! Fug'em, those 239 establishment owners didn't respect "others" so-called clean air.  And, let's look to the successes of Ohio's Smoking Ban...

Earlier this year, it was reported that Ohio had spent $3.2 million since 2007 enforcing the voter-approved indoor smoking ban.  Of that $3.2 million, only $1.2 million in fines had been issued, and of that $1.2 million in fines, only $400,000 had been collected.  If all the fines are collected, taxpayers would still be left holding the bag for $2 million, all to ensure that adults are not indoors, misbehaving with tobacco.

In September, when the Cincinnati Reds won their division championship, several people complained after seeing the Reds on television celebrating their victory with cigars in the clubhouse because they were in violation of the Ohio Clean Indoor Air Act (a.k.a. a smoking ban).

This happened after a poll commissioned by the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati found in August that 53% of Ohio adults surveyed want the ban lifted for bars. (I don't think that was the response the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati wanted).

Hmmm... I wonder if that same anti-smoking rhetoric will ratchet up here now that Michigan has Republican control in congress and the governors office?  Errr, never-mind... too late.

There's no time to waste re-litigating contentious issues such as the smoking ban, which tied up hours, days and weeks of valuable legislative time before it was resolved in 2009. Next year should be a year in which lawmakers and the governor focus on moving forward and don't look back.

Yep, nothing to see here.  Move along.  Anyway, is Ohio's Smoking Ban just an anomaly too?  Let's take a gander at Minnesota...

In Minnesota, the state auditor's office recently released their report on liquor revenues for 2008.  Among their findings was the following on page seven: "Among on-sale operations [bars], net profits totaled $1.9 million in 2008, which was a decrease of $913,333, or 31.9 percent, from 2007."  Why a 31.9 percent decrease in bar revenues?  Minnesota adopted a comprehensive smoking ban in 2008.

This is not hard to understand: smokers are a disproportionately large segment of bar patrons.  Once they are no longer legally allowed to smoke in bars, they stay home to smoke and drink.  People do not go to bars to "live healthy" any more than vegetarians go to steakhouses.  No attempt by governments at social engineering will change that.  Small businesses like bars suffer under smoking bans.

Amen brother!  Even Europe has figured that out.

Recently, the new government in Holland partially lifted its indoor smoking ban for owner-operated bars.  These are small establishments, numbering about 3,000.  According to Wiel Maessen, who led the fight against the ban, up to 80% of the Dutch approve of the partial lifting of the ban.

Why do so many of the Dutch, most of whom are probably nonsmokers, favor this change?  Because at the end of the day, most of the public doesn't really care if people are smoking in bars that they simply choose to avoid.  It's the marketplace, and we must get back to the freedom to choose what the marketplace provides.

Yah, they get it.  A bunch of wood shoe wearing folk living under a Constitutional Monarchy have more on the ball than us Americans.  Or, perhaps the Dutch figured it foolish to keep up the cultural divide of alienating what once were friends within a community.

Here in America... the herd simply buries its head in the sand when faced with fact.

Like the dude or dudette said, "It's very unfortunate that a liberty has been lost, but the few that were intolerant of the majority of non-smokers brought this upon us all and were able to motivate non-smokers to persuade enough of their fellow citizens to urge their representatives to use the heavy hand of government legislation."