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Restaurants don’t lose money if they are made into smoke-free zones, a new
study suggests. Medical researchers led by Adam Goldstein of the University of
North Carolina, Chapel Hill, compared the earnings of restaurants in counties in
the state with a total smoking ban to those in counties that allow restaurants
with smoking sections. There were no significant differences, the researchers
report in the North Carolina Medical Journal (vol 59, p 284). Instead,
profits in both types of restaurant followed booms and busts in the state’s
economy.