Hospitality Industry Steps Up Awareness Campaign Against "NDP Smoke Police"

Vancouver, March 2, 2000...One of Vancouver’s favourite nightclubs, BaBalu, has been forced to take dramatic efforts to reduce payroll and expenditures as a result of the BC Government’s smoking ban. Today it was announced that 11 person years have been eliminated from the staff roster, and a total of $281,000 in cutbacks have been made in order for the business to remain profitable.

Vance Campbell, Vice President of Granville Entertainment, stated that "these extraordinary payroll cutbacks have never taken place in prior years." He added "this is not, as the WCB would have you believe, the result of a typical ‘slow winter season’, it is due to the reality that many patrons who happen to be smokers are not frequenting their favourite watering holes as they have in the past."

Campbell used the announcement of the layoffs and expenditure reductions to release the Hospitality Industry’s next phase of its public awareness campaign against the NDP government’s smoking ban. He unveiled a poster that states "THE NDP FORBIDS YOU FROM SMOKING ON THESE PREMISES", along with the tag line "Getting tired of this?" The poster shows a menacing looking, helmeted, sunglass wearing, "NDP Smoking Cop". "It is demonstrative of the belligerent and overzealous behaviour that has been exhibited by the NDP and their servants in pursuit of enforcement against hospitality owners," he added.

The posters are the first of many more public relations activities that will escalate around the province as part of a $300,000 public awareness campaign. Funds are being raised from individuals and small businesses around the province. Many workers are contributing tips from patrons, and donations are being accepted at any branch of the Toronto Dominion Bank in BC under the "Hospitality Legal Defense Fund".

"The government has failed to recognize that the people that they purport to be helping are the ones they are actually hurting. Clearly, this regulation has nothing to do with worker health. It has everything to do with the government’s social engineering agenda, and they are using the hospitality industry to achieve their objectives."

The Coalition of Hospitality Organizations is a group of affected industry organizations, injured workers, and individuals that support a ventilation solution.

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For more information:

Vance Campbell

604.788.6353