I had a problem with it. Other smokers I was with when I was in CA had a problem with it.
Some people like bars. they like drinking, socializing, etc. they don’t want to have to stay home every night just because some people are too self-righteous and infringe on their rights.
people=smokers. after how long it took me to post in the global cooling thread, i decided to not waste bandwidth by previewing…
KellyM… :rolleyes: All I think all that needs to be said here is:
a) Comparing smoking to public masturbation seems to be rather disingenuous; smoking was, after all, still legal, last time I checked. We could ban smoking; why should we?
b) If I knew there was a place where public masturbation was to be expected, you’re damn right I wouldn’t go there. What’s so freaking hard about that? I know there are places where they play Britney Spears, and since I don’t enjoy it, I don’t go. Simple problem, simple solution. I also know that there are bars whose atmosphere is intolerable, so I don’t go there, and I’ve no right whatsoever to bitch about being forced to smell the smoke because I wasn’t. Simple problem, simple solution.
c) The risks associated with drinking, with driving, with walking across the street, with being outside in the sun, these are well known, and the harm from them is much less speculative than the harm from public smoking. If we can ban public masturbation, we can ban walking. Christ.
Tulley, I understand the difference between walking through a smoke cloud and sitting in a room filled with smoke; this certainly applies to bars, which tend to be smokey. But for restaurants, if the non-smoking section is filled with smoke, they’ve got a problem; I’m contrasting more walking through a cloud of smoke (thus making you want to vomit) vs. being in a room where you might possibly if inadequately separated be forced to breathe a stray waft of smoke. To me, the former sounds worse.
And I still think all of you are missing the point. What you’re saying, in effect, is that because you may possibly be inconvenienced if you made a poor choice and went to a restaurant where there was smoke in the non-smoking section, it’s fine to inconvenience all smokers who ever want to go out to eat, in addition to being an intrusion on the rights of the business owner. This is blatant hypocrisy.
I maintain that there ought to be a way of saving your tender nostrils without inconveniencing a large segment of the population indulging in their legal vice which, apparently, the property owner wishes them to be able to indulge in. I’ve brought this up about a gajillion times, and it routinely gets ignored. Am I missing some incredibly obvious fact that makes this an impossible solution? Yes, cigarette smoke is rank. No, banning it entirely is not a just solution, just a simple one. Without giving it more than 20 seconds thought, I proposed two other possible solutions which might work. Surely others must also exist.
The problem with smoking sections is that, unless the section is completely separated by walls (cigar humidor style), smoke tends to fill the ambient space. If you can guarantee that I will never smell the smoke, by all means set up your smoking/nonsmoking sections. In my experience, they don’t work very well.
To me its simply a matter of compromise. Smokers wanna smoke. Nonsmokers don’t wanna smell smoke. The easiest solution is to have smokers smoke outside. A more challenging solution is to have separate sections for smoking and non-smoking. A solution for people who don’t care about non-smokers is to tell non-smokers to go home.
No Tulley, the easiest solution is for you to order carryout, call for delivery, put a pizza in the oven, get a TV dinner, cook, go to a friend’s house and have them cook, go to the drive-thru lane at a fast food joint, or GO TO A FRICKIN NONSMOKING RESTAURANT!! The fact that you seem to feel you have a God-given right to go to a bar and tell people there what to do is boggling my mind. Your arrogance shines as a beacon to all meddlers everywhere.
It’s not that I “don’t care about non-smokers”. I simply don’t feel that they have the right to set the rules at an establishment that I frequent, where I have the permission of the owner, and where part of the reason I’m there is that I can have a cigarette with my beer without having to duck outside every half hour. It’s none of your frickin’ business what I do there if I have the owner’s permission. Smoking is legal. It will never be illegal, too many people smoke and will always smoke for a law to be passed banning it.
To the meddling non-smokers who want to control my life, I say butt out coz I’m lightin up.
Exactly. “A more challenging solution is to have separate sections for smoking and non-smoking.” What’s so hard about this? Yes, it’s more expensive in the short term, but it seems a heck of a lot fairer to me.
Another solution which may or may not work, as I suggested earlier, is providing government incentives for smoke free bars and restaurants. I agree, it’d be awfully nice if there were more of them, but it just doesn’t seem acceptable to me to accomplish the by making all bars and restaurants smoke free (how is this a compromise, by the way?). Or perhaps with the proper use of ventilation, fans, and the like, the tendency of smoke to fill the ambient space can be counteracted. (“Fill” being somewhat relative, as of course it’s diluted and most of the time when I go out to eat, I can’t smell any smoke to begin with.) The easiest solution isn’t necessarily the best one.
Ummm… that “exactly” is too Tulley, not RexDart.
Okay, to tulley…
A. I don’t smoke
B. Telling people they cannot smoke in a store that lets people smoke because the owner can decide on that issue is facist.
C. Why do you want the smokers to bend over backwards for you when all you do nothing of the sort for them?
D. Read point C again
E. If you still can’t understand why people object to what you say, read point C again!!!
gr8guy:
Hey, if propietors are willing to shell out the $$$ to make separate sections work, I’m all for it. I figured most wouldn’t want to spend the money, so I wanted to put the responsibility on the smokers themselves. But if the owners wanna set up separate but equal non-smoking sections I have no problem with that. Like I say though, in my experience a ‘smoking section’ was a sign next to 1/2 the room that read ‘smoking section.’ There was no effort made to actually ensure the smoke stayed away from the non smoking section.
