Reminds me of bars in NYC back when smoking bans were implemented. They all thought they would lose business. They gained it instead as new customers who had been avoiding bars because of the smell of smoke flocked there instead.
The opposite happened in my locale. I'm a musician, so I welcomed not having to come home from a performance covered in smoke. The bottom dropped out of the bar business.
Now this might be the difference -- my town is mid sized and a lot more sprawly. My hypothesis is that folks had for years settled into lifestyles that didn't involve going to bars, and moved into zones that had few or no bars. When the city banned smoking, folks didn't suddenly change their lifestyles.
It's been something like a decade, and things have kind of gotten back to normal (present circumstances aside, of course). But it took a long time.
Online dating also started to take off about the same time that smoking in bars was banned. Between online video games and online dating, the options for "socializing" after work have increased substantially in the last 20 years.
Moreover, Hoboken had to ban smoking too to regain its residents preferring smoke-free bars and restaurants in the city -- the opposite of naysayers' expectations.
It will happen with cars and plastic here (NYC) too. I hope the polluters don't resist as much.
I'm a member of a private club (not in ny) that allowed smoking well past the law disallowed smoking in the public places. Business started struggling several years back, finally, they realized that the problem was they allowed smoking so they voluntary banned it and now business is much better.
That analogy breaks down as smokers had no alternative. After bars banned smoking they lost few (if any) smoking customers while relishing in troves from the non-smoking demographic. Car-centric Viennese can still avoid Begegnungszonen.
Outside? It's weird, because I've been to a restaurant in Vienna and they had a three by two metre windowed and ventilated smoking compartment where smokers were enjoying their habit. In my country it's completeley banned in closed public spaces as it should be.
