(AP) St. Paul, Minnesota - Less than six months after smoking was banned in Bloomington bars, South Town Bingo closed for good two weeks ago.

Business started to fall off as soon as the smoking ban took effect, said Jim Algeo, president of the crime prevention association that ran the bingo operation. He estimated that about 70 percent of the bingo players smoked.

"They stayed away in droves," Algeo told lawmakers on the House State Government Finance Committee Tuesday.

Algeo and other backers of charitable gambling -- pull-tabs, bingo and other games -- told lawmakers Tuesday that smoking bans have hurt their businesses in Hennepin and Ramsey counties.

"We've never seen anything like this," said King Wilson, executive director of Allied Charities of Minnesota. "The charities are being devastated in Hennepin and Ramsey."

But one proponent of a statewide smoking ban said even if the bans are to blame for the drop, long-term health care savings will outweigh any lost charitable gambling receipts. Pat McKone, senior director of tobacco control for the American Lung Association of Minnesota, said charitable gambling sales have been falling for the past two decades.

"To just say this was the smoking ban is premature," McKone said. "The longer we see these studies in many different communities, the more we see the economic effect level out."

Charitable gambling sales dropped nearly 22 percent in the first three months after Hennepin County nixed smoking in bars and restaurants in late March, said Tom Barrett, director of the Minnesota Gambling Control Board. The decline was almost 10 percent in Ramsey County, where some bars still allow smoking.

Meanwhile, sales were up almost 5 percent in Anoka County, which allows smoking in bars. Business also increased slightly in Dakota, Sherburne and Wright counties. But receipts fell 0.8 to 3.8 percent in Scott, Carver and Washington counties, which also don't have smoking bans.

Statewide charitable gambling sales are down about 2 percent to 3 percent, Barrett said.

Charitable gambling is a $1.4 billion-a-year industry in Minnesota, bigger than in any other state. More than four-fifths of the proceeds are paid out in prizes, leaving 5 percent for charities and 4 percent for taxes. In South Town Bingo's case, about $125,000 a year went to crime prevention activities including school crossing guards and a youth center.

Hennepin and Ramsey counties and the cities of Minneapolis, Bloomington and Golden Valley enacted smoking bans on March 31. Except in Ramsey County, where establishments that sell more liquor than food can get exemptions, the bans prohibit smoking in all public restaurants and bars.

Officials are under pressure to modify the ban in Hennepin County, where bar owners say some patrons have crossed county lines to taverns where they can light up. An attempt to pass a statewide smoking ban failed earlier this year when a business-friendly House committee defeated the proposal.