http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1083021229613_78430429//

WINNIPEG — Smoking bans in Manitoba are proving somewhat hazardous to the health of the gaming industry.

The provincial government's gaming revenues are forecast to drop this year by $27 million - about 10 per cent - according to figures in the provincial budget.

"The reduction in lottery corporation revenues this year is based on a provincewide smoking ban starting Oct. 1, plus the existing smoking ban in Winnipeg and Brandon," Finance Minister Greg Selinger said Monday.

Gaming revenues have traditionally risen every year, but the situation has changed since Brandon and Winnipeg enacted municipal bylaws last year to prevent smoking in public places, including bars.

Add to that a provincewide smoking ban set to take effect this fall, and revenues will drop for the first time in recent memory.

"We had predicted this. We knew it was coming," said Scott Smith, the minister responsible for lotteries.

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Even a Finance Minister will not support Anti smoking lies and deceit.

2004: The year of corrections

www.forces.org

The evidence has been in for a long time that banning smoking equals reduced business in hospitality venues. The sad example of laid-off workers, reduced revenues in Delaware and New York are too clear to be ignored. The anti-tobacco operatives must know assert two contradictory messages in order to bamboozle the politicians who are always too willing to boss their constituents around.

Smoking bans, say the operatives, are good for business but those bans must be total and all-encompassing otherwise establishments that somehow continue to permit smoking will obtain an unfair advantage over those forced to throw smokers out into the streets. The 'unfair advantage' argument is proof that smoking is very good for those businesses that choose to attract that clientele. This schizophrenic mindset is impossible to maintain so the anti-smokers are now predicting financial rewards for banning smoking sometime in the ill-defined future.

"It is our expectation and our hope that over time, this will work itself out ... and bar owners and restaurants will adjust, and people will adjust as well," said Tory gaming critic Kelvin Goertzen.

"If we look back (after) a couple of years, I think that we're going to see that perhaps the decline has come back and that revenue has been restored."

So says one of the airheads in Manitoba who has seen close hand that banning smoking is a financial loser, even disastrous to the revenue stream on which government operates. Manitoba's gaming revenues are expected to drop by $27-million. The politicians, bureaucrats and even the tobacco control industry acknowledge that this reduction is caused by the draconian smoking ban operating in the largest city and soon to be operating throughout the entire province.

"We had predicted this. We knew it was coming," said Scott Smith, the minister responsible for lotteries.

This is a remarkable admission and in a rational society Scott Smith would be summarily dismissed for dereliction of duty. Those politicians voting to deny the province $27-million (at least twice that amount next year when the ban infects the entire province bans smoking) would be voted out of office, impeached or run out of town on a rail. Instead they are sprucing up the gambling devices sitting idle in bars that no long welcome smokers, thereby wasting more public money when all they need to do reverse the money drain is to rip up the smoking ban. It's as simple as that. Even a politician should be able to understand it.