The Orlando Sentinel reports that the anti-smoking amendment in Florida is hitting bartenders and waitresses pretty hard. The anti-smoking amendment, which nullified private property rights of business owners, went into effect on July 1st.

"When I first started working here, I was making $100, easy," [Gator's Dockside Stephanie Basler] said of her daily take at the cavernous, sports-theme restaurant...

Now, during a typical day shift -- which includes part of the afternoon and early evening "happy hour" -- Basler said she is lucky to eke out $50 to $70. And it's worse for people working nights, she added.

Gator's doesn't have any outdoor seating, and they get too many food sales to be classified as a "bar", so smoking is completely banned at the restaurant. Across the parking lot from where Stephanie works is Amigo's. They have an outdoor patio where smoking is legal, and business has been quite brisk. Evening business at "bars", which get less than 10% of their business from food and are thus exempted from the statute, has also increased.

So Florida has effectively created a barrier to competition and free markets. Rather than let the businesses decide who to cater their business to, the government has taken over that role. Rather than each establishment segregating smokers according to their customer's demand, Florida has pretty much created restaurants that can allow smoking and those that cannot. It also should come as no surprise that the smoking establishments are more lucrative. Smokers have more vices, and are likely to stay longer, drink more, and have larger tabs.

The owners of non-smoking establishments are hurting, and soon their employees will begin to migrate over to more lucrative jobs at smoking establishments. Inevitably, some of the restaurants will end up going out of business.

Of course, the anti-smokers aren't finished. Their real agenda is prohibition, so it's only a matter of time before they call for a ban at the exempted restaurants as well. Now they not only have their "health" issue to stand behind, but they've created a whole new reason to ban smoking: equal protection. With smoking restaurants having a business advantage over non-smoking restaurants, anti-smokers need only rally behind the cause of leveling the playing field, by banning smoking in all restaurants.