Ban smoking, ban smoking, ban smoking

The BBQ Pit
61

oh stop being such a self righteous asshole.

then dont put yourself in a position to breathe in the smoke that I LEGALLY inhaled and exhaled in a place that LEGALLY I am allowed to smoke. *

Why are you so uptight about changing the law in other states? If you like California’s smoking laws, then good for you.

However, Smokers see it as percecution for a vice that they are legally allowed to indulge in being hacked away very unfairly.

If you go into a bar or restaurant that allows smoking, then you forfeit ANY right you have to complain after. If you don’t like smoke, don’t go where legally there is smoke. there are WAY more non-smoking places than smoking places.

  • And no, I don’t smoke anymore. I quit a year ago. but fucking whiny attitudes like yours annoyed me as a smoker and are even worse now that I quit.
62

Fuck you, you stupid piece of shit.

I don’t. Like I said before - READ THE FUCKING THREAD, ASSHOLE. It’s about SMOKERS who are bitching because they don’t want a law passed in Colorado. Here’s a recap:

Smokers: bitching about their “rights”
Blowero: not bitching

Again -

Me: NOT uptight - liking California law
You: uptight - bitching about your “right” to smoke

Your arguing style is the equivalent of “I know you are but what am I?”

Awww…are the poor, defenseless smokers being unfairly persecuted? And you have the fucking nerve to say I’m being self-righteous. Question: who is whining about being “persecuted”?

Once again:

Blowero: NOT complaining - very happy with California law the way it is.

TwistofFate: bitching and moaning. Thinks smokers are persecuted.

63

Who mentioned changing California law? You’re gloating that smokers won’t be allowed to smoke in bars in a state that you don’t frequent.

You have your laws in California. be happy with them. if its the wishes of the majority of your populace, then good for you. but your lovely little gloating over smoking priviledges being restricted in other states comes close enough to self righteous in my book.

64

Does lack of nicotine contribute to ineffable smugness? :wink:

blowero, I understand your delight at having non-smoking public places in California. And I agree that you shouldn’t have to suffer it either. But what is your problem with elective non-smoking or smoking bars? Why such smugness at the thought that patrons and owners of bars and restaurants in another state that want to allow smoking, are not allowed to?

BTW, I was in your fine state 2 years ago and was delighted to find a bar in Sonora that allowed smoking. It was packed.

65

Ok good enough for you to huff: “Cite”?

where’s a cite for this??

Heh. A Lot. Youv’e certainly convinced me.

66

Hey, in Blowero’s defense, there’s a difference between being happy that your ideals are being furthered and being smug.
You guys seem to be jumping to conclusions based on personal offense.

67

Having recently moved from Eugene, Oregon, where such a smoking ban does exist, I can tell you that I personally watched the demise of no less than three bars, all of which had been open for at least 20 years. I am positive that this was a direct result of the smoking ban.

Eugene had plenty of non-smoking bars anyway, comparitively priced, good atmosphere. So good, in fact, that I myself frequented them even when I was still a smoker. But no, that wasn’t enough. All of them had to be made non-smoking, and as a result the front of the Black Forest is eternally littered with anywhere from 10 to 30 folks, smoking, throwing their butts on the ground. To walk by on the sidwalk, you have to walk through a cloud of their smoke. And this is better than them smoking inside…why?

Smoking decks are nice, except for you never get, you know, service out there.

The bottom line should be that business owners decide, and if you don’t like it THEN DON’T FUCKING GO THERE! I hate mushrooms, and yet mushrooms are consistantly put in several foods that I like, even when I request that they not. The result? I order something else! My father is allergic to peanuts: if he eats them, he dies, or at least spends an unpleasant evening hovering near death at the hospital. Does this stop peanuts from getting into his Chinese food even when he requests that they be removed? No. The result? He doesn’t order Chinese food in restaurants! Adjust, people! Life doesn’t always bend and break itself to accomodate your golden ass.

For christ’s sake people, smoking isn’t a recent phenomenon, it’s been around as long as the United States has, and some of you folks act as though it’s some godawful recent trend that has gripped your locale and been forced down your throat. If you’ve lived this long, I’m assuming you’ve had to make some adjustments. The only reason you’re all bitching as much as you are is because now bans like this are happening, and suddenly everyone’s allergic and on the brink of death because they had to sit across the room while some poor soul guiltily puffed down a cigarette in the smoking section. Well you know what? I’m allergic to strong perfumes, so I propose that we ban them in public places, because I don’t want to have to eat and breathe your crappy perfume that you bathed in, slept in, and then bathed in again. In fact, if I can smell you at all from five feet away, then you shouldn’t be allowed in the restaurants I frequent. Where’s my right to not have to smell people that reek? Where’s my right to not have to look at people who sport mullets and Tasmanian Devil t-shirts? Because you know, their right to wear that stuff ends where their shirts end and my eyes begin. Where’s my right to not have to listen to fucking cell phone conversations in public? What’s that? I don’t have one? Well then, I guess I better shut up and find a place that doesn’t allow cell phones.

68

I know this is off-topic for this thread, but can I just say that there have been two viewpoints presented here I absolutely cannot stand?

