University of Minnesota/OSU Tobacco Control Study Flawed; Combining Data on Bars...

University of Minnesota/OSU Tobacco Control Study Flawed; Combining Data on
Bars and Restaurants Skewed Results

COLUMBUS, Ohio, May 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ohio newspapers, radio and
TV news recently broadcast the results of a study performed at the University
of Minnesota School of Public Health with Elizabeth Klein, Assistant
Professor, Health Behavior and Health Promotion, Ohio State University as lead
researcher. This study was funded by ClearWay Minnesota, a non-profit
organization that funds Minnesota tobacco control, and used employment data as
its sole economic indicator. This study gained headlines in the media as "Ban
hurting business? No, study says." (Columbus Dispatch, May 19, 2009, front
page). All Headline News opened with "New research suggests that smoking bans
in bars meant to improve the environmental quality of indoor air doesn't cause
job losses." (Note: No reference to restaurants).

What is not mentioned is the reason that this study was conducted. According
to the Abstract from Ms. Klein's study, "due to the perception of negative
economic effects on alcohol-licensed hospitality businesses, partial CIA
policies (those that provide an exemption for freestanding bars) have been
proposed as a means to reduce the risk of economic effects of comprehensive
CIA policies applied to all worksites."). UWeekly, an OSU student run
publication, quotes Klein as saying "the places that made exemptions for bars
they weren't significantly different from the places that provided no
exemptions for bars."

Glaringly obvious even to a novice is that freestanding bars were supposed to
be the target of the study. Even more obvious are these facts.

If this study was to determine if exemptions should be made for freestanding
bars, why were restaurants included? Ms. Klein states in the study that NAICS
industry code data was obtained for bars (NAICS 7224) and restaurants (NAICS
7221). If Ms. Klein received the data separately, why were they combined?

Perhaps it was because according to the latest NAICS on-line data for
Minnesota, restaurants outnumbered bars nearly 3 to 1. It studied two major
cities, four other cities and four suburbs with combined total of 1,084 bars
and restaurants. If these ten cities followed the Minnesota average, then
there were approximately 361 bars and 723 restaurants.

According to Statistical abstracts of the US, 2001, table 1263, there is a
national average of ten restaurant employees for every one bar employee. That
means if each bar only had one employee, there would be approximately 361 bar
employees and 7,230 restaurant employees. Again, restaurants were not the
target of this study, according to the Abstract, and yet they were included in
this study. The effect of including restaurant employment data in this study
is that job losses from bars are completely overwhelmed by restaurant
employment data.

There was a very large study done in 2007 by Scott Adams and Chad D. Cotti,
("The Effect of Smoking Bans on Bars and Restaurants: An Analysis of Changes
in Employment," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy: Vol.7: Iss. 1
(Contributions), Article 12.), whose methodologies were very closely followed
by Ms. Klein with one very large difference; the Adams and Cotti study
separated bars from restaurants. They concluded "the bar industry is more
negatively affected by smoking bans than the restaurant industry. On the other
hand, analysis of the restaurant industry is consistent with many of the
aforementioned retail sales case studies, which find that smoking bans do not
seem to have an effect on business in the restaurant industry as a whole. The
lagged effects suggest that the negative bar effect occurs immediately and
persists over time...Dunham and Marlow (2000b), for example, found that bars
are predicted to be more than twice as likely to experience losses as
restaurants, a result that suggests potentially large differences in the
impact of smoking regulations on these two similar industries."

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

SOURCE Opponents of Ohio Bans

Pat Carroll, +1-513-731-0123, or Pam Parker, +1-614-565-6560, both of Buckeye
Liquor Permit Holders Association & Opponents of Ohio Bans