Bar owners lament smoking ban

Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Things were quiet at Cafe Carioca, a downtown Denver tavern, during a recent lunch hour.

Too quiet.

A man and a woman were nursing beers at the bar, and another man was drinking at a table.

That was it.

"We’re down about 25 percent," co-owner and bartender John Kennedy said, comparing recent sales to sales before the July 1, 2006, statewide smoking ban.

A persistent claim during the heated smoking-ban debate in the legislature was that small neighborhood bars would lose loyal customers who enjoy a smoke with their beer.

The Coalition for Equal Rights, a bar owners group, says more than 50 bars and taverns have gone out of business since smoking was banned.

At Carioca, the owners simply ignored the ban for the first six months, allowing patrons to keep smoking. Business soared.

"We made a load of money," Kennedy said.

Eight times Denver police responded to phoned-in complaints about smoking there, and eight times they let the bar off with a warning.

"The Denver cops were great," Kennedy said.

But the ninth time, police were angry, saying they had more important things to do than stop by the bar "because somebody’s grandmother was smoking," Kennedy said.

"That was it," Kennedy said. "That’s when we banned smoking," knowing that fines would come soon.

"Our business immediately dropped 30 percent," he said. Since the weather warmed up, Carioca has gotten back a few percentage points, but Kennedy still had to lay off two people.

Carioca isn’t the only tavern hurting.

At Charlie’s Denver Tavern on East Colfax Avenue, "It’s been a very tough year for us," owner Wayne Jakino said. "In July, we were down about 3 percent, then it was 4 percent, 7 and 8 percent.

"Then it went cold, and we were down 35 or 40 percent.

"All told, we’re down $240,000 in sales."

"We’re on the bubble, like a lot of taverns are," Jakino said. "We’re coming close to not being able to make our payments."

A lawsuit claiming bars are treated differently from casinos, which are exempt from the ban, is still alive but likely will lose its teeth when smoking is prohibited in casinos on Jan. 1.

In the meantime, they’re embracing the ban at Rialto Cafe, just six blocks from Carioca. Business is up over last year, said General Manager Dave Cunningham.

"Our bartenders love it," he said.

He conceded that "we have some folks from out of town, some foreign folks or people at conventions that kind of balk at it a little bit. But most of our customers really like it."

Count Nathan Hart, of Denver, among them.

"You feel a lot cleaner," said Hart, dining on the outdoor patio, which is also smoke-free.