You’re not a smoker, but you just happen to know the exact cost of a pack of cigarettes, and how much it’s going to increase.Yeah, right.
OK - I am a smoker, and there is an alderman in Chicgao proposing the same thing here.
Now - I can understand non-smoking sections, I mean true non-smoking sections in restaurants, not separated by a mere line - no one wants to have that while they are eating - even me.
But - when you try to limit where I smoke - especially in a bar, for chrissake - thank you very much, but I think not.
It’s revenue, it’s clientele, it’s a bargoing almost way of life. Cut those people out, and you will have an exit of patrons. I’ve seen it in California in many a bar. For the many bar owners and bartenders I know, I hope it never happens here - not because I am a smoker, but because I am a patron, and I understand where their livelihood is made.
You can tell me where I can’t smoke, and for the most part I will obey - but please don’t make it a BAR.
Blowero, SandWriter is almost right, but he understated it by a bit. Currently the CA law collects .83 per pack and it will go up to 1.10 per pack if Gov. Davis has his way…that’s a 17 cent increase or 1.70 per carton. IANAS now but used to be, and even I know that. The news is blared at us day and night by th’ gummint and others.
:rowleyes:
I am really trying to quit my smilie addiction, I really am.
As someone allergic to your poison, FUCK YOU and Fuck you very much.
Smoking should be banned everywhere, and smokers should have the patch ground up and put in their food. Police should be allowed to do house to house raids looking for cigarettes.
Ban smoking now!
I tend to agree with you here. I remember some years back, a pub in Sydney, Aust., (where i’m originally from) tried to go the non-smoking route, but the experiment only lasted a month or so because it lost so much business. The problem with trying something like this on your own is that it doesn’t matter if 80% of your customers are non-smokers; if there are even just one or two smokers in a group of ten, the group will probably go to a bar where the smokers can light up. But, if there are no bars where smoking is allowed, then there’s no reason for them to go elsewhere.
After leaving school and before going to university, i spent a few years working in the hospitality industry. One of my jobs was behind the bar at a club, but i had to give it up and move to restaurant work because it was unbearable working in a smoky haze for forty hours a week.
I’ve never smoked, but i’ve also never been one of those people who actually wanted to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. I’ve always had friends who smoked, and i’ve been willing to put up with it for the sake of sociability. That was, at least, until i went to San Francisco with my girlfriend a few weeks ago. It was my first extended stay (i.e more than a few days) in California, and it was so nice to be able to spend a whole evening drinking in a bar without my eyes becoming red and irritated from the smoke, and without having all my clothes and my hair reeking of the stuff the next morning. And, from what i saw, San Francisco bars seem to be doing just fine.
Quick mathematics lesson:
1.10 - 0.83 = 0.27
Huh? Ground up in their food? How ham-handed.
By “everywhere”, just what do you mean? Some people are allergic to perfume. Are you saying we should ban the use of perfume “everywhere”? Would you mind if a smoker smoked in their own home?
And I’m probably asking for it, but isn’t cigarete smoke considered an irritant and not a true allergen?
Yes, let us kowtow to a minority who have a defect that is meant to cull the weak from the herd. If you do not like it, do not patronize those establishments and find places where you can breathe freely without your life being threatened. Do you feel the same way about peanuts? Some people, especially wonderful and precious children, are allergic to those little nuggets of salty delight and their byproducts. A whopping 7.2%!!! Let’s burn George Washington Carver in effigy alongside those persnickety Native Americans who were puffing tobacco long before the white man brought the splendor of smallpox to these hallowed shores!
Fuck you. Cocksuckers like you are the reason why I consider taking up smoking.
By the way, my hypochondraic acquaintaince, there is no tobacco allergy.
http://www.forces.org/evidence/carol/carol2.htm
I don’t believe there are any places where non-peanut-eaters are forced to eat peanuts. If business owners ground peanuts into a fine powder and blew them into the air so that everyone in the place had to inhale them, I would be in favor of making such a practice illegal. And yes, notwithstanding the argument that “well, if you don’t like it you can go somewhere else”, I would still be in favor of making it illegal.
I agree. The thing with smoking is, that it is one of the few activities that has such a direct and unpleasant effect on those who do not actually partake in the habit.
Makbe we could compare it to that old saying:
“Your right to swing your fists stops where my nose begins.”
I don’t know anyone who would argue that we should allow fighting in bars, and that if you don’t want to get hit you shouldn’t go to those bars.
