Oh, I’ll need a cite for this. I keep hearing how 40+k people die every year from second-hand smoke, yet have never seen it on a death certificate. It may be that scientists have found a cause/effect and came up with a reasoned formula to estimate the risk. But estimating equals arbitrating and should be mentioned instead of WAG’s being touted as fact.
Nothing wrong with anarchists, except that people are not ready for self-rule. Government is a necessary evil.
Unfortunately, our current court system is the main reason why our country and the ideals it was founded upon are dying a slow death.
Sorry. Once things got on the topic of health codes, it got away from us. There is a connection in that health codes indicate the legislating the safety of restaurants is nothing new.
I was talking about health codes, and my numbers are obviously speculation, since we have health codes and I can’t cite a make-believe alternative scenario. Also you asked me not to talk about it anymore.
Do people need to DIE from secondhand smoke for it to suck enough to be illegal?
No apology needed, and I understand the tack you’re taking. However, it has little to do with the gov’t banning smoking in private establishments.
I really don’t have any outrage at restaurants going smoke-free. I’m a smoker (obviously) and I hate having smoke drift or blown in my face when I’m eating. But damnit, I can sit in the no smoking section as well. And how they can get away with banning it if you’re sitting outside the restaurant is beyond me. State funded areas such as schools and gov’t property are one thing, it’s another when the property is owned by a private individual or corporation that makes their own decisions about the use of a legal product. And as I said in the OP, there are more than enough restaurants that ban smoking already to give everyone equal access to dining.
What really chaffs my ass is the bars that would be affected. I’m not talking about the high-class clubs that will attract enough people regardless, I’m talking about single-owner taverns. My FIL owned one before retiring last year. I can guarantee he would have been run out of business if a ban had been in place.
The taverns I’m talking about, and there are quite a few here, are the ones whose “menus” consist of frozen pizzas and popcorn. The kind of place you go to bullshit with the people you already know will be there. Play pool, shoot darts and play Rob Zombie on the jukebox. The kind of place where buying a shot of Jack will run you about $30 because it’s customary to buy a round for about 12 other people at any time.
If this shit gets passed I’m seriously thinking about buying a pool table, charging people for “parking” and letting about 2 dozen of my friends bring their own liquor. Avoids the license yet offers the same atmosphere.
(And all receipts have to show sales tax was paid outside the county)
I actually agree with you even as a nonsmoker. There are bars in my hometown that I like, and which cater to smoking-type demographics. They may have to cease allowing smoking soon, and I don’t think they should have to. I’m not unreasonable. There are enough smoke-free places I can deal, and I don’t die from the occasional exposure. I was a bit taken aback by the venom in your OP, but that’s probably because I don’t smoke.
When I was a college freshman, you could smoke in the building hallways and even some of the classrooms if the teacher didn’t mind. Two years later, there were like three rooms on campus you could smoke. By the time I graduated, it was outside only and people were seriously suggesting a rule that you couldn’t even smoke on the grounds. I did smoke then, and I was pissed. So if I tap into my self 15-20 years ago, I get where you’re coming from.
No, but they have to be honest about it before fucking up independent business owners. 2 of these groups pushing for the ban (ND cancer society and ND Lung Assoc.) opposed a state law to ban tobacco altogether. If it is so deadly, why don’t they back abolishment? [sub]cough cough TAXES cough cough[/sub]
It’s all about money. Consider this. What is more a danger to you? A guy smoking a pack of cigarettes and driving home, or a guy drinking a half dozen shots and driving home. It may be subjective, but we have hard numbers of deaths caused by drunk drivers. But the bars patrons have to be saved from smoke. And those wanting to save us from our choices are pulling in the cash left and right.
On the other hand, duffer, if my colleague drinks every day it doesn’t hurt me one bit. The cumulative effect of smoking every day does affect my health. So the alcohol/smoking parellel can cut both ways.
