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”