Breathing and the Bottom Line
Clearing the Air on Smoke Elimination Equipment

Traditionally, bars have been a safe haven for cigarette smokers. However, with issues such as second-hand smoke wafting through the headlines, every establishment now is being faced with decisions to protect profits, customers, employees and the overall quality of the environment.      
    Within the past few years, the acceptance of cigarette smoking in nearly every public facility seems to have fallen by the wayside. Most recently, the trend has infiltrated the nightlife industry, in many cases prohibiting smoking through extreme measures such as legislative-driven bans.

There is a Solution
    Indoor air purifiers are becoming more efficient, and they also now are more affordable. Not only do they filter smoke, but they effectively remove allergens and other pollutants, providing a healthier, more enjoyable on-premise experience.
Nightclub & Bar has heard numerous accounts from bar owners who have witnessed customers leaving their establishments — and in some cases their towns — to travel to another area where smoking is acceptable.
    Currently, the Department of Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is conducting a study “researching the economic effects of government-imposed smoking bans in restaurants and bars.”
The study sets out to determine the effects that smoking bans have on bar and restaurant revenue. It also explores the overall response bar employees have to smoking bans. This study is one of hundreds too. The sheer amount of research on this particular topic illustrates that this airborne issue continues to be a hot topic in the industry.
    But where smoking is not illegal, there is an alternative.
    “Certain communities and lawmakers have created situations where bars are being legislated out of smoking. We push to implement a smoking solution in bars and restaurants,” says Stan Brannan, president of Purifan, one manufacturer of air filtrations systems.
    “Many Purifan customers report a rise in food and liquor revenues ranging from 30 to 300 percent,” Brannan says.

Three-Part Evaluation 
    Brannan sees three steps to implementing a smoke elimination system. The first step is acquisition; every facility is different. Owners must install the proper amount of units in direct relation to the amount of space in an establishment. The second step is getting the units fully operational. Installation in strategic areas provides that the units will function properly at the highest level of efficiency. The third step is maintaining the system.
    Everett Barbee of Onemor Restaurant Bar & Grill in Concord, N.C., recently purchased 10 smoke elimination units for his establishment. “We have gotten lots of compliments from folks saying thanks,” he says. “The high levels of smoke and dust have disappeared.”

A Closing Remark
    “You can just tell the air is cleaner (back in the kitchen),” said Rick Orsi, owner of Molto Bene Ristorante in Jupiter, Fla., after a $10,000 investment in RGF Environmental Inc. equipment that, among other things, purified the air.             NCB