Smoking ban impact on bars and restaurants

Abstract

Welcome to Public Health Moment from the University of Minnesota. Smoking bans do not cause job losses at bars and restaurants. That’s according to a study led by epidemiologist Jean Forster from the University of Minnesota. Forster and colleagues used state-mandated reporting data from 10 Minnesota cities for the years 2003 to 2006 before the introduction of a statewide smoking ban but at a time when a number of local cities had adopted full or partial bans on their own. <Clip: “The findings show that there has been no…comprehensive clean indoor air ban.”> Forster says that smoking bans are an effective way to protect people—especially bar and restaurant employees—from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke. <Clip: “You know employees are exposed to whatever…harmful effects of secondhand smoke exposure.”> With another Public Health Moment, I’m John Finnegan.