Statewide smoking ban didn't hurt Marshfield businesses

Two years after Wisconsin banned lighting up in bars, restaurants and workplaces, businesses have adjusted to the law -- though some bar owners still resent it. The state's indoor smoking ban went into effect July 5, 2010. Marshfield enacted a similar measure two years earlier. Three-quarters of the 500 people surveyed in June 2011 approved of the statewide ban, with 62 percent strongly in favor of it. The survey was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of several anti-smoking groups.

 More than 80 percent of survey respondents said smoke-free restaurants and bars are healthier, more enjoyable to patronize and that the measure was necessary to protect employees, according to a fact sheet from the group SmokeFree Wisconsin. "We know that secondhand smoke is deadly, and it just doesn't belong indoors," said Sue Kunferman, Wood County Health Department director, in a Central WI Tobacco Free Coalition news release. "We are all fortunate that smoke-filled bars, restaurants and bowling alleys are a thing of the past."

 Ninety percent of respondents in the 2011 survey said they go out the same amount or more often since the ban was enacted. Marshfield's ban didn't hurt local businesses, according to a January 2011 study by University of Wisconsin-Madison Carbone Cancer Center. The study looked at seven cities that enacted their own bans and found no significant change in employment at bars and restaurants, the number of alcohol licenses issued, the number of establishments and citations for violations for city ordinances. And statewide, businesses are complying with the law.

Fewer than 1 percent of Wisconsin businesses have had compliance issues during the past two years, SmokeFree Wisconsin calculated in May using state data. Still, some bar owners say the ban has hurt business, and they believe it's an unfair policy. Mike Brown, owner of Brown's Bar, 504 E. Fourth St., said his business has dropped about 10 percent since the smoking ban. Though some predicted bars would get more patrons ordering food, "it hasn't happened." "All it's done is make them go outside and smoke," Brown said. "When they're outside smoking, they're not in here drinking." Some bars have built outdoor smoking lounges, but Brown said the several-thousand-dollar investment is too high a cost right now.

Brown, who said he doesn't smoke, said he doesn't oppose the healthy aim of the law, which has kept his bar cleaner. But if the law were repealed, he'd put the ashtrays back out immediately. "If I own this bar and I'm paying taxes, it should be my decision," Brown said. That sentiment was voiced by a number of tavern owners during the debate over the state law, and Brown isn't the only one who still feels that way two years later. Winston Mosher, 21, agrees with Brown, though he said as a non-smoker he's glad he doesn't have to breathe in smoke at restaurants and bars now. "I still think it should be the business' decision," Mosher said while sitting Tuesday evening at a table in Nutz Deep II, 809 S. Central Ave. "But I'm not going to complain."