[gidget7]

You're right SheLion! Smokers will go to where they can enjoy a cigarette after their meals, or at least to accommodations that still have smoking and non smoking rooms. Most from this area are going south, and the majority of them, scouting for possible moving destinations. As the NE gets more and more socialist and Liberal, more and more are moving out.

Maine needs to be concerned, as does CT now, that they will join MA in having negative growth numbers next year. The people they are losing are middle class, and businesses! Businesses are not going to, if there is another place they don't have to, stay where they have to pay exorbitant taxes, and cover same sex couples with insurance. That's just the reality.

[SheLion]

Maine needs to be concerned, as does CT now, that they will join MA in having negative growth numbers next year. The people they are losing are middle class, and businesses! Businesses are not going to, if there is another place they don't have to, stay where they have to pay exorbitant taxes, and cover same sex couples with insurance. That's just the reality.

That's just the reality!  And if anyone thinks for one minute that a cut-back in revenue by 25-30% isn't going to hurt, they have another thought coming.  The smoking bans are choking the economy.

If a group vacations and travels together, and one or two couples smoke, the non-smoking friends will stay with the smoking friends just the same.  So, instead of Maine losing one couple, they will lose 3-4 couples who all vacation together.

[Mears]

New England is becoming a fantasy land,an area that really does not exist anymore.

It's become a great place for pictures for calendars but not much else.

Sad! I always loved it,but no more.

[REPANDPROUDOFIT]

the shutdown of Scotia Prince cruises. They cancelled the 2005 season after a dispute with Portland over the port terminal's chronic toxic mold situation.

As a lowly Suth-erner, I am confused. I've always thought we came from the backwards part of the country. Up north they pay the HIGH property taxes, etc. so they don't have polluted rivers, etc. I thought all the smokers lived south of the Mason-Dixon Line.