The manager, Evon, was willing to answer a couple of questions. Her first question was, "If smoking is banned in restaurants how might it affect the business you do?" "Enormously," said Evon, "I feel we would lose a lot of long-time customers and a lot of money." She feels that at least one third of sales comes from smokers. Joann Milsna, the manager at Bakers Square, also answered some questions. When asked that same question she had a very similar answer. "We would get a lot less business. I think at least 35% of people that come in want to be seated in smoking." Chicago City Limits, a local bar, was also called. A bar tender named Linda Mitchell had things to say about this topic. When Linda was asked if she felt the bar might lose business if it was non-smoking she laughed. "All people do when they come here is smoke and drink. Either everyone would be outside or they would find somewhere else to go," is what she said. The next question was, "What if it was illegal to smoke in any building?" Her response was surprising. She thinks it would be a lot like prohibition when people illegally drank liquor, and found places to do it. She thinks people would find secret places to smoke illegally. That, maybe, is going a little too far.
The next question asked was all about the customer. Did some people ask to sit in non-smoking, but still sat near smoke ever get upset? Both responses were the same. Evon, from IHOP, said "Some people complain, but we try to accommodate them the best we can and move them." Joann, from Bakers Square responded this way, "That happens about five times a day and we all do our best to make that customer happy." Since they seemed so unworried about the effects of smoke this was the next question, "Are you worried about the employees that work in smoking being harmed by the second-hand smoke?" Once again their answers were almost exactly the same. "I've never thought about that honestly," said Evon, "Most of the servers are smokers themselves and I've never gotten any complaints.