  1. “People aren’t really allergic to cigarettes.”

Thank you, QtM. Now I have something so intelligent to reply that no one will know what to say back. At the very least, I can say it’s a trigger for my asthma, and, beyond that, it caused good parts of my asthma.

  1. “Vote with your feet”.

Maybe this works in California, or Colorado. Here, my feet are piddly, as a full third-to-a-quarter of our above-13 years old population smokes. There is not a single specifically non-smoking bar or restaurant that I know of in the entire city.

69

To those who think smoking shouldn’t be banned in bars and restaurants, I have a question. It is a real question so please don’t take my head off. I know this is the pit, and at the risk of starting an actual dialog…

Do you think it is okay to ban smoking where you work? I actually remember a time when people would smoke in the cube next to mine. Made my work day miserable. Looking for other employment was out of the question, so I dealt with it. Do I have a right to a smoke free workplace? That is a serious question. I don’t see anyone arguing that I don’t.

How do you feel about smoking on airplanes? Those are private businesses, too. Why should it be okay to ban it on airplanes but not in bars?

I think it sums up like this:
20 years ago you couldn’t find a non-smoking bar (no cite, just seems kinda obvious). If you didn’t like smoke filled bars, you could either suck it up or you could not go. That was the choice.

Today, more and more places have become smoke free. What that has done is allowed non-smokers the freedom to go just about anywhere and not have to worry about smoke. Smokers, however, are now having to face the choices non-smokers once had to make. Which do you want more: go someplace and not smoke or not go.

I know, today someone that wanted to offer an alternative wouldn’t be allowed by law, so maybe the argument isn’t completely valid. But part is still valid: If you don’t like it, vote with your dollar (stay home, go to another town, go to another state) or vote with your vote (kick out the officials that voted it in). If you then say it isn’t practical to go to another state/whatever, just realize that for many non-smokers, trying to find a non-smoke alternative wasn’t practical either.

I’m very mixed on which way to go on this. I don’t like the gov’t interference, but at the same time I know I want a smoke free work environment and think I’m entitled to such.

70

Well, which is it? First you say I’m complaining; now you say I’m gloating. I’m really just amused because the shoe is on the other foot. All you smug, self-satisfied smokers who don’t give a rat’s ass about the people around you, who for years have been saying “if you don’t like it, go somewhere else” (except that there was nowhere else to go) are now starting to be put in the position where you are legally required to be courteous. And yes, I DO hope the law passes in Colorado, because the non-smoking population will be able to go out without having to choke on noxious fumes, and will no longer smell like an ashtray when they get home.

I see the point you’re trying to make, but I think the word you want is “smug”. Yeah, I am a little smug, because I think it’s damn hilarious that you self-centered smokers are finally getting your comeuppance. You want to annoy and sicken everyone else in the room for your nicotene fix, because you can’t be bothered to go outside, and then try to claim it’s your “right”. THAT’s being self-righteous in my book.

71

Judith P.: Sure, there are some bar owners that are for the law in NY but it is quite clear that the vast majority are against it. And Blowero: No, I don’t have a cite showing how many are for and against the law but I do recall seeing a bunch of polls and they generally showed most people either against it or non commital. My own impression is that most people are against it.

Course, I’ve been wrong before. Still, the fact is that most bars in NYC are smokey. Certainly the patrons don’t care all that much or they wouldn’t be there. There is of course the argument that the staff are sort of trapped there, but anyone who has spent much time in NYC bars knows that most (again, no cite, but you’ll just have to take my word) barkeeps and cocktail waitresses smoke like fiends.

I agree its got nothing to do with “rights”. I just think that this was a law that nobody was really asking for until the current mayor came in, made it his pet cause, and rammed the law down our throats. Should have been a referrendum, is all I’m saying. That would have been the fair thing.

72

Totally off-topic, but if NYers don’t like their mayor, maybe they should have voted for the candidate with the policies, rather than one with the money.

73

I’m starting to wonder if people really understand the issue at all. The issue is that cigarette smoke is unhealthful and an irritant, and a lot of people don’t want to breathe it. It’s not comparable to peanuts, or mushrooms, or cigarette butts on the ground. Butts on the ground are unsightly, and shouldn’t be there, but they are not INVADING MY BODY. I don’t get how you people can make these weak analogies with a straight face.

Then, as all the smokers seem so fond of saying: “vote with your feet”. Go to a restaurant that DOES give good service on the deck.

So, to follow your logic, if you do something for a long time, then it can never be changed? So I guess we should have continued selling lead-based paint instead of changing to lead-free paint. And cars shouldn’t have seatbelts. And we should all have to shave with a straight-razor.

Why should I have to make the “adjustment”. The smokers are the ones polluting the air, let THEM make the adjustment.

74

Any business should be able to choose whether to allow smoking in their business or not. That is the same situation as in bars and restaurants. What many of us object to is the government dictating what is allowed.

So, no, the government should not ban smoking at work and no, you do not have a right to a smoke-free workplace.

btw, I am a non-smoker and I do not allow smoking at my business. But I don’t want the government telling me what I can and cannot allow.

