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way I could have banned smoking in my bar without it being a rule throughout the whole city,” says Douville. “People act like I have that choice, as a business owner. But, if I make that rule, they walk down the block to a bar with smoking. So I need it to be uniformed across the board for everybody.” Many small business owners also fear smoke- free revenue loss. Smoker Neil Timms owns an English pub and met the smoking ban before, in England. “Back home in Coventry, every pub where I was a regular closed within a year of the smoking ban,” remembers Timms of the UKs ban, begun in 2007. To avoid the same fate, hes spending money to build a patio. Lost Loves Douville, though, feels the ban to be a great business opportunity. “The number of people who would enjoy coming out to our bar, with our food, but would never come because they didnt want to smell like smoke for the next seven dayswere now an option for all those people.” Nor does Douville worry about noise complaints like Walker does: “No court is gonna label a bar a 'nuisance' after the city has ratified a smoking ban that requires you to go outside!” he says. “I want to see a judge reconcile 'no loitering' with 'no smoking inside'.” Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, who introduced and pushed the ban, disagrees: “The responsibility is on the bar-owner to keep their clientele

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August 2026