Study comparing partial and complete smoking bans finds no significant difference in impact on employment

This article specifcally notes the researchers' awareness of "the concern for the economic health of bars" and in their statements they repeatedly stress they examained both restaurants AND bars.

The authors of this study had two sepaarate sets of NAICS employment data:  Data for bars, AND data for full-service-restaurants.  They deliberately chose NOT to publish any analysis on what happened to bar employment.  

Some might conclude that they simply withheld such results because it would have damaged the political cause the researchers and their antismoking funders, ClearWay Minnesota, intended to support.   There’s an obvious motivation to have performed such a separate analysis since the results, if they went the "right" way, would have made the study’s conclusion FAR more powerful! After all, just picture the headlines: "New Study Shows Even BARS Gain Business After Smoking Bans!"

When I asked the study’s lead author about the lack of separation I was simply told that the analysis of both together was "the most appropriate" approach.  I then noted that I found this puzzling unless the researchers were fairly new to the field since historically it’s always been thought that bars suffer disproportionately.  I asked, “Are you saying such a separation and its value to your study did not occur to you and your colleagues and that none of you or your peer-reviewers / journal editors thought to take a look at that data?"

Her response to me, instead of offering a reasonable explanation, was this:

"You may want to familiarize yourself with some of the scientific literature on economic effects on the hospitality industry."

She then attached an old study blaming any contrary research results on tobacco industry funding and corruption.  This seemed a rather odd response since my own research has always been quite explicitly unfunded.

This is not what I would call a professional response to a reasonable question. Picture if I did a study on the economic meltdown, examining the data for its effects on Blacks and Whites. I know the Black community has a better reason for concern and has also been most featured in the media as suffering, but despite having both sets of data I simply decide it is "most appropriate" to combine the numbers for Blacks and Whites and present a report concluding that there was no harm from the meltdown.  I do this despite knowing that, since Whites outnumber Blacks ten to one, any Black suffering will of course be covered up.  

I then present my study to the media, arguing there's no need for government change by saying, "We certainly did not detect anything close to the dramatic claims that opponents make based on the concerns that they have for Blacks." (That’s an actual newspaper quote from the lead researcher with the word Blacks substituted for Bars.) The headlines the next day then read: “New Research: Economic Meltdown Does Not Hurt Blacks, Whites."

And when asked why I didn’t examine Black suffering separately I simply reply that I felt combining the data was “more appropriate” while telling my questioner to study economic history and handing them a rather questionable racial pamphlet.

My opinion about researchers who would do such a thing may seem harsh, but I fail to see much, if any, path between the choices of incompetent or unethical. The fact that my emails did not elicit a response of "Gee, we ARE new to the field and just didn't think of separating bars." would seem to strongly imply the latter point of view.

The fact that the study cited only two pieces of contrary research, with one being an old radio broadcast and the other one being cited improperly (the only improper citing among all 36 references), lends support to that view.

The fact that the research compared the three main variables in an extremely odd way that lumped two of them together quite awkwardly gives more support to that view.

The fact that this study ignored an earlier study by the same organization that showed drastic customer reductions in 7 out of 10 bars in publicly shared data, refused to release the rest of their data, and seem to have somehow even removed the shared data from regular Internet channels adds even further support.

And the final fact, the fact that reasonable questions were met with noncommunicative responses, seems to complete the perception of ethical questionability in the case of this study.

Any legislature considering this research in their decision-making process regarding a smoking ban needs to go back and take a very hard look both at it, and at all the other questionable data they have been given.  I have done extensive research and writing in this field, and I can assure you: This study does not stand alone in its practices.


Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"

Beyond Business;  Why do we want a more intrusive role for Government.  Let the owner of the business decide what level of accommodation he wants to make to tobacco consumers.  The people have a choice of where they want to frequent as they prefer.  Everyone is accommodated.  Why do people want Prohibition?

Since the researchers decided not to measure the effects of the ban just on bars,  I decided to do a little quick ‘n dirty research of my own.

Going to the Minnesota Dept of Employment & Economic Development (DEED) data for “alcoholic beverage drinking places” for the two cities which the researchers DID name, Minneapolis and St. Paul, it becomes clear why the antismoking paymasters behind the research, ClearWay, may not have wanted the data examined fairly.

