Well, apparently they in fact don’t, or else non-smoking bars and restaurants would exist and be profitable in the absence of legislation requiring them.
I guess people didn’t want clean skies and water either, since it required legislation to stop companies from polluting. Do you want to repeal those laws so the market can do the job instead?
This situation is a little different. There was no motivation for companies to avoid pollution. The primary motivation for companies is profit. Consumers support companies that meet their needs or give them products they desire. If a company does not give the consumer what they desire (for instance, they allow smoking in a bar, and the customer doesn’t like to be around smoke), it is the consumer’s responsibility to vote with their dollars. If enough consumers avoid a smoky bar, you can be sure that the policy would change. The difference with air pollution is that the problem does not directly affect the consumer, or the consumer is far enough removed from it that they have no way of knowing that the company is causing the air pollution (likely in some other state), so the consumer does not have enough information or motivation to vote with their dollars. In a case like this, it makes a lot more sense for the government to step in and say, “we will give you motivation…if you keep creating this pollution, we will fine you or shut you down.”
Exactly. A consumer has to actually put some legwork into determining whether a manufacturing company is producing unacceptable levels of pollution, and then more to find a company with a comparable product which isn’t. In order to determine whether a bar is too smoky, all they have to do is open the door. If we had both smoking and non-smoking establishments, likely all they’d need to do is walk a half-block further. Hardly an apt comparison.
It’s not meant to be a direct comparison. It’s meant to illustrate that the market sometimes is not able to account for certain factors. I’ve already said that I can’t explain WHY the market is failing, but it’s clear that it is.
The idea that people don’t really want non-smoking is too laughable a concept to even bother with. Has your head been in a box the last 20 years?
I never said people don’t want non-smoking…it’s clear that they do, since there is practically no public place where it is allowed, other than bars and some restaurants. There are PLENTY of other places people can go besides bars if they don’t like to be around smoke. And yet…they still go to the smoky bars. Why do you think this is? Maybe it’s because of the fact that they are in a smoke-free environment about 99.9% of the time, and that last .1% just doesn’t matter to them that much. And, as DianaG said, if they are that bothered by it…all they have to do is turn around and leave.
They clearly don’t want it enough. After all, if they really, *really * wanted to breathe clean air, they could stay home, like I mostly do these days, since I enjoy a cigarette with my drink. I’m voting with *my * dollar, why can’t they?
See, DianaG, everyone has the right not to breathe smoke, even if they don’t care enough about it to make a small amount of effort to find recreational things to do other than go to bars. :dubious: I don’t like being around smoke that much myself. But, I do like to go to a local bar sometimes for a burger & a beer. There are a couple of bars that are way too smoky for me. So…I don’t go to those. There are a couple that aren’t too bad, so I’m able to put up with it for an hour. If I really, really couldn’t stand it, I would just find a restaurant that didn’t allow smoking, and these days there are plenty of those.
I’ve seen this claim made, based only on anecdote. Do you have any hard evidence regarding this supposed extremely high level of smoking among bar workers?
Smokers (and those businessmen who cater to them) often have a highly exaggerated sense of how important they are to the economy. For example, a survey of Colorado bar owners found that nearly half of them believed that up to three-fourths of Coloradans are smokers. In reality, only 18% smoke.
The link citing that survey also notes the following:
“Bar workers typically inhale the equivalent of one-and-a-half to two packs of cigarettes during an eight-hourshift through secondhand smoke alone, according to the Colorado Tobacco Education and Prevention Alliance.”
It’s hard to believe that bar workers who know the risks don’t give a damn about secondhand smoke.
Antismoking regulations covering bars and restaurants benefits the health of their workers. And the workers know it.
They were probably basing his opinion on observation of their clientele. If 75% or more of the clientele smoke, don’t you think it’s a sound business decision to allow smoking? And, somehow, all of those non-smokers seem to be able to find something else to do other than go to smoky bars.
It’s hard to believe that bar workers who know and are concerned about the risks continue to work at bars.
I can play that, too.
See, everyone has the right to vote even if they don’t care enough about the issues to go do it.
See, everyone has the right to write their congressional representatives even if they don’t care enough…
See, everyone has the right to freedom of religion even if they don’t care enough…
Since when does everyone have to defend a right passionately and exercise it wisely before it’s actually a right?