As for Tars and Rex, assuming we agree that we both have an equal right to be at the bar, I don’t see how your right to smoke is any more or less valid than my right not to inhale unwanted smoke. Now you may disagree with that analysis, but please stop overreacting here. I asked smokers to smoke outside. I am not trying to ‘control your life’ or make you ‘bend over backwards.’ You are more than welcome to disagree with my opinions, but this is not fascism, and there is no need to bring in straw men like that.
I don’t know that I would go for that, g8rguy. That’s using tax payer dollars to reward businesses for doing something the gov’t wants them to do. I would prefer that customers do that directly…rewarding restaurants with their patronage for providing services they desire.
Oh, I agree, ivylass, that it’s not a great solution, but I think it beats the alternative of banning smoking inside the restaurant entirely, and I’m not sure how I reward smokeless bars with my patronage in a situation where there aren’t any. I mean, I do sympathize with tulley, because I don’t particularly enjoy the smell of cigarette smoke myself, and right now it’s virtually impossible to find smoke-free bars around here. If there were a reasonable number of such places, I would just suggest that people who can’t stand cigarette smoke go there and the problem is solved; people can easily vote with their pocketbooks. But when such an option doesn’t even exist, it’s hard to reward it with my patronage.
My only real alternatives, were I in the mood to go to a bar, are either to suck it up and go to a smokey one or to stay home entirely, so I usually do the latter, but given that the bars are always crowded as it is, I expect they don’t much miss me and have no incentive to go non-smoking. If you can think of a better way to encourage the creation of smokeless bars in a place that has none, I’m all for it.
It should be noted that, assuming that there is in fact a demand for smoke-free bars, the market won’t necessarily fill that demand. The tavern market has high entry barriers. An entrepeneur who wants to open a smoke-free bar may have to raise millions of dollars in cash just to acquire the necessary licenses (or may find that there are no licenses available at all), and bribes may be necessary to secure acceptable bulk liquor purchase agreements. The liquor industry is rife with anticompetitive practices (often supplanted by state regulation), and the market cannot be said to be “free” in this area. The high market friction virtually assures that consumer demand will not be the only determining factor in price or availability.
To some degree, these same conditions apply in the restaurant business, although not as severely.
I am always leery of “letting the market decide” when it is quite clear that the market in question is not free.
**
Where’s the compromise here?
No, the easiest and most equitable solution is for you, a member of a very small minority of people who get (supposedly) physically ill and dry heave at the least scent of tobacco smoke, to buy a gas mask if you insist on going to places where smoking is allowed. If you look at the demographics of, say, Moe’s Tavern, you will likely see that 50% of the patrons are smoking–including several normally non-smokers who bum cigarettes off their friends when they’re drinking–and say, 49.99999% of patrons are non-smokers who deal with the smoke because they want to be at Moe’s Tavern. Then there’s one person dry-heaving in the corner and screaming for legislation to put out the other 99.999999% of the patrons.
Who, in this case, is self-important, self-righteous, and selfish?
All statistics are pulled out of my ass. Requests for citations will be promptly responded to with a request to kiss the place from which these statistics came.
You are still ignoring the rights of the buisiness owner. as the owner of the establishment, his rights supercede yours. If he wants smokers, he gets smokers, and there is not a dang thing you should be able to do about it. (except voting with your wallet and not go)
An interesting point…if someone at a restaurant is bothering me, either by smoking or talking loudly or anything else, I can’t ask them to leave, unless I want to get laughed at. But I can go to the business owner and complain. Then the business owner can ask them to leave or tell me to suck it up.
Does this ban boil down to an infringement on property rights? Aren’t private property rights necessary for a free market?
The compromise comes from looking at both points of view and what they’re most extreme demand/desire would be. From the point of view of the non-smoker, the most extreme demand would be to never have to inhale a wayward smell of smoke ever. From the point of view of the smoker, the most extreme demand would be to have non-smokers go home/deal with it and let them smoke in peace. The compromise, then is that smokers can smoke all they want, so long as they do it outside or in effective smoking sections. Now while its true that I am in the vast minority when it comes to reactions to cigarette smoke, I think most of those 49.999999% of non-smokers would agree that smoke is unpleasant, and given a choice would rather not have to smell it.
This argument about trampling the rights of the business owner is specious. The rights of an owner are far from total. The government has seen fit to enforce many restrictions on businesses. I am not a business owner but I’m sure one could come up with hundreds of regulations the government enforces - like health code/building inspections. This would simply be another regulation thrown on the pile.
I agree with your POV on the extreme side of the non-smoker, but I disagree with the POV of the smoker. It would seem to me that if smokers could smoke ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE (hospitals, gov’t buildings, private companies, etc) would be their extreme end. Most smokers I have encountered do smoke in peace now.
The compromise we have now, where there are designated smoking areas, seems to me the most equitable solution. Each side has to give a little, but accomodations have been made to each side.
Suppose I have very delicate ears, and loud music causes me physical pain. As such, my Friday night options are limited to a few quiet clubs. Do I have a right to demand that every other bar turn down their music, or should I just deal with my own difficulties instead of expecting everyone else to deal with them for me?
You do not have the right to demand anything. What you do have the right to do is the right to start a petition to get a law passed that would require bars to lower their volume. If enough people have delicate ears, and agree that bars are too loud, and vote to pass the law, then yes, I think the law should be carried out.