Smoking ban is not the reason some restaurants have gone out of business

Otto’s Bar and Grill is closed. It joins a small number of other failed restaurants that claim Columbia’s smoking ban is solely to blame. And the media appear to be supporting this “Myth of the Smoker,” a slippery-slope campaign of blatant misinformation. The media have failed to make a concerted effort to show whether these businesses were profitable before the city’s action. I can only assume, from observational evidence alone, that they were not, making closure inevitable.