Yes, everyone has a right to participate in government, and they do not all choose to exercise it. The difference is that these rights can be equally exercised by all…if I choose to vote, it does not infringe on your right to vote or not to vote, as you so choose. It’s not the same with smoking…there are conflicting interests involved. What about the bar owner’s right to run his establishment the way he pleases, allowing a legal activity, because most of his customers wish to partake in this activity? What about smokers…who enjoy a legal activity, who only have one type of business establishment left where they can partake in this activity? Do they not have rights?
What about it?
I’ve told this story before, but no one ever has a rebuttal, so I’ll tell it again.
I work at a factory. In the factory, it is noisy. We are required to provide our employees with hearing protection, to have them tested regularly, and to require they wear the protection. It doesn’t matter that many of our employees would rather not wear the hearing protection. It doesn’t matter that many of our employees probably do things on their off-hours to damage their hearing. We are required not to damage their hearing on the job.
Tell me how it’s different for a bar and a smoking employee.
It is different because the preference of the customer is not at issue. The bartender is selling his customers a particular product…an atmosphere where they can sit, have a drink, and smoke. The customers want this, and the bar provides it. In the factory, the noise is a byproduct of the manufacturing process. The customer of the product being produced does not have their enjoyment of the product lessened by the workers wearing hearing protection. The owners of the factory do not lose customers because of the workers wearing hearing protection.
Another reason it is different is because, while people in your factory may damage their hearing on their own time, it is most likely in the pursuit of activities they enjoy, such as going to concerts or NASCAR races…it is most likely NOT standing around a noisy factory. On the other hand, when smokers who work in bars are damaging their lungs on their own time, it is most likely by smoking, or standing around where others are smoking…the same exact thing that damages their lungs at work.
And, as an aside, IMO if an employee does not want to wear hearing protection, it should be within his or her rights not to wear it.
It is. Employees who work in bars and clubs do not have to wear hearing protection, despite the fact that they are exposed to higher levels of noise than factory workers. Also, even in the 1940s, factory employees were prohibited from smoking while they were working. They had to wait for a break, unlike bar employees who light a cigarette and smoke while they work. So lastly, the employees in the factory are not the ones making the noise. These are three ways a factory is unlike a bar.
I was responding to jsgoddess’s statement that in the factory where she works, the employees must wear hearing protection, even if they would prefer not to. What the law says, I don’t know.
So, if my customers wanted me to harm my employees, that’d make it all good?
Factories aren’t like bars because we can’t control the noise and so must control the employee’s exposure with hearing protection.
Bars aren’t like factories because we can control the smoke and so needn’t control the employee’s exposure with breathing protection.
And as been demonstrated, the owners of the bar don’t lose customers when their workers are protected by law.
We have to write up employees for failing to follow safety rules, including wearing their hearing protection. There is zero reason to exempt bars from this same sort of concern over an employee’s health.
I do not believe they are exempted if they are exposed for long enough. From here:
I can’t find anything about them having an exemption, though I am obviously not a lawyer.
Not if it is just for the sake of harming them, no.
Right.
But this ignores the fact that MOST public places are smoke-free. If a person wants a job waiting tables, there are plenty of places where they can go to work where there is no smoking. When the government starts assigning places for people to work, then the smoking ban in bars will make sense to me.
It doesn’t matter. It violates private property rights to force privately-owned establishments to go smoke-free.
There is zero reason for your employees to be written up for not wearing their hearing protection (except maybe to sign a full-disclosure release, so the factory doesn’t get sued.) Bars show concern about employees’ health by not forcing them to work there. There is a bar near my house that has live music that is very, very loud. We went there once and never went back. But the place is packed all the time. Should that bar owner be forced to stop having the music, because it might damage peoples’ hearing? Even though there are plenty of other, quiet places in my neighborhood where people can work and have a drink?
Why not?
MOST public places aren’t as loud as this factory. If a person wants a job, there are plenty of places where they can go where it isn’t this loud.
Why?
There are two major reasons they are written up:
- It’s our rule, and
- It’s the law.
You think we should violate the law?
You do know that if someone is injured on the job, they have a claim against us, no matter if they signed a paper or not, right? If they violate our rules, we’re still liable for Worker’s Compensation. This is the real world, not a libertarian fantasy camp.
I see. So we show concern about our employees’ health by not forcing them to work here and anything else is hunky dory. Hello, coalmines!
If he is damaging his workers’ hearing, he should be required to provide them with hearing protection and they should be required to wear it.