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Thursday, April 24th, 2008

US Bingo Suffering Due to Smoking Ban as Well

Banning smoking at charity bingo games may have health benefits, but it is proving harmful to earnings in the US market as well as the UK.

In report from the New York Times it is clear that its not just the UK bingo buisness which is cursing its luck as regards the smoking ban our friends across the pond are having the same issues with closures and business challanges.

I have put a summary of the article for our readers:

In Minnesota, which adopted a statewide ban on smoking in all indoor workplaces in October, revenue from all charity gambling dropped nearly 13 percent in the last quarter of 2007, compared to the same quarter the year before, according to state officials. More than half of the drop — the equivalent of about $100 million annually — was attributed to the new smoking law.

Charlie Lindstrom, who runs the bingo nights at an American Legion post, said some of his former customers now drove to casinos on Indian reservations, where they can puff away, or across the border where veteran organizations are exempt from that state’s smoking ban.

Mr. Lindstrom is not alone. Managers of charity bingo games in California, New Jersey, New York and Washington State also say their smoking bans have forced cutbacks in budgets and in their support for various causes.

Few believe they can cultivate new nonsmoking players. They say smoking goes with bingo like peanut butter with jelly. Last year, a bingo game produced $23,000 that supported a shelter for abused women, a drug awareness program and a camp for young cancer survivors. Now such funding is under threat. 

Veterans’ organizations like the American Legion, fraternal groups like the Shrine and Moose clubs, local drum and bugle corps and churches have long depended on revenue from gambling.

Some advocates of smoking bans said the costs of smoking to the state in terms of public health and productivity greatly outweighed the losses to charity. Some argue that the revenues will return in over the long run. “Around the country,” said State Representative Thomas Huntley, Democrat of Duluth and a chief sponsor of Minnesota’s Freedom to Breathe Act, “whenever places have put in smoking bans, there is a six-month period where there is a drop in business in bars and restaurants, which is where this gambling takes place, and after that, it starts to rebound.” But bingo managers in states where bans on smoking have been in effect longer say nonsmokers cannot make up for the decline in revenues from smokers. Instead, they say, their industry has undergone a wave of forced consolidation.

When Washingtons ban on smoking took effect in 2005, Mr. Bock was able to partially enclose a porch where bingo players could still smoke, and he got it approved as a separate facility. “It cost me $8,000, but it protected my customer base,” he said. “Other games weren’t so lucky.”

Washington used to be home to 100 bingo halls that raised money for charity. Now there are fewer than 20.Bret Rios, director of operations for the Blue Devils, a nonprofit drum and bugle corps in Concord, Calif., says his organization, too, has felt the effects. “A lot of people who play bingo like to smoke,” Mr. Rios said

Bingo is the largest source of revenue for the Blue Devils, which operates musical groups that involve more than 500 children each year. In 2005, bingo provided $1.2 million for the organization’s activities, covering more than half its costs.

Mr. Rios said bingo revenues were down about $10,000 a month since Contra Costa County imposed more stringent restrictions on smoking in 2006. Attendance at the nightly games has fallen to about 225 on average, compared to 300 or more before the ban took effect.

The Blue Devils had spent roughly $70,000 to create a specially ventilated separate room for smoking bingo players, which the county ordered closed under its new regulations. The organization replaced it with a covered patio in its parking lot, but smokers are not happy with it, Mr. Rios said.

Ms. Aiello said friends who used to play at the Concord center now went to American Indian-owned casinos or bingo parlors in the adjacent county, which has less stringent smoking restrictions than Contra Costa.

Ms. Aiello and other smokers also spoke of tensions between smokers and nonsmokers. Some nonsmoking bingo players have complained that the smell of smoke wafts in from outside, and the Blue Devils group was recently forced to place notices at entrances, reminding smokers that the county forbid them to light up within 20 yards of doorways.

“Why do all the nonsmokers have all the rights and the smokers have none?” said Rhonda Convino, 37, who smokes but has remained loyal to the Blue Devils games.

Mr. Rios said he felt caught between a rock and a hard place.

“I’m not a smoker, and I’m not fond of smoking,” he said. “I wouldn’t go to a place that smelled of smoke and spend a lot of time there. But they’ve gone way too far — you know, they’re even thinking about passing a law that would make it illegal to smoke in your own home.”

Told about that idea, Representative Huntley of Minnesota chuckled. “I don’t think I’ll take that idea up,” he said. “I’m still pulling the knives out of my back from the last time.”

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