I hear what you are saying Ditter, but I disagree. Restaurants that chose to go totally non-smoking have been hurt by these bans because the market niche they creatd for themselves was taken away from them.
There are 2 old fashioned luncheonette/sandwich shop/ice cream parlor type places that I like going to in a small town a cuple miles from me. One allows smoking and serves alcohol, the other doesn’t do either. They are across the main road from each other. Both places do a great business. The owners of both opposed the proposed smoking ban last year and the year before.
They both have their clientele and don’t want to infringe on the clientele of the other guy. When another place sought a license, neither opposed it and so the town had 3 great places to eat and everyone was happy and 2 of the 3 were non-smoking.
Well then the 3rd place decided to seek an alcohol license, remember this is a non-smoking establishment, and all heck broke loose. The other 2 owners supported the application and actually spoke in favor of it....but the busybodies got involved. That town now has a vacant building with a For Rent sign on it and the owners are doing a booming business, with an alcohol license and still non-smoking, outside of the town.
Government imposed bans on legal activities DO HURT businesses.
When a lot of people started complaining about the smoke “most” restaurants, in an attempt to please everyone, and keep “ALL” their customers, (as I have said before) drew that invisible line on the floor and declared one side of the line was smoking and the other side was non smoking. The only customers that pleased was the smokers because the smoke was still there.