[C-U Smokefree] Healthy Profits

[Theotskl at aol.com]

FYI

Healthy Profits below comes from Joe Cherner's listserve

T. Tsoukalas

Florida Editorial: A Breath of Fresh Profit


Parts excerpted from Palm Beach Post, 7/4/04


Some restaurants predicted that profits would turn to ashes if Florida voters 
approved a smokefree workplace initiative in 2002, but a new study proves 
that the prediction was wrong.

An analysis by the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business 
Research finds restaurant sales up 7 percent a year after the law took effect. 


In retrospect, the outcome isn't a surprise. The tide has turned against 
smoking in public places. Some people will stay away from restaurants because they 
can't light up, but more are willing to go out to eat now that they don't 
have to contend with drifting secondhand smoke. 


The bottom-line results in Florida and in other states that have taken 
similar action, such as California, Delaware, New York and Massachusetts, indicate 
that laws only are speeding up what the marketplace eventually would have done 
by itself. The smokefree law isn't just healthy; it produces healthy profits.


To win smokefree air where YOU live, go to http://www.smokefree.net/alerts.php


Joseph W. Cherner