Posted on 02/12/2005 9:47:48 AM PST by E Rocc
Mayor Tom George sounds weary. He presides over a congested suburb where nearly every structure, street, and sewer is 100 years old. Its few factories are either dead or walking with a limp. Its retail is slim and struggling. Aside from thrift stores, it has but one thriving industry: bars.
And now the Lakewood City Council is considering killing them.
This month, a commission will recommend whether or not to enact a smoking ban. In a daintier locale, this might not be cause for uproar. Everyone could rally around, knowing they were saving heathens from their carcinogens.
Unfortunately, this is Lakewood. Within its compact five square miles are 150 liquor licenses. "Lakewood has a bar and a church on every corner," says John Grandzier, owner of Merry Arts Pub.
These aren't ornate joints. You lease a storefront, throw some shamrocks on the wall, and serve up Jäger bombs and $1 drafts. But the lack of aesthetics veils a mercantile guile. Drive down Detroit or Madison on any night, and you'll think you're in a college town. While the rest of Northeast Ohio bemoans her brain drain, Lakewood pours another shot and toasts its good fortune.
"Lakewood is a regional attraction for a lot of young folks because of the bars," says George. "I have nephews who come in from Mentor and Lake County because of the nightlife."
This, however, is not the kind of commerce understood by the well-meaning do-gooder class. They know not the steadfast marriage of bars and cigs. Their presumption: If they ban smoking, the young, the drunk, and the boisterous will simply keep spending -- only without the companionship of tasty American tobacco products.
And this, of course, would be wrong. For today's lesson, let's go to our more educated brethren in Toledo.
That city enacted a ban in 2003. Within a year, roughly 20 bars closed. Business bottomed so hard that when they auctioned off liquor licenses -- the gold standard of the street-level economy -- no one showed up to bid.
Arnie Elzey owns a sizable sports bar, the kind with theater seating and NFL Ticket. His place used to be packed. Then came the ban.
His sales plummeted by 40 percent; his employee ranks fell with it. Twelve workers qualified for unemployment. Another 10 quit because they couldn't get the shifts. He started closing for lunch, and his happy hour died. "People would come in for one drink and then leave," he says. "People go outside to smoke and they don't come back."
Meanwhile, 10 minutes away in Michigan, where cigs and bars had yet to divorce, business boomed. The most crushing evidence came on Super Bowl Sunday last year. Elzey's place, which once flourished on any game day, was at just two-thirds capacity. In Michigan, however, people waited in lines to get in the door. "Seventy percent of the cars in the parking lot were from Ohio," he says.
Most neighborhood joints ignored the law. "They'd have someone watching the door," says Elzey, as if they'd been transplanted to the days of Prohibition. So police, much to their chagrin, were dispatched to bust people for Illegal Use of Ashtray. In terms of burning public resources, it was akin to sending out squads on jaywalking stings. "The cops don't want to do it because it's stupid," says Elzey. "They sit there and they shake their heads."
Give Toledo credit. It took only a year for it to reach that inevitable "Oh, s***!" moment. Last fall, voters repealed much of the ban.
Of course, they could have saved themselves the trouble by consulting the experts. That would be bar owners and their patrons. "We know our business, we know our customers, and we know what they want," says Grandzier. "I'm terrified that it's gonna wipe us out."
But those behind Lakewood's push seem to know none of this. Be it the teetotalers who pushed Prohibition, the fundamentalists who crack on strip joints, or the rednecks who restrict gay marriage, it's usually those who understand things least who assert their power.
In Lakewood's case, that would be Ryan Demro, a smart, intense young councilman and the city's lone Republican. His rationale is simple: "We believe that everyone has the right to clean air."
But Demro is also someone who should have the word "ambitious" tattooed to his forehead. He's a suit guy, not a bar guy. Many worry that he's merely trying to score 15-second TV interviews, regardless of the damage caused.
"I don't think he understands economic development in the least," says George.
The mayor, by contrast, is a scholar in bar theory. He did his graduate work driving a beer truck for Teamsters Local 293. "When you're 24 and single," he lovingly recalls, "I can't imagine a better job in the world."
George might support a ban if it were statewide and he didn't have to watch his constituents cross into Cleveland, Rocky River, and Fairview Park just to get a beer. But when you're a first-ring mayor with much to do and little to do it with, you can't afford to slay your No. 1 industry. One year after Tempe, Arizona, enacted its ban, tax revenue from bars had fallen 31 percent. In Lakewood, that's called suicide.
clevescene.com | originally published: February 9, 2005
Ping for your list.
We just got that crap this month in Columbus. My buddy from work (he smokes, I don't anymore), said they can pull over and ticket anyone in a company vehicle who is smoking while driving in the city limits.
What bullshit!
So Pete Kotz thinks it's only a bunch of ignorant yahoos who are not wholeheartedly in support of gay marriage?
So Pete Kotz thinks it's only a bunch of ignorant yahoos who are not wholeheartedly in support of gay marriage?I'm not sure. Scene leans hard-left on most issues. Plus, Lakewood has a very large gay population (yes, I'm aware of the possible puns that could be made). It may just have been a rhetorical tool.
-Eric
So, in effect, this will result in the closing down of a bunch of gay bars?
I'm all for it!
Of course it doesn't help much that the ban is being pushed by the council's "lone Republican."
I am in the columbus area also, lots and lots of people, smokers and non are patronizing suburban restaurants and bars now. It is just another nail in Columbus's coffin which Mayor Coleman has built.
So, in effect, this will result in the closing down of a bunch of gay bars?Nawww....I suspect the percentage of Lakewood's bars that are gay bars is small. Those probably already ban smoking.
-Eric
Be it the teetotalers who pushed Prohibition, the fundamentalists who crack on strip joints, or the rednecks who restrict gay marriage...Actually it's precisely the same. One group's "perversion" is another's "free choice".Totally different things you're talking about, Petey boy. Responsible use of tobacco and alcohol are not a moral equivalent to sexual license and perversion!
Kotz is likely considering his audience. That's politically smart. When trying to sway an undecided group, make comparisons to issues they care about, and compare your opponents to theirs.
-Eric
Kotz is likely considering his audience. That's politically smart.I'm not a believer in any laws based upon religion, but I largely agree with you there. I'd let the states decide, but ensure that states weren't forced to recognize "marriages" other states put forward that violate their laws. That way gays get married in Oregon, cousins get married in West Virginia, and a guy can have three wives in Utah, but Ohio need not recognize any of them.With regards to Lakewood, you're probably right. I know because I lived up there for a few months (Gold Coast, toward 117th). It was quite honestly the freakiest place I've ever lived, and it made me sicker than h#ll seeing all those weirdo-pervert guys groping each other. Blechh!
Anyway, I agree smoking bans and alcohol prohibition are ludicrous. We are adults, and nanny-state behavior legislation really irks me as a freedom loving American.
But when it comes to changing our laws to redefine marriage—an institution the God Who created us established for our own well being—I'll fight tooth and nail to defeat any sickos who'd try to foist that on the other 98% of us!
That said, it was largely a throwaway line meant to persuade the electorate. If gays in Lakewood see the busybodies in the same light they see those opposing gay marriage, there's likely to be less support for changing the law.
Lakewood is a bar town which draws from a wide area (my own stomping grounds, Bedford, is similar on a lesser scale). But the voters of Lakewood ultimately make the decision here. Whatever works.
-Eric
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