Clearing The Air

Just because you own a business.....

.......doesn't mean you have business sense.

I wrapped up a day of sales traveling in northern MN. today, finalizing a couple of Smokeeter sales. One was to a city municipal bar, which has recieved "major" compliments from employees and patrons for installing two Smokeeters 3 weeks ago. "The air is much cleaner and best of all my clothes don't smell of smoke the next day", reports one employee. A satisfied customer always makes the best salesperson I always say.

Anyway, as I was making my way back south I decided to stop in and cold call one more establishment. I got into a discussion with the owner who told me he doesn't need aircleaners, I get this response about 70% of the time so I'm used to it. But then he said something that I don't normally hear from the hundreds business owners I deal with, he said the state should make us all go smoke-free that would be the real solution.

Hey, Einstein you could go smoke-free anytime you wanted, you don't need the state to shove some legislation down your throat to figure out how to run your business.

What a moron.

You know what his reasoning for wanting to go non-smoking? The filter and maintenance costs add $1000 - $2000 a year in expense because of smoking. Oh, I said do you know what the cost of going non-smoking is? For Jax cafe in NE Minneapolis it was a loss of $64,000 in just one month. I guess it just depends on your accounting method. He must be into that new math.

There are a couple of St. Paul establishments who were naive enough to believe the same thing -Glockenspiel and Tavern on Grand- both applied for waivers though so they can allow smoking again due to the loss of money in going smoke-free. Then there's Bryant Lake Bowl -a month into the ban mangers told me it's been a financial disaster, ditto the owner of Cafe Havana but then this guy was the first to call me cheering for a smoking ban -he got his wish, I wonder if he's changed his mind?

posted by marcus aurelius @ 11:37 PM