Joe’s Inn again. A follow up. April, 7th

There seems to be some skepticism of my assertion that Joe’s new smoking policy will have a detrimental impact on their business. These impressions were based on my visit of March 28th. I have been told that Mondays are always slow. Also, it was the first day of the new smoking policy, that given a few days, they (the smokers) will return. So it’s only fair that I consider the possibility that I had indeed jumped to a conclusion.

Needless to say another visit was in order to insure that what I had witnessed wasn’t simply an anomaly. So here we are again, this time a Thursday (April 7^th) 12:20pm – 1:20pm. As you can see from the photo below, things are at least as dismal as they were on the Monday visit.   I do regret that I don’t have a pre March 28^th photo to show. If you’re a Joe’s customer then you know how packed the place always was at lunch time. If you weren’t, then you have to take my word for it.

 

 

 So where does this leave us. One very good restaurant operated by very good people that had made one very bad choice. They believed that they could rebuff their loyal customers without consequence. I have been one of those customers for years now, and even though I quit smoking last December, I still use the smoking side. Honestly, I really can’t tell much deference in air quality since the new policy has been in effect. I wonder which of the nearby smoking restaurants are picking up Joe’s refugee customers. That could make for an interesting next post.  Here are some of the possibilities; Aladdin, BANDITOS BURRITO LOUNGE, Mulligan’s Sports Grille, Penny Lane Pub and The Republic to name a few.

 I am very proud of these customers for standing up for themselves. I understand that in some parts of the state they are more like sheep. Incidentally, even though I quit smoking, I still support these smokers by avoiding nonsmoking restaurants as much as possible. The free market has been handicapped, not killed by the smoking ban. What you, the customer does still makes a difference. Keep up the good work.

The Village Shopping Center

The Village Shopping Center has been a landmark in our area or many years. I remember many great merchants that have hung their shingles there over the years. I once heard that some of the retailers would put their cash registers in the rear of the stores to avoid paying city sales tax. As I understand it the rear of the stores were in the county and the fronts were in the city. I’m not sure if this is true.
Well here’s something even more interesting and I can attest to the validity of this one. The Village Shopping Center has elected to discourage the patronage of 23% of potential shoppers. All I can imagine is that the stores there must be earning too much money and that the property management is helping out by trying to eliminate shopping by anyone who smokes. Now before you say it has been done for the non smoking customers let me clarify. I not am talking about just in the stores. They have also ban smoking outside in the open air and this extends to the middle of the parking lot where it can’t possible effect non smokers. Yes it’s true, I know of at least 2 that have been harassed in their own cars.
So if you got cash burning a hole in your pocket and you just gotta send it, here’s a tip.
They don’t sell anything at the Village Shopping Center that you can’t get somewhere else.
The Village Shopping Center is located in Richmond and Henrico at the intersection of Patterson Ave. and Three Chop Rd. Just so you know where no to go.

August, 13th 2010  

 The no smoking signs have been removed from Village Shopping Center.  All I can guess is that realized the folly of the policy.

Breathe Easy, Virginia’s Attorney General Reels in Rogue Health Department.

July 8, 2009

Everyone should have a hero and now even “Vapors” (e-cigarette users) have their own. She is Saint Alice of the Virginia Smokers Alliance.

Alice contacted her representative to question the enforcement of the Virginia Smoking Ban with respect to e-(electronic) cigarettes. Representative Peace then contacted the Attorney General, Kenneth Cuccinelli to look into the matter. Here are the Attorney Generals findings.

All of this is good news,  however is anyone else perplexed as to why the Health Department would even try to get away with a stunt like this?  It is more then obvious that an e-cigarette is in no way banned under Virginia law. So why would the Virginia Health Department behave as a self ordained legislative body. For that matter, why would Keenan Caldwell of the American Cancer Society say “”Allowing them (e-cigarettes) would really be turning back the clock on what we’re trying to do in Virginia to create smoke-free workplaces and environments that promote health,”

Here’s the thing, smokeless tobacco products are not banned under the law, so why should it come as any surprise that a tobaccoless, smokeless product would also not be banned. To fully understand the opposition to e-cigarettes by ban proponents one must examine their mission. Now here where the confusion starts, I said their mission, not their stated mission. There is a huge difference. Their stated mission is to protect the public from the supposed dangers of secondary smoke. But let’s take a moment to look at the real mission.

The mission is to capture the occupants of an enemy encampment. Let call the enemy smokers. You have the resources to set up one trap and you decide to set it at one of the three  bridges leading out of the encampment. The name of this bridge is Chantex.  Now all you need do is light the camp on fire, let refer to this fire as smoking ban. The fire also destroyed the bridge known as cigarettes but left standing the one known as e-cigarettes. The obvious problem is that some of the enemy (smokers) may avoid the drag net set up at bridge know as  Chantex and escape across e-cigarettes. You must find a way to make the fire (smoking ban) also consume the other bridge known as e-cigarettes.

If successful, it could mean $$$$ from grateful big Pharmaceutical Companies waiting to pick off ban refugees.

The truth is that secondary smoke does not pose an appreciable health risk to the public at large. The truth is that they need you to believe in the risk in order to justify the violation of liberty of American Citizens.  The truth is that charitable societies and politicians don’t really care one way or the other about your health. Why else would they waste their time with e-cigarettes?

Big Tobacco is simply no match for the influence of Big Pharmaceutical.

Always follow the money!

Don’t be Silent !

Silence is about the worst thing we can do.  Silence is Consent!

Let the restaurants and bars you go to know that it matters. Go to the smokefreelyva.com (Home Page)  to request pdf files that you can print and use.  Check under the heading “Expressions” to get a look at them (jpeg not great).  Then request the file, print them and give them out. I think it’s obvious who gets which one.  If you don’t say it, who will?

GPS POI update

Go to the website (smokefreelyva.com) to get the latest copy of the Smoke Freely VA POI for Magellan.

Updated February 15 th.

Banditos Burrito Lounge – Richmond

Banditos Burrito Lounge in my opinion is holding tight reins on quality.  This is something you can actually taste. Their homemade salsa is great and you can taste the freshness of every ingredient.  Even the refried beans were the best I’ve had.

With prices just a slight bit higher than other restaurants of their kind, there worth every Penney.

Good atmosphere and plenty of room for smokers and non smokers.  When I was there the entrance for the non smoking section malfunctioned and they had to temporally suspend smoking. That should be fixed by now. If you like Burritos and such you can’t go wrong here.

Tim Kaine’s War on Freedom

What is it that I’m trying to accomplish with this list of smoking restaurants? Simple, I’m trying to help insure that market forces will keep smoking restaurants alive. I believe that if I make it easy for smokers to find them then they will do so rather than settling for non smoking restaurants. Keep the demand up so we don’t lose the supply.

This is why I encourage smokers to use the list whenever they can. This is my way of being a war protester with respect to Tim Kaine’s War on Freedom.

So far things are going pretty well. The list is growing. Because of their rarity, business is up at smoking restaurants. We have more plans on getting the word out about Smoke Freely VA. Yes things are going well enough that I find myself with time to ponder the collateral damage of Tim’s War. I’m talking about the small restaurants that have had no choice but to go non smoking. There was just no way for them to become compliant. Some are already in deep trouble.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if they were smoking before the ban and you know they were against the ban, then maybe we can help them out from time to time.

I know we smokers have bigger hearts than the politicians that came up with this law. We have a heart and we do care about our community.

Let’s hear it for the occasional smoke free lunch for the victims in all this.