It’s not easy to figure out effects of smoking ban
I decided to find out if this was the case by checking. Not being able to find historical revenue numbers I used the next best thing, employment statistics for Food Service and Drinking Places available from the US Department of Labor.
In New York city there was a 0.6% increase in employment from the start of the ban in January 2003 until January 2004. Therefore the ban helped business - or so it seemed.
But from 1994 until 2001 there was an average 4.2% increase per year (6.1%, 2000-2001). This would be due to normal expansion of markets, etc. So, reviewing the 0.6% increase, it now looks like a 3.6% decrease.
But there’s more. New York city food service and drinking places employment suffered from the effects of 9/11 in 2001. In fact, there was a 6% loss between 2001 and 2002.
The city started recovering in 2002 and regained 80% of the lost jobs. Ten percent more of the jobs were recovered in 2003/04. Now the employment levels are about the same as they were in 2001.
If 9/11 and the smoking ban didn’t happen, what would the level be?
If you look at Washington DC as a city affected by 9/11 (Pentagon), but not the smoking ban, from January 2001 until January 2004 there was a 12.6% increase while New York had a 0.006% decrease.
Given this information what should a responsible journalist report? Maybe the catchy headline, “Government snuffs rebellion with stats smokescreen”.
Though the above statistics are accurate, do they tell the whole story? Probably not, but I am sure the true answer is somewhere in between and impossible to determine.
Carl Beame
Waterloo House
Mallow
Co Cork