Well, in the same spirit, maybe your right to inhale cigarette smoke stops when you force me to do the same thing. I’m not trying to keep people from their nicotine habit, but maybe they should find a form of ingestion that does not have such a noxious effect on non-users.
IMHO Smoking should be banned in all places which are open to the public and subject to antidiscrimination laws and should only be allowed in what are considered private places like the Elks or whatver.
First of all, the employees should not be subjected to the smoke.
Second, just like keeping out minorities results in lost business opportunities for them because much business is done in bars and restaurants, a non-smoker should not have to choose between his health and doing business. Have strictly private clubs where people can smoke, but smoking should not be allowed in places open to the general public.
Third, the state has a compelling interest in diminishing the number of smokers. I am all for it.
Some schools have banned peanuts.
In some schools, children cannot even bring foods containing penuts in their own lunches. Some schools have been declared “Peanut Free Zones,” because around one percent of kids are allergic to them. The reasoning is that an allergic child might accidently ingest peanuts by trading lunches with another child.
Every time I get gas I can see a big sign in the window of the gas station advertising an offbrand at a particular price in two foot numbers. Not much else to do standing there waiting for the gas…
We also argue politics at work so it is very important to know what the latest news is. Actually the proposed tax hike on cigs is going to be 1.08.
Unless they are trying to cover their over spending!
Well, um, this isn’t GD and I am not here to make a case other than bitch about it. If I were in GD, I would calmly put my points out there that makes sense.
BUT, I am bitching about it, real simple.
I find it ridiculous for anyone to see this issue as being “OK”.
Blame it on my Libertarian side, blame it on the fact that I can’t stand the government meddling in day-to-day stuff.
Look, if a business owner doesn’t want smoking in their establishment, by all means, they should have the right to not allow it. HOWEVER, if a business owner doesn’t mind it, then what’s the big fucking deal?
If you don’t like working around smoke, then DON’T.
Last time I checked, this was 'sposed to be a free country. Last time I checked, smoking is considered a legal activity that the government makes a bundle on just like they do with alcohol. If it’s a legal substance, then why the fuck is it illegal to smoke in a “private” business?
That whole private business thing is hard to call as most businesses make there money from serving the public. However, many bars post signs saying, We Reserve the Right To Refuse Service to Anyone, this means you, asshole. Well maybe they leave off the asshole part.
I always thought it would be a cool dodge, to convert a bar into a private club. If it is a private club, then you wouldn’t have to follow all the rules for a non-private club. Membership would be real cheap, like a penny. So for a penny, you become the member of an exclusive club that has, as it’s headquarters, the bar you used to hang out in.
Now that I think about it, with New York going through with the smoking ban, you could start up a nation wide chain. Call it, say, Smokies, or Monica’s. It would be members only and membership bylaws would allow smoking, you wouldn’t have to smoke, but you would know that you’d be in close proximity to smokers. You could adorn the walls with a bunch of cigarette memorobilia (sp?) and cigars and stuff.
You could have specialty drinks, like… shit, you guys figure it out.
Yes, I am aware of that. However, eating peanuts is not analagous to smoking cigarettes, as I already explained. So while you may or may not find the school rules regarding peanuts to be reasonable, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
The big fucking deal is it’s bad for your health, it’s stinky, and it gives me a headache. It’s also just plain rude. The issue is not whether the business owner minds, it’s whether the employees and patrons mind. And I, for one DO MIND - and so do a lot of other people. If you run a business that’s open to the public, you have to follow the laws that relate to the public. You can’t have rats; you can’t nail the fire escape shut; and you can’t round up the cats in the alley and serve them as your main course - not even if YOU, THE OWNER “don’t mind”. And saying “if you don’t like rats you can go somewhere else” is not a valid argument.
Well then I should be free to breathe clean air.
Urinating is also legal, but you can’t do it in the middle of a dining room. Even a “private” one.
Yes, it’s so seductive, isn’t it? Those mean non-smokers just don’t have to frequent restaurants and bars without non-smoking sections. Come to the light.
And then, of course, we realize that we’re talking about whether or not restaurants should be permitted to let their patrons poison the air that other people have to breathe. We’re not talking table settings or the arrangement of the potted palms here.
While we’re at it, why don’t we just let customers spray the “carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, benzene, oxides of nitrogen, hydrogen cyanide and 4-aminobiphenyl” onto each other’s food with a plant mister? It would be just as salubrious and it probably wouldn’t smell as bad.
This is fucking ridiculous. My right not to breathe poison trumps your right to spew it all over wherever you please.
Nicely put.