Ban smoking, ban smoking, ban smoking

The BBQ Pit
81

I don’t think you realize how irritating smoke is when it’s INSIDE a building. I get the feeling that smokers feel that it’s just an extremely minor nuisance, along the lines of having too much salt in the food or not liking the color the walls are painted. No, it makes people physically ill. When you go outside, the smoke has somewhere to go. If the lawmakers wanted to be REALLY anal, they could say you can’t smoke outside either. But they don’t do that. The reason I’m thinking you don’t get the point is that you don’t seem to understand the difference between being forced to breathe smoke in an enclosed place, and smoking outside where at least the smoke can dissipate. And to say it only damages the lungs of the smoking patrons of the bar is to assume that everyone who goes to bars is a smoker, which isn’t anywhere close to the truth.

Oh, the irony! This thread STARTED OUT calling non-smokers “assholes”, and it got worse from there. While I don’t enjoy insulting people, I’m certainly not going to lie down and take a bunch of insults without responding. Some people can sure dish it out, but they obviously can’t take it.

No, just some of them. Like when I suggested to one guy that he probably shouldn’t be smoking a cigarette while he’s PUTTING GAS IN HIS CAR. His sarcastic response was to continue smoking and say: “Gee, I guess we’re pretty lucky”. But obviously not ALL smokers are like that, and I didn’t mean to say that they were.

I also think telling people “I should be able to smoke, and if you don’t like it, you should go somewhere else” also counts in the category of smug and self-satisfied. Again, I’m sure not ALL smokers feel that way, but many do.

Oh, the drama! You’re not “banned from public”, you simply have to smoke outside. Quit trying to sound like such a martyr.

Again, it is the SMOKERS who are doing the bitching in this thread. And no, if they were to have a few bars that were for smokers, it would not bother me. But that’s kind of a red herring, because it wouldn’t be just a few; it would be almost all of them. I lived in California before the law was passed, and virtually ALL bars allowed smoking, and none of them had any areas that were free of smoke. You had 2 choices: breathe smoke, or don’t go out. Sorry, but I like it better the way it is now.

And by the way, there are still quite a few bars where people simply flaunt the law and smoke anyway. And I do, in fact, simply avoid going to those bars.

82

As opposed to the civil, intelligent discourse that YOU have provided in this thread.:wally

And you obviously have decided that smokers are one step above Jesus, that we are trying to keep them from their God-given right to smoke out of pure spite, and that jack-booted thugs are going to go around to people’s houses, bust down their doors, and snatch their cigarettes out of their hands. No, cigarette smoke doesn’t bother people at all - we just hate smokers cuz we’re mean bastards.:rolleyes:

Why do YOU want to take away one of the few places where non-smokers can breathe clean air in peace?

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

83

Are you saying that you don’t believe auto emissions standards have increased in the last 50 years? We don’t need a cite - it’s common knowledge. Do you think that catalytic converter is just on there for looks?

By the way, I found a cite on that New York smoking law. This was the only poll I could find, but if anyone has a different poll, please post it:

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x3960.xml

So you see, I didn’t ask for a cite just to be mean, as NinetyWt seems to think. I was questioning the assertion made that “most” people were opposed to the smoking ban, an assertion which appears to be false.

84

Hmmmmm, what to say, what to say…how about…

FUCK YOU, blowero. You’re a vindictive, gloating assmonkey. I hope someday you’ll know what it feels like to have your lifestyle and your habits trampled upon by a bunch of snotty teetotaling do-gooder holier-than-thou dickfaces. Then maybe you’ll fucking sympathize with what we smokers face constantly from the anti-smoking nazis all around us these days. Fuck you in the ass with a sottering iron.

I won’t even give you a fucking analogy, I won’t bother arguing. For the evangelical non-smoker, nothing will suffice. Types like you have your fucking heads stuck so far up your ass you could build an HO scale model of your lower intestine. You think we smokers are the inconsiderate ones? Look at all we’ve done and continue to do to placate you anti-smoking nazis. We can’t smoke at work. We can’t smoke in public facilities. In some places we can’t smoke within a certain distance from fucking doors. We go outside in the buttass cold fucking weather just so your whiny fucking ass doesn’t have to smell tobacco smoke. And don’t give me that “second-hand smoke” shit, you know that’s bullcrap as well as I do.

I accede to my friends’ wishes to sit in nonsmoking areas in real restaurants. Even at sports bars, I don’t smoke while anyone at the table is eating. Whenever I’m smoking around others, I always take great care to make sure none of my smoke is heading towards their faces. I’m pretty fucking considerate, all things told.