Both Minneapolis and St. Paul (representing about 2/3 of the total data)went from no bans in 2004 to partial/full bans in 2005 and 2006. Combining the two cities and looking at the bar employee populations as we moved from no bans to partial/full bans we see the following:


2004: 3,591 workers

2005: 3,374 workers

2006: 3,209 workers.


3591 …. 3374 … 3209 - - -  A loss of 382 employees. Concurrent with the increases in smoking bans, these two major Minnesota cities lost almost ELEVEN PERCENT of their bar employee workforce. And God only knows how many of the workers that were left had their hours, tips, and pays cut.

Do you know what the word “decimate” means? It means a disaster on the battlefield where you lose 10% of your forces. It would seem that if Ms. Klein had examined and presented the data fairly and openly she might have been forced to say that smoking bans DECIMATE the bar industry instead of saying “bars do not need to be exempted from clean indoor air policies to protect against severe economic effects.”

Now you may understand more fully why I raise the question of ethics regarding this and other sorts of antismoking “research.” I will grant that my own research analysis of just those two cities may be far more primitive, and may possibly have significant weaknesses that could have been corrected by Klein’s more sophisticated approach, but given that the researchers appear to be unwilling to honestly examine and present the data for bars and their workers, it’s left to people like me to do what we can.

And without getting buckets (wagonloads?) of cash from ClearWay to do it.

btw… just how much DID ClearWay pay for these results? Do we know?

Whooops! Never mind. I just looked it up. They got $516,568.00 for this sort of nonsense. Just google the grant # in quotes: "RC-2006-0047"  Notice some of the wording in that grant document: "advocates must be able to anticipate these consequences and adjust their strategy accordingly" 'These consequences' eh?  Like decimation of an entire industry.  

Or how about this: "...this research will provide public health officials and tobacco control advocates with information that can help shape adoption and implementation of CIA policies, and prevent their repeal ...  The proposed study will contribute to MPAAT’s overall mission by providing information that enables adoption and successful implementation of policies to protect employees and the general public from secondhand smoke exposure."

Yep. It suddenly becomes all too clear why lumping the bars and restaurants together seemed like the "most appropriate" approach to this piece of garbage science.  Note, not junk science.  Junk science may be junk but it doesn't smell.

Wonder how much ClearWay will give me to show that smoking bans decimate the lives and livelihoods of bar employees? Hey, I’d be happy with HALF of a half-million! Whatcha think ClearWay? Wanna hire me?

Didn’t think so.


Michael J. McFadden,
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”

The "study" of the smoking ban effect on jobs was conducted in Minnesota, however, Ms Klein, being from out of town, probably didn't notice the 327+ closed bars & restaurants and 10,000+ laid-off hospitality workers since smoking bans were enacted here in MN:

cleanairquality.blogspot.com/.../...-study-to.html

Liz Klein explains OSU’s “hospitality employment unaffected study”

Additional items to note, according to Liz, the research took place between 2003-2006. But Minnesota’s  statewide ban didn't go into effect until 2007, so you can see the reason they found virtually no statistical harm.

Tobacco Control is well aware smoking bans have little effect on restaurants while bars are negatively impacted. So why were restaurants included in Klein's study? According to Pat Carroll, President of the Buckeye Liquor Permit Holders Association, "It's obvious why it was done this way. It's to distort the truth. You can't lump bars and restaurants together. We have entirely different customers and provide different atmospheres. We demand this study be done again without restaurant data." Pam Parker, BLPHA Board Member and co-founder of Opponents of Ohio Bans asks "The problem is that this study, timed quite nicely to be released just as we have SB 120 introduced to exempt family owned bars in Ohio, has been widely distributed. If the data from this study is reexamined and finds that bars are hurt from smoking bans, will the researchers go to similar lengths to see that proper retractions are printed and headlined?"

President Obama's March 9, 2009 Memorandum said, "The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions." "I guess that doesn't apply when it's Tobacco Control and it hurts family owned bars. Imagine how our members feel that have been losing money since enforcement began, they're struggling to keep their doors open when they turn on the TV or read in the paper that a study says they're really not harmed by the ban. They're livid," said Carroll.

Related Web sites: www.thebarbiz.com and www.opponentsofohiobans.com

For those truly interested in seeing just how awful this study was and the lack of responsibility shown by the researchers in revealing their competing interests as authors, visit

http://www.JacobGrier.com

and read his columns of May 27th AND May 29th and the comments after each.

You will be amazed at the full story!

Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"