Jul 9 2004
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.