They should be shot!

[Nanno]

I just got back from Las Vegas, where you can smoke any place you want. We went to dinner and the only table available was in smoking section, we looked in nobody was smoking so we said ok. As we were waiting for dinner, a young couple with beautiful twin baby girls walk in, after the oohs and ahhs, they sat down, and guess what? They both lit up cigarettes in front of these children, I mean its ok right? its the smoking section . This is abuse and they should be shot!

[RussellM]

[Agrees with]
You're right of course. Taxes should be levied and laws passed to ensure that everyone brings up their children exactly the way I would or the way you would. [/Agrees with]

[Questions it]
Is this abuse? It's not what I would do, but I am not so arrogant as to presume that anything I do not subscribe to is abusive.
[/Questions it]

[Surely not]
What about parents who fail to encourage their children to have healthy lifestyles, to exercise, to visit the dentist ? Is this abuse?
[/Surely not]


Russell

[Athena]

From what I've heard, the dangers of second hand smoke are not nearly as bad as the media wants them to be. Even Cecil agrees with me - http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000602.html.

And, quite frankly, if you're sitting in the smoking section, you do NOT get to be holier-than-though when people come in and (gasp!) smoke. As RussellM points out, we all have our vices. Smoking just happens to be a visible one. You just don't see all those people who never bring their kids to a doctor/dentist/etc, or eat fatty food, or sit on their butts eating ho-hos and watching TV every night of the week.

[Goose]

Why does everyone hate smoking? My mom smokes and it never bothers me, but I'm never goign to smoke probably because of the smell of her car. She is more of a deterrent then anything else. Shot because she smoked in front of me? No, I don't think so. Did your parents ever take a sip of beer in their lives? Go over the speed limit just a little?

[Fretful Porpentine]

"They should be shot," eh? So you think the kids would be better off without parents than with parents who smoke? Come off it. Sure, smoking in front of small children isn't ideal (show me parents who are ideal), but it happens to be perfectly legal, and it isn't "abuse" by any stretch of the imagination. You obviously have a lot of time on your hands if you can afford to mind these people's business for them; I suggest you spend some of it helping kids who have really been abused, and then perhaps you'll be able to tell the difference.

Incidentally, I'm a very occasional social smoker (two or three cigs a month, mostly in bars), and anti-smoking zealots like the OP are the reason I'll never quit entirely. I get tempted to light up just reading this stuff.

[Jack Batty]

All I can say is . . .

I'm moving to Vegas!

You can smoke where ever you want? Wahoo!!

Around here it's getting so the only place you can smoke is the privacy of your own home, and that's only providing you put warning signs out front.

[wring]

Suspect this should have been in anothe forum, 'cause I belive Nanno was not truly thinking the parents should be shot, but merely using exaggeration as a means to show disapproval.

it's the smoking in the kids face that gets to me personally. I mean, choose to destroy your lungs, fine. But don't lean over your baby with the cigarette in your mouth (have seen that). If nothing else, there's a risk of burning them. Yes, I understand that the people in the OP weren't doing that. Always felt that the kids of smokers had more frequent coughs/respiratory stuff ..... I used to smoke, always swore that my annual bouts of bronchitus were NOT smoking related, since I'd always had them, since childhood, forgetting that ONLY the kids in my house were non smokers. Anyhow.

So, while I don't "approve" of folks with small babies smoking around them, I don't think they care about my approval, and wouldn't bother expressing it, in general.

[kinoons]

Just as an aside, my parents both smoked until I was 10, when my father quit. My mother still smokes.

I am perfectly healthy: I have quite a vital capacity, and am very physically fit. My parents smoking when I was a child seems to have no ill effects on my health -- and it has only increased my convection to not smoke. I think its absolutely revolting -- and I've seen the hell its put my mother through

[Commander Fortune]

When I worked in a restaurant, one of our regulars would come in and sit in the smoking section, smoke, and nurse er baby. Even as a (then) smoker, it made me bristle every time.

[voguevixen]

I don't have a problem with the smoking, but I don't think people have any business bringing kids to Las Vegas. Please! I'm there to get AWAY from the brats...take those kneebiters to Disneyland or something and let the grownups sin in peace!

[ricepad]

So after Mom and Dad get shot, who gets to raise the twins?

[xizor]

Originally posted by voguevixen
I don't have a problem with the smoking, but I don't think people have any business bringing kids to Las Vegas. Please! I'm there to get AWAY from the brats...take those kneebiters to Disneyland or something and let the grownups sin in peace!

I agree completely with voguevixen. Why on earth would you want to bring your kids to someplace like Vegas? "Look kids, every vice you can think of all in one spot, most of it legal."

[Kvallulf]

Las Vegas is changing to a more family friendly atmosphere.

[robinh]

several things to which to respond...

But don't lean over your baby with the cigarette in your mouth (have seen that). If nothing else, there's a risk of burning them. Yes, it does happen. My sister-in-law was burned on the cheek by her grandfather's cigar.

My parents smoking when I was a child seems to have no ill effects on my health -- and it has only increased my convection to not smoke. I'm glad your parents' habit had that effect, but may I suggest that the reason you were apparently unaffected was that you were healthy to begin with? My experience was different. My father smoked a pipe. My little brother had asthma. When my father lit up, in another room, my sleeping brother, behind a closed door, would start coughing. The trouble is, we don't know what sort of health problems our children might have, or what sort of health issues they might be prone to in the future. It seems to me that it is smarter, and kinder to our children, to avoid risks where we can.

That said, I also believe that children should have regular medical checkups, that they should have regular dental checkups starting at age 2, that spanking is abusive and unnecessary, and no one has yet to convince me that vaccinations (in most cases) are more dangerous than the diseases they prevent. But I also don't believe that people who disagree with me deserve jail sentences. So long as their actions are legal under the laws of the country in which I choose to live, my only choice is to promote education where I can. I cannot make every choice for another parent, and I certainly don't want every parent to have a say in the choices I make.

And, finally, I don't think people have any business bringing kids to Las Vegas.

My husband was in Las Vegas recently on business, and had the same reaction. It does seem like an odd place to market as a "family getaway."

[Spider Woman]

xizor says:

I agree completely with voguevixen. Why on earth would you want to bring your kids to someplace like Vegas? "Look kids, every vice you can think of all in one spot, most of it legal."

We have friends that live in Vegas year round; they teach school there. Maybe the couple with the twins lives there also.

[APB9999]

kinoons:

it has only increased my convection to not smoke.

That gets my vote for the most ironic typo of the year!

Incidentally, cancer, AFAIK, is due to the accumulation of mutations in cell regulatory mechanisms. Since there are several such mechanisms, you have to have a variety of mutations to get the big C. ANY chronic mutagenic load on your body is damaging, even if you don't manifest cancer immediately, because it has brought you a little closer to the complete suite of mutations needed to give rise to cancer. So saying "I've smoked a long time and I'm perfectly healthy", or "I've breathed these carcinogenic gasses a lot, and I'm just fine" is very naive. You may just have not yet reached the cumulative load of mutations necessary to exhibit overt problems. It doesn't mean you haven't received damage.

[voguevixen]

Originally posted by Kvallulf
Las Vegas is changing to a more family friendly atmosphere.

It's not, you know. Just because a casino puts a video game room in it's basement doesn't make it "family friendly." There was a bit of a movement in the early 90's to make it seem like more of a family vacation spot, but with the latest trend of hotels such as the Bellagio (which won't even let you in with anyone under 18) Paris and the Venetian, it's obvious that they're realising where the real money is coming from: people gambling, not going to see the free pirate show.