Ontario Businesses Feel Impact of Smoking Ban

Barely two months after the province of Ontario implemented the Ban, pro-smoking lobbyists and groups says that the negative effects that they and the industries they represent are feeling are the result of the impact of the law.

Last May, Mychoice.ca, a smokers' rights group led by Nancy Daigneault which owes its funding to the tobacco industry joined with pub owners, veterans and charities in voicing their apprehensions and concerns about the long term effect of the smoking ban, known as the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, to the financial health of the whole region.

The law, which took effect on May 31 could cripple bars, casinos and bingo halls who are mainly dependent on their customers, which most of them smoke.

But Jim Watson, the Health Minister, begs to differ saying that only 82 people He happily reported that only 82 people have been charge of violations since the smoking ban have been implemented last May 31.

But Mychoice.ca president Nancy Daigneault said that considering the growth of her group's membership since the law was implemented many people think that the smoking law is a nuisance and that it is intrusive in the private lives of the people.

According to Randy Hughes, who is the spokesman for the Pub and Bar Coalition of Canada, even bar owners are feeling the effects of the smoking ban to their daily revenues of their businesses. The problem will reach its critical stage when the cold weather sets in because people would be less enthusiastic on going out in the cold just to smoke, especially if they are in the middle of a bingo game or something. He also added that two months after the ban is really to soon to tell, but if anything is not done sooner, it may be worse for all of them.

Randy Hughes' own business in Ottawa, the Tanglewood Pub, closed down after suffering form a $45,000 dollars decline in their sales follwing the smoking ban in Ottawa in 2001. Even in Windsor, who has still no ban in smoking have already endured employee retrenchment in their establishments and their bingo halls shutting down, making many of the local charities homeless. So anyone could just imagine the situation if someone would add the smoking by-law to the situation, it would make things turn from bad to worse.

Last May, the executive director of the Windsor Essex Nonprofit Support Network, Ken Coulter, asked the officials of the province to provide a fund for the charities that would lose their homes if the smoking ban is implemented. Unfortunately, his suggestion fell on deaf ears.

Health Minister Watson said that he is concerned for the charities' situation in Windsor but remains hopeful that the situation would immediately settle down like other places in the country where the anti-smoking laws preceeded the actual provincial ban.

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