We put up with all this fucking hassle, and the constant accusatory moral indignation about our tobacco usage, for your fucking ass. And is it good enough?? I guess not. All our sacrifices have just made your type more bloodthirsty, every step back has emboldened the anti-smoking nazis to push us further back. I say it’s time to just stand up and say “fuck you” to the antismoking crowd. I’m fucking sick of 'em.

Oh, and where does it say we have a “right” to smoke, you ask? I’d say it’s right here:

We don’t need anything to give us our rights, our rights are intrinsic to us as human beings. So stick your complaints up your ass, you statist prick.

85

Oh, my, Rexdart - do you blow your dad with that mouth?

86

Face it people, it’s all about power; them that has it get to push around them that don’t. It’s not just cigarettes, it’s that way with everything in life: politics, religion, men, women, it’s always been this way. Oh sure, those on the the shitty end of the stick can always whine about “rights”, but your rights aren’t worth squat without power. And those with the power don’t really need to justify their position, because, hey, they’ve got the power.

You may wish that life was fair, that in America, the rights of the minorities were protected, but it is an illusion, a sop to give hope to the hopeless. Right now, smokers are losing power and they don’t like it. Losers never do, but that’s just the way it is. Until you find a way to increase your power, nonsmokers will continue to treat you like losers. Face it, you may never get back to the days when three fourths of the population smoked, and anybody who didn’t was some kind of sissy. Your day has passed, you are a vanishing breed, the writing is on the wall, you just don’t want to read it.

In thirty years, smoking will be a quaint, old fashioned habit practiced only by those pathetic geezers who still wear spiked blond hair and those goofy little oval spectacles. You will have become anachronisms; smelly, wheezing old men ranting against an unfair world. Then you will die, and those with power will forget about you, and find some other weak minoritiy to push around. Poo-tee-weet.

87

LOL, blowero. I guess you wash your own hate-filled vitriol with lye soap before you spew it, eh?

Anyway, I felt my own need to vent about people like you, and you just sort of ended up being the spark. I scoff at your attempts throughout this thread to take the high ground. Frankly, when a person attacks my liberties and freedoms, advocating laws that would deprive me of my enjoyment, I don’t consider niceties. I think the person like you, who makes the attack and just won’t leave people well enough alone, you’ve forfeited any privilege of politeness. Here in the Pit, anyways. You’re a meddler, and the only thing I hate worse than a meddler is a liar.

And Fear Itself, we smokers may be a “dying breed”, but let us go out on our own terms. If the next generation doesn’t smoke much at all, and smokers sort of phase out, at least let us live our lives. I don’t ask that anyone else start smoking, I only ask that people who already smoke are allowed to continue in peace.

88

But oppression is the nature of power, Rexdart; it’s what it does. What you ask denies the relationship between the powerful and the powerless. The whole object of power is force the powerless to conform, or perish, or both. It’s not pretty, but it is true.

89

blowero, you have created straw men throughout this argument, have colored smokers with vitriolic hyperbole, and have completely ignored the moderate arguments of smokers and non-smokers who actually give a shit about you not wanting to breathe in their poison, and want there to be an equitable solution to the problem, rather than a totalitarian one.

You, sir, are displaying all the behavioural characteristics of a total knob-end, and you’re doing the image of your cause no good at all. Not that it matters, because your cause will succeed anyway in the long run.

90

I’ve been following the back-and-forth abuse on this thread for a while. As a non-smoker, i admit that i wouldn’t be complaining if the habit were banned in bars and restaurants. However, i probably don’t feel strongly enough about the issue to lobby for it actively, and the presence of smokers certainly doesn’t stop me from going to bars. Although, as i said in an earlier post, my recent experience of drinking in bars in California made me realize how pleasant it is not to end the night stinking of smoke.

Some of my best friends are smokers, and i would prefer not to be deprived of their company. Most of them are quite considerate about their smoking, to the extent that they are happy to sit in the non-smoking sections of restaurants and they do their best to keep smoke out of my face in bars etc. Many of them don’t even smoke inside their own houses, but brave the summer heat and humidity and the winter cold to light up outside. And many of them find it as unpleasant as i do to end up stinking of smoke after a night out.

I think a good first step to take might be to have a minimum set of ventilation standards for places where smoking is allowed, and to enforce those standards well. I’m sure that most jurisdictions do have certain standards, but if my experience is anything to go by then those standards are extraordinarily low, or they are not enforced. I’ve been to bars where, as soon as one or two people light up, it seems like the whole place is filled with smoke. And i’ve been to others where have the customers can be puffing away and the air seems relatively clear. All bars should do their utmost to follow the latter example.

