Gerald Gesiorski held on to his bar permit for six weeks before switching his full-service restaurant to a full-time drinking establishment. He didn’t want to give up the food business, but he said he had to.
“My food sales shrunk from 70 percent of my business to 9 percent,” said Gesiorski, who owns Lil’ Bit of Chicago on McKinley Avenue in Hanover. “But I don’t want to lose it, I’ve got to do something. You’ve got to change with the times.”
Gesiorski attributes the dramatic fall in food sales to the state-wide restaurant smoking ban, officially known as the “Clean Indoor Air Act,” which went into effect in September 2008. With his new permit, which includes a bar exemption, Gesiorski can allow smoking in the building, as long as food sales make up less than 20 percent of the restaurant’s yearly revenue.
However, other York-area bars and restaurants have found success in compliance with the ban.