Nitpick: A chateaubriand is a steak. Are we now banning red meat?
Too many cross-themes here.
For every study that (or anecdotal evidence as above) shows that businesses were hurt by smoking bans, there is an offsetting study to show that business rebounded after an initial dip.
I smoke for years. I can recall working in the 70's and going through a pack of Pall Malls and no one in the next desk could say a thing. We wouldn't dream of lighting up in an office full of people, nowadays.
Pipeline, I think you're right about the rotten state of the music "biz", but I don't think smoking or not smoking is going to do anything to get people into clubs to listen to lousy music. I live in the musical wastelands of Asia. We get retread tours. In the past three years I've seen Roberta Flack, The Stones, The Eagles, and a few others. You can't smoke in the big auditoria. Of the people I know who didn't go to see the Stones, all said, in one variation or another, "...because I don't really like them any more..". No one said, "Well, if I can't smoke, I'm not going to see my favorite band!"
Now, I admit that The Rolling Stones aren't doing 3-a-nite for meal money, but in many of the cities I've lived in, the local music scene produced some pretty good music. I can't imagine passing up on Dizzy Gillespie (New York 60's), Mahogany Rush or Robert Charlebois (Montreal in the 70's) or The Backwards Band (unheard of... Pittsburgh in the 90's, but I liked 'em) if the only drawback was that I couldn't smoke. If music is your interest, you'll go where the music is good.
