Patrons in general prefer non-smoking locations. There are far more non-smokers than smokers. The demand is there, the bars (in smoking-permitted locations) currently just take advantage of the fact that people don't have a choice, so they get to dip in "both pools" at the same time.
In every location I've lived, once a non-smoking bar/club/whatever opened up, the other bars/clubs/etc in the area immediately lost enormous amounts of business, often times also converting to non-smoking. Eventually there'd only be one or two smoking permitted locations left open, with all the smokers providing the patronage. This is exactly what I am talking about.
My statement is not incorrect. Let me hypothesize. Let us say the number of non-smoking bars goes up, the smoking bars go down, due to balance of patrons (more non-smokers than smokers, factual.) Since most employees (statistically) will be non-smokers, they will generally *prefer* to work at a non-smoking location, hence they will go to work for them. There are not inifinite unskilled laborers, unless you live in TX/CA or some place where illegals are displacing laborers in other positions.
If you want to break labor further into skilled/unskilled for comparison's sake, that's fine. What about tank cleaners at a sewage treatment plant? That's hardly skilled labor, they get a day or two of training, and they are on the job. How about heavy machine operation? Loggers? Etc. Sure, it may be "called" skilled technically, but ANYBODY can take it up, including those waitresses/barkeeps. Heck, I used to drive a 40 foot overhead forklift for fun, it took about 15 minutes to figure it out. I've got pictures to prove it.
The argument that these people *have no choice* but to do what they are doing is insane. They do have a choice, whether or not they take the opportunity to exercise it is a different matter entirely. Unless we are talking about mentally deficient people, in which case maybe all they can do is waitress. Or some other specific skill that for whatever reason they have the right mental capacity for. These are niche cases, though.
People who are lifers at McDonalds, bars, whatever you want to called unskilled labor - make the choice to be - and I have no sympathy for them. Nor should they get special treatment due to their lack of ambition/foresight. |