75

My point with that first statement, blowero, was that now, rather than being contained inside where it is only damaging the lungs of the smoking patrons of the bar, the smoke is billowing free on a busy street sidewalk, right next to a toy store as a matter of fact.

Nothing I or anyone else can say is going to change to change your way of thinking: smokers are evil, evil people and deserve whatever they get. So why do you keep monitoring this thread? Do you just enjoy insulting people?

When I was a smoker, it was a choice that I made and I did my very best to be courteous about it. I didn’t smoke in crowds of people outside. I usually didn’t smoke in restaurants, even if there was a smoking section. I would never, EVER dream of smoking in someone’s house, and I’ve always kept my own living spaces smoke free and gone outside. I never tried to smoke on an airplane. I never tried to sneak a smoke in the bathroom at work. The only goddamn place in the universe where I ever didn’t feel like the stinking scum of the earth for smoking was in bars. Then it turned out that I should feel like the stinking scum of the earth there too. Anywhere, as a matter of fact, except maybe in my own home with the shades pulled down and the phone off the hook, getting my little “nicotine fix” as you called it. People that smoke aren’t antichrists. They’re not smug, self-satisfied sadists who enjoy hurting other peope around them. They are people just like you who do something you don’t agree with, and apparently deserve to be banned from public for that. I understand bar patrons not wanting to breathe smoke. I understand employees not wanting it either. But why can’t there be DESIGNATED SMOKING ESTABLISHMENTS where people who have this habit can go and not feel persecuted? If a bar opened that was called something like “Smokey’s” and was a designated smoking bar and the whole point of the damn thing was that it was a place for people to come and have a drink and be able to smoke, would you sit and bitch about that too?

76

Maybe we’re too hard on blowero:

~ sounds like someone’s been ugly to him/her about it in the past. If that’s so, I’m sorry for that; but it’s been my experience that today’s smokers are very polite about it, and will put one out if asked; today’s smoker is much like NailBunny’s description of her careful self.

Here is my position from the very beginning of the thread, as amarone put it:

NOT because we want to pour a cloud of noxious vapors all over you (well, maybe you, since you have chapped my butt :p), but because if something is legal to consume in the country, there ought to be places where it’s OK to consume it, per NailBunny:

And BTW, blowero, I suggest to you to be careful kicking the current “out of fashion” crowd. Like Grandpa said, be careful who you step on, on your way up; you’re likely to see 'em again on the way down.

77

Yes, of course he would, NailBunny. Smokers are the anti-Christ, you see.

I (a non-smoker who actually tolerates the vice in others, just as I’m a non-drinker who actually tolerates the vice in others and am far more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than by ETS) used to post frequently in these threads, but I rapidly discovered that the smokers who claim that certain non-smokers want their perfectly legal habit to be completely illegal everywhere were not, in fact, far from the mark. Far too many people seem to believe that there is never room for compromise when that compromise might inconvenience them to some extent.

And if you were to start a bar called Smokey’s for the purpose of people being able to go to a bar and smoke, I guarantee you that people are going to object because they want to be able to go to Smokey’s and not be exposed to smoke. The blatant selfishness sickens me, but I’ve come to expect it.

78

Don’t I know it. It’s like, I really hate loud techno music: it damages my ears and it’s annoying, so I think that they should stop playing it at rave clubs because I have a right to be able to go there and enjoy them too!!!

I quit smoking about three months ago, but I’m still super sensitive about the subject. I feel like I’ve gone way more out of my way to accomodate non-smokers than a non-smoker would ever go for me (and no, that doesn’t mean allowing me to POISON YOUR AIR, it means maybe politely bowing down and going to another, non-smoking bar so that us godless heathens can enjoy our smoking in peace without hurting you), and there comes a point where it’s just ridiculous, like the scenerio you described. Sars says it really well in her latest essay.

79

Blowero, I dont fucking smoke, stop refering to me as a smoker.
If you want to keep your head up your ass and keep refering to me as a smoker (as if its an insult to begin with) then you are a complete idiot. I’ve mentioned it sevferal times, and you still call me a smoker.

I swear, trying to talk to you is like poking butter up a hedgehogs hole with a hot needle. You obviously have decided that smokers are the scum of the earth and deserve immediate death.

let them kill themselves slowly. As long as they dont think they can sue tobacco companies let them do what they want. why do you want to take away one of the few places that they are allowed smoke in peace away from them?

there are plenty of places available to the non smoker. do you have to be so fucking anal that YOUR WILL must override everyone elses?

80

To what extent should the government then protect employees? What do you define as reasonable expectations for an employee to have regarding their safety and well being at work?

I have no answers, only questions. I’d like to understand other viewpoints, which is why I ask.

My viewpoint, for whatever it is worth, is that employees are entitled to a safe workplace, free from unreasonable hazards to their health. In a car painting shop, that means masks are given out and the air around the place is kept reasonably free of paint fumes. In a manufacturing facility that means workers aren’t expected to handle dangerous machinery without proper training and precautions being in place. In every workplace that would mean I’m not exposed to carcinogens and toxic fumes on a regular basis. Maybe I’m really in the minority on that.