It’s not easy to figure out effects of smoking ban

THE Government recently released figures that seemed to indicate the New York city smoking ban was ‘good’ for business.

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.