Chris Knight, the owner of the Blind Pig, came up to me today. He informed me that, "The last two days have been the worst since we opened." He specifically claims that the lack of sales on these two days (Sunday and Monday, February Fourth and Fifth) proves that Champaign’s smoking ban is hurting his business.
He makes a classic flawed argument. He equates one cause (the beginning of the smoking ban last week) to the effect (the lowest sales since he opened.) There are two separate variables that are probably the actual causes of the low sales…
First, I believe that he’s talking about Sunday and Monday. One would probably expect that a bar would have the lowest sales each week on Sundays and Mondays. (Also, this Sunday was the Super Bowl. I don’t remember that he has any big screen televisions in his bar, but I can’t really show my face in there any more to check. When the Bears lost, I doubt that many people felt like going out downtown afterward, and I also doubt that many people felt like going out the Monday after the Super Bowl either.)
Secondly, it was cold…really cold. I asked him whether the two days he was referring to were also the coldest two days since he opened. He didn’t answer. So, I looked it up myself. These two days did, indeed, have the lowest low temperatures of any days in 2005, 2006, and 2007. In my opinion, there’s your cause.
