Business report on smoking ban misses the point

  A recent report on Arizona's statewide smoking ban missed a key point.

  The study, done by the business school at Arizona State University, examines the financial impact of the smoking ban on restaurants and bars, which are required to be smoke-free, except for outdoor areas more than 20 feet from the entry doors.

  The ban went into effect last year, although some cities already had smoking bans in public places and some businesses voluntarily chose to be non-smoking.

  The study purported to find that restaurants and bars had not been significantly impacted by the ban on smoking. Its source for this conclusion was not particularly reliable as it relies on sales tax data - which can be impacted by many factors, not just smoking.

  Even if you accept the sales tax data as conclusive, the definition of significant impact is questionable. When 20 percent of restaurants and bars report a decrease in sales taxes after the ban went into effect, that seems awfully significant to us.

  Nevertheless, there are other extremely important factors that are generally ignored, and those are property rights and choice. A restaurant or bar owner should have the freedom to choose to allow smoking or not allow smoking on their property, depending on whether they believe it is helpful to their business or not.

  That is a right that exists whether it is healthy or not because patrons and employees have an equally free choice to avoid places that allow smoking or to go to ones that do. That way both the rights of smokers and non-smokers are protected, as they should be in a free society.

  When our reporter talked with local restaurant and bar owners, some were pleased with the ban and some were not. That illustrates why imposing one standard on all is wrong. Just as we do not want a law requiring that smoking be allowed at all establishments, we do not want one banning it for all.

  Let the marketplace decide who succeeds and who loses, based on the establishment's choice on smoking.