The First Facility Management Blog

This story contrasts a FacilityBlog Weird Wednesday post about a fast food chain in China that was losing business because of its smoke free policy. In Minnesota, bar owners are going to great lengths to undermine the state’s new cigarette ban.

According to a 3/8/08 article from Ed Pilkington of The Guardian:

More than 100 bars across the state have started holding “theater nights” in which patrons are encouraged to dress up in period costume and project their voices, playbills are pinned on the walls, and bar paraphernalia makes up the props.

The bars are seeking to bypass a smoking ban introduced last October by exploiting a loophole that allows cigarettes to be puffed in theatrical productions.

The creative idea was the brainchild of Mark Benjamin, a lawyer who feels the policy infringes on the rights of citizens. (How do you like that, Poor Richard?)

Pilkington continues,

Bars have taken to calling their theater nights “Before the Ban”, which allows them to claim that their customers are in character playing themselves before the October injunction came down. Black cloth is draped over entrances, with notices saying “Stage Entrance”. And ashtrays are piled up under the label “Props”. Other bars hand out badges to anyone who donates a dollar saying “Act Now!”

Officials in the state are warning makeshift “theaters” that they are still breaking the law, an act that could cost as much as $10,000 and result in the loss of the bar’s operating license.

As China gears up for the Olympics in Beijing, certain measures have been put into place to help present a more inviting environment for tourists. In addition to a ban on spitting and an effort to encourage queues, there is a move to reduce cigarette smoking in public places.

Last October, the country banned smoking in taxis, and the effort has since spread to hospitals, schools, and government offices—places that have been relatively smoke free in many parts of the U.S. for years.

But the effort to clean the air, particularly in restaurants, has not been met with great success. In fact, one restaurant chain, Meizhou Dongpo, may go out of business because of its smoke free policy—the first of its kind in any food chain in the country.

According to a 1/18/08 report in Reuters.

The Chinese are the world’s most enthusiastic smokers, with a growing market of more than 350 million, making it a magnet for cigarette companies and a focus of international health concerns. The occupancy rate at Meizhou Dongpo, a chain serving the spicy fare of southwest Sichuan province, had dropped to “about 80% of that enjoyed by other restaurants across the street” after it banned smoking in October, the China Daily quoted its manager as saying.

Beijing authorities had written to 30,000 restaurants asking them to put smoking bans in place, but not a single one had taken up the suggestion, the paper said.

While the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has promised a smoke free Olympics, natives are clearly not embracing the aggressive tactics to curb this national habit. What will be the fate of this restaurant? Here’s an update.

Well, much to my disappointment, we didn’t have any outstanding suggestions for last week’s Friday Funny Cartoon Caption Contest. Here’s another entry. Any takers?

I think FacilityBlog visitors can do better than the original caption. Post your suggestions in the comment portion, submit them as voicemail messages on the recording device on the right, or instant post them on the bulletin board. Then next week, I’ll pick the top submissions and guests will vote on the best one.