YOUR VIEWS

I have been following your articles about the palm beetle plague with great interest. It certainly seems that more preventative action needs to be taken.

I have seen infected palms on the outskirts of Inca and last week, saw 2 infected palms in San Augustin.
They are easy to spot, once one can see holes in the base of pruned fronds.
Yours Sincerely,

Mrs M. Stenberg.
Club de Mar

DEAR SIR
IN support of S J Carter's post regarding the question … “how can it be possible to know that the smoking ban has cost the service sector 30 to 50 per cent losses”.

I suspect that this is simply an estimate based on anecdotal comments made by some business owners, and not a valid statistical survey.
Yes, the smoking law has caused changes in specific venues, but overall, I fail to see a decline. Here are some examples. In my village, there are four bars which I consider my locals. Lets call them A, B, C, D.

Bar A serves a good brunch on Sundays, and OK variants the rest of the week, in addition to occasionally having live music. It has covered outside seating. As a non smoker, this means that my attending winter concerts before 2011 was down because of the smoke. In the summer, I would stay outside, but would get my variants from bar B so as not to have to wade through the smokers to get to the bar. Now the bar is more crowded with non smokers, which means they sell more food and drink, and the smokers step outside to smoke. I spoke to the owner, after reading today's letter and was informed that not only is the take for drinks up, but even more so when it comes to variants, especially for Sunday brunch, as there are more families inside.

Bars B and C are about the same., because they already had an outdoor heating system and served tables outside the year around.
However, where before, I never went to bar D in the winter, only in the spring – summer – autumn, because it has the best food and an enclosed patio, but too cold in the winter. Now, when I have surprise guests or am just too lazy to prepare a meal, I go to this bar. So using myself as an example, this bar is financially ahead.

I support the ban, and feel it is in the long term interests of both residents and visitors.

Richard Goss
Porreres