Hopefully such measures would earn the support of even those with libertarian leanings, unless there are those out there who believe that there should be absolutely no enforceable health and safety standards in workplaces and establishments that are open to the public.

Well, i had a certain amount of sympathy for some of your positions until i read this line, which only a jackass would write.

91

D’oh. That should read “half the customers.” (para. 3)

92

mhendo, I agree with everything you say.

93

I want a cigarette that contains nothing but nicotine, vitamins and minerals.

It should taste like pizza, too.

94

Pizza ! Yes Clint I want one too !!!

blow-hard-o, tsk, tsk, tsk. Please go back and re-read the OP. You say:

Untrue. The OP called lawmakers assholes. Remember?

NO. What I’m asking for, in an argument, is that you don’t sling around generalized terms such as A Lot. That’s ineffectual.

You responded to a rant about laws with a rant about smoking. Do ya see why folks get out-done about it?

95

Thanks, jjimm.

Personally, i think that’s a phrase that should be adopted by everyone on these message boards. :smiley:

96

Thank you to all the non-smokers who have responded thoughtfully, intelligently, and with regard to their fellow man (and woman!), smoker though they may be.

blowero, I am not trying to make myself a martyr. If that were the case, I would still be smoking to make myself part of the attacked minority. I am trying to make you understand the other side of an argument that you have already prepared your lines for, and as I suspected it doesn’t work. Feel however you want to feel, hate the things you want to hate. Just don’t get so pissed off when you realize that other people are going to do the same thing.

97

Up yours, anti-smoking neo-nazi.
(Didn’t want this hate-filled yelling match to get sidetracked :wink: )
I like the idea, but I don’t know if you can set standards on how “clear” the air in a bar or restaurant needs to be. In Montgomery County, MD, I’ve heard that smoking establishments need to have an air filtering device, which sounds like a reasonable compromise.

And Blowero, if you don’t think people are trying to ban outdoor smoking, then you haven’t been paying attention. Once again, I’m a non-smoker and I still don’t like these laws.

98

It’s an interesting question. Employers are already responsible for the safety of their employees to a large extent and pay insurance and workers comp. and can get sued. However, in the case of smoking, the question becomes whether a business owner should be prohibited from allowing his customers to engage in a legal activity on the grounds that the activity adds risk to the employer’s staff. (We’ll leave aside the question of whether second-hand smoke poses a health risk to the staff. We’ll take that as read for the purpose of this discussion).

Where it is clear as to the nature of the risk, I don’t believe that business owners should be forced to ban a legal activity to protect their staff. By “nature of the risk”, I mean that it is clear to an employee that if they work in a smoking bar/restaurant, they will be exposed to smoke. I appreciate that we don’t know enough to quantify that risk.

To take another example: white-water rafting. The guides know that there is a risk. Should the government be allowed to ban rafting on class 2+ rapids and confine the activity to class 1 so as to minimize the danger to the employees? Of course not - everyone understands that there is increased risk in working on more turbulent rapids. If a guide only wants to work the lower classes of rapid, he or she can make their own decision about where to work.

So, employees in a smoking restaurant can be trained on how to minimize their exposure. They can be educated as to the risks. One would hope that the restaurant owner would install good ventilation. Maybe that should be regulated, although I’m hesitant.

99

Well, while i’m not a fanatic about banning smoking, i think your analogy here leaves a little bit to be desired.

The difference is that, for the white-water rafting guide, the danger is intrinsic to the occupation and there is presumably a requirement that such guides demonstrate their ability to handle the more turbulent conditions. They understand the risks and are trained to handle them.

On the other hand, if there’s a way for the employees in a smoke-filled bar to go through an eight-hour shift without breathing, i must have a missed it. While such employees may understand the risks of working in a smoky environment, there’s very little they can do to reduce them. How do you think the employer would react if the staff turned up in gas masks? This, presumably, would not prevent them from doing their job, and would protect them from the smoke, but i can’t imagine many employers would allow it.

I must say i’m rather stunned that you’re even “hesitant” about requiring adequate ventilation. At what point would you change your mind? When a room was devoid of all oxygen altogether?

100

If anyone’s interested, a recent study from the Dept of Energy on the levels of secondhand smoke in bars and restaurants…they’re lower than expected.

There’s also a proposed study on compliance to the nonsmoking ban in California:

This is not about the rights of smokers to enjoy a legal product, or the rights of non-smokers to breathe smoke-free air. This is about the rights of the private property owner to decide what he will or will not allow on his property.

Let me ask this…if a smoker wanted to open up a restaurant, employ only smoking workers, and advertise as a smoke-friendly place to eat, why can’t he do that?