Smoking ban burns clubs

The groups and bingo halls blaming the smoking ban in Edmonton for the drop in bingo revenues are looking in the wrong direction.

A drop in attendance and revenue can be blamed on complacency and lack of vision for growing the game so people would not leave to go somewhere else that is more interesting or entertaining for them.

It is my experience here in Calgary, that the bingo industry thought they had no competition and did not need to improve their product to keep their current audience, and did nothing to grow it.

The competition that probably does the biggest damage to the bingo world outside of the industry lies with the provincial government, which allowed the uncontrolled growth of casinos and VLT's that have sucked the audience away from bingo.

The province also sucks the money put into the VLT's into its general revenue pool, and then doles it back out to their friends and their pet projects.

If the bingo industry wanted to grow, then it should not look to bringing back smoking, but to bring the much larger non-smoking customer base to its facilities.

When a company is losing its customers there is really only one reason. They have rested on their laurels and not paid attention to improving, changing, or fixing the product or service they have offered, and the customer has found someone else that will do this.

This would be much healthier for both the players, bingo workers and the groups working the bingos' bottom lines.

The other solution would be for the provincial government to grow a spine and put in place a province wide smoking ban in public places.

If the city council gives into this plea to allow smoking back into the bingo halls, they truly will be showing the province they lead with their heads in the sand.