Cigarettes to cockroaches. And so the downward spiral begins. :eek:
Indeed you should. So why is the government getting involved?
If the matter were left to the business owners, the bartender could just get a job in one of the bars or restaurants which don’t allow smoking. Or, he could find a different line of work. And if the customers are really as dead-set against smoking as all that, the smoking establishment’s owner would have to change or go out of business to stay competitive. The sweet dance of capitalism.
C’mon, like most smokers haven’t sucked on a roach before… 
Are you serious? :dubious:
Er, yes. It’s my job to see that I’m not eating cockroaches if I don’t want to, not the government’s.
Well, you obviously understand, one some level, that the government DOES get involved in the occasional involuntary and unknowing consumption of cockroaches due to the negligence of restauranteers. If a cockroach doesn’t scare you, maybe an ebola virus does. The issue is not what harm you wish to be done to you, but the right of others not to have harm done to them due to the carelessness of others.
I’m unaware of a location in the United States that doesn’t have some sort of health commission that checks the cleanliness of restaurant kitchens…
Oh yes, I’m well aware of the government’s interference in how restauranteurs, among others, make use of their private property. Doesn’t mean I agree with it.
You don’t have to agree with it, but I guaangoddamtee you will see the light the first time you bite into a cockroach.
You know, speaking as someone who has at various points eaten live mosquitos and drunk water out of a drainage ditch, it probably wouldn’t faze me much. Nevertheless, if I did find a cockroach in my food, I would no longer patronize that restaurant, and moreover would alert all my acquaintances to my find. No need to get the government involved.
There is a huge difference in a city’s health department inspecting for e. coli and the city council passing a city wide ban on smoking.
Let’s say the restaurant isn’t using proper cleaning and is leaving e. coli on it’s prep board. Well, everyone will be unknowingly at risk of picking up that cute little bug. If they have a smoking and non-smoking area, you know going in that there’s a possibility you’ll breath in some smoke. If you opt out of patronizing that restaurant, that’s your choice. If enough shun the place, the owner will lose money and either ban smoking or go out of business. Remember the owner? The person that actually risked his/her own money to open a business? When the city opens a restaurant or bar they can do whatever the hell they want.
And if anyone wants to enter a bar that has 15 Harley’s parked out front and is shocked that they have to put up Evil Smokers[sup]TM[/sup] while drinking their double martinis, well, they’d probably be in one of the “coalitions”.
What if your child ate at a burger joint and contracted a fatal ebola virus? Would you be satisfied with not patronizing their establishment? Do you see no role for government in regulating the safety of food? Or, for that matter, transportation? Aviation? Etc.?
I agree with that, but yBeay has taken the stance that all forms of government interference are bad, and I want to watch him paint himself into a corner for my own amusement.
I would love to open a restaurant/bar for smokers. Hell, even non-smokers would be welcome, I would just be sure that my sign said this is NOT a smoke-free establishment.
What gives the government or anybody else the right to tell me what should be allowed on the property that I own?
It’s mine, and I should be free to do with it as I wish.
Firstly, I don’t have a child. Secondly, the likelihood of this happening is so remote that I really don’t spend time worrying about it. Thirdly, having the government inspect kitchens is no guarantee that there’s no risk of infection – if there’s an ebola-infected cook spewing viruses left and right, people are going to get infected, government inspectors or no government inspectors. Much better to have a private organization inspecting kitchens and publishing the results. Restaurants who allow inspections get increased business as people have greater confidence in their hygiene, customers get to be informed about the sanitary conditions in the places where they’re eating, and nobody’s property rights are violated.
More likely I would sue them for negligence in serving ebola-contaminated food. If one of your employees is vomiting blood into the soup, you have a duty to inform consumers of that fact, at the very minimum.
No.
The chances of catching foodborne illnesses would be far more common if there were no health codes. What would give private organizations the right to enter and rubber stamp an organization, and by what standards would they operate? If they rely on voluntary compliance by restaurants, you can bet they wouldn’t have any meaningful results. You’ve obviously not thought much about why these laws come into place. You must think everything is going swimmingly until the meddling busybodies come in with their clipboards and badges.
By your own reasoning of no goverment controls, why should the restaurants have to tell anyone anything? What do you mean by “duty”? A moral obligation, certainly, but what is the meaning of that if they have no accountability for not acting on that duty? If there are no laws against ebola in the food, you have no grounds to sue. If there are laws against ebola in the food, then there’s legal authority to take preventive measures rathern punitive measures by doing health inspections.
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You already indicated that you DO believe in government controls, but you have nothing to be ashamed of. It merely means you have half of your head in the real world and not the entire thing up your A… yn Rand book.
Why not? Surely restaurants are glad to be reviewed by the Michelins, as a good rating will greatly increase their prestige. Why could there not be an equivalent guidebook on hygiene, with the reviewers awarding gold sponges or somesuch? You would know that a three-sponge restaurant is going to have a kitchen that is close to sterile, whereas if you eat at a three-roach restaurant you’re taking your life into your hands.
I’m not an anarchist – I do believe there should be government-run courts. I also support basing tort law on our common-law tradition, which would mean that the restauranteur has a duty not to serve food he knows is going to kill his customers. This doesn’t mean I believe the government has any business forming large regulatory agencies, or any regulatory agencies, for that matter, and forcing inspections and levying fines against businesses for not complying with some bureaucratic rulebook that states how many ants can dance on a rolling pin.
Please. I got over my Ayn Rand fetish when I was in junior high.
You degrade your argument with references to ants and rolling pins. The rules are not arbitrary. They are easy to follow and save thousands of lives every year.
For Cecil’s sake! I’m specifically ranting about government telling an entire city that there will be no use of a legal product used in private establishments. I don’t mind health codes, but if tobacco is going to be included the city should ban it altogether instead of making a mint off the taxes.
If you two want to get into a pissing match over government regulating other things, please hit the New Thread button at the main forum page.