Living in the Scoot Utopia

As a musician, I'm not pleased with this development. There are few enough places to play in this town as it is. The last thing we need is for some of those places to close or lose customers.

KCK is still a smokers town (for now) Looks like Jaywalkers will be the place to be!

Instead of whining about the possibility of these places closing, maybe you should approach it from this angle: many people, myself included, have never even HEARD of these places, much less patronized them. Now that there's no smoking, maybe those of us who are allergic and simply CAN'T patronize smoking establishments, will now want to experience to these little mom-and-pop places.

Without a doubt, the small "dive" bars always have the most interesting atmosphere. Now that the atmosphere won't be choked with smoke, maybe somebody ought to launch a "rediscover our bars" campaign, instead of moaning that their business will go away.

Something to think about.

Well, thanks anyway for the most reasonable and intelligent posts on the whole topic.

Chez Charlie's will be fine. Their business is robust enough to deal with losing some die-hard smokers. The air quality in there will be so much improved that they actually expect business on some nights to increase.

The Newsroom, on the other hand, well why would anyone spend any money in there anyway? Unless you particularly relish the idea of getting your head repeatedly kicked in until you're in a coma while the staff watches close by.

Tommy Farha died a couple of months ago. Is that place even still open?

I've heard of and been to just about every bar on your list and sure, a couple of them might go under. But in Lawrence and in cities across the world that have enacted smoking bans, bars & restaurants have adapted and been fine. The entire metro will soon have smoking bans, now that KCMO does, so your argument about NKC, KCK, etc. is really not a big deal. And I'll venture a guess that overall bar/restaurant sales go up, as they did in Lawrence, thanks to the lack of smoke. People stay longer and drink/eat more when they aren't choking on smoke. And you smokers can go outside, have your cancer stick and come back inside, as you already have to do in Chicago, New York, most of California, London, Paris, Ireland, etc. Get over it.

Actually sales either stay level or go up slightly only for restaurants and national chains. You nanny-ists always lump restaurants and bars together when they are two different categories of business altogether. Bar business DOES go down, even The Star reported that fact twice and they were for the ban.

Bar business is still way down in Independence after a year and some have closed. True bars in Lawrence have reported lower revenue.

Restaurants do not want customers to stay longer because less table turnover = less tickets = less money. Bars on the other hand love for people to stay longer. But Independence hasn't seen any of you ban-lovers show up yet at their bars to replace all the customers they lost.

Besides, it's pretty hypocritical to criticize smokers when you are in a bar drinking, don't you think?

Tommy Farha died? I didn't know that.

They must have been expecting it for a while since there was always a hearse parked out front.

(Tasteless, I know, but I couldn't resist. :) )

I am pro-ban but I actually no because it will apply to cigar shops and the like.

I for one anticipate I'll go to places like Chez Charlie *more* than I did when they were smoke-filled. I'm already planning a pub crawl on the first night of the smoking ban, if you want to join us.

And the KCK thing is over-stated. The Star is already reporting today that Mayor Reardon is using the KCMO vote as an impetus to push for a smoking ban in KCK.

I propose we get a new proposition in the works and pass it. This proposition would replace this proposition 3 and instead of completely banning smoking in bars and restaurants, it places a heavy tax on restaurants and bars that want to remain smoking establishments. Its a free-market regulation approach, one that I think much better serves the interests of all Kansas Cityans.

To Kyle, you obviously haven't been to Chicago in a while. If the proprietor of a bar wants to allow smoking they pretty much ignore the ban. New York is pretty stingy, but then we're talking about the healthiest people in the world.

I seriously doubt that people that haven't heard of these bars are going to all the sudden go to them. Doesn't work that way. If you liked going there or were in your comfort zone there you would have already been to them before. Just because you take away the smoke, doesn't mean people that hang out exclusively in Westport or midtown are going to rush out to the Caddyshack or something. Bottom line if you don't like smoke, got to one of the suburban Buffalo Wild Wings or something.

It's a sad commentary when a minority of people barrel role through legislation that a stupid majority passes by 2k votes. Then you don't even consider that the city doesn't have the means to enforce such a law right now. It's difficult to enforce a smoking ban when you can't even balance the fucking budget.

Thanks Scooter for this wonderful post. I won't be sad to see The Stables close because I was scared when I was in there, but the rest of the places would be a shame to lose.

I would add Zoo Bar and The Brick to businesses that may have some trouble post ban.

I am not a smoker. In fact it tends to give me a headache BUT this bill is bad. Its like passing a ban on stripping because someone is offended by tits and wants to bring their family to the Diamond Joe's for the food.