Of course, some smoked up guy never tried to kick my ass at a bar…
duffer, what do you get out of universalizing people that don’t smoke and would prefer to not be exposed to smoke? Is is somehow easier for you to think that I am simple (too naive/ blind to recognize what a ‘biker bar’ connotes)? Why do you refuse to acknowledge that smoking causes direct, quanitifable detriment to people (myself being the example, to keep things uncomplicated)?
Your snobbery assures that you will not be able to acheive any sort mutual comprehension. You simply ignore anything that gives ‘anti-smokers’ any sense of humanity, just repeating the same tired stereotypes.
And maybe you don’t care to see that your generalizations are false, maybe all of this is nothing more than mental masturbation for you.
If I only knew how to increase text size. Anyway.
:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack:
OK, let me walk you through this as you’ve proven my point. I never said you were too naive/blind to recognize a biker bar (or any other bar) as one that might be the type that would have smokers inside. I figured you were intelligent enough to already know that, so I used it as an example.
Now pay attention here and read twice if you need to: You have a choice of entering that bar or heading to another one. A smoking ban is nothing more than the government telling the business owner and the patrons that they DON’T have a choice in the matter.
Tell me why your choice is so much more important than others’ and I’ll hear you out. I just reread my posts and haven’t seen anything suggesting I said tobacco wasn’t dangerous. Smokers know it ain’t a vitamin pill they’re lighting up.
How many of these places have gone out of business in places that have banned smoking in bars & restaurants? Anyone know?
Glad to see you’ve abandoned your univeralizing, there duffer. It must be tough to be surrounded by such cretins.
I never NEVER never said my choice is more important than others (in fact, I actually stated that it wasn’t…but again, that would force you to actually see me as an individual, instead of a part of a ‘coalition’, your word, not mine - since I’m getting the sense that you’re a bit over-literal, I’ll do my best to be literal); I asked why my choice isn’t AS important as the choice of others.
This is the third time I’ve asked this question, duffer; see if you can lay off the smilie buttons long enough to read it:
Why does the right to smoke trump my right to breathe?
Why is it preferable that my preference (to go to a certain bar, to enter a building, to walk down a given street) be less meaningful than the preference of a smoker to smoke?
Good lord, duffer, you’re so dense you make a lead weight look like a feather. No, you did not explicitly say that smoking is benign, BUT, by consistently ignoring the damage that smoking does to others (and completely ignoring my repeated questions as to why my right to oxygen is less necessary than the free choice of business owners and their patrons), AND by bewailing how completely stupid banning smoking in certain outdoor areas would be (even after I gave you a concrete case, me, of how smoking outside does aggravate my asthma), you have, effectively, ignored the damaging effects of smoke so that you can continue to focus on the erosion of your rights.
And, in the off chance you’re actually spending more than a nanosecond reading this post, I said ‘preference’ because on a certain level, it is. I work at a restaurant that has a smoking section, and when I’ve had sections in the smoking section, I find myself getting piercing headaches, dizzy, short of breath and wheezy. My physical reactions suck, but they don’t kill me. I would prefer to be able to breathe freely, but that need is subsumed by my need to earn enough money to live on (and if you can find me another job that will work around my school/ teaching schedule, will pay enough hourly as to not necessitate working a 40-hour week (I already teach, too), and is willing to hire a PhD candidate in Spanish without experience in an office setting, duffer, you can have half of my salary.) At this point in my life, the money I earn as a waitress is worth more to me than not wheezing. Hence, I call it a preference - I am not the axle about which the earth spins, and I make choices and sacrifices – I just think it would be awfully humane for smokers to do make a miniscule change in their behavior (ie, moving 25’ from a door). Again, duffer, why is that an unreasonable request? Why is it unreasonable for everyone to compromise a little, instead of relying on asinine stereotypes?
Well, to begin with, you’re right. The proper smilies aren’t even available here to augment a post in response to yours, so I’ll just abandon them altogether.
My right to smoke doesn’t trump your right to breath. And you’re following a formula of hysteria by saying so. Entering a bar that allows smoking doesn’t mean you can’t breath. True, by choosing to enter the bar you’re not breathing the cleanest air available, but with all the talk of air pollution being in a smoke-free environment may not be the best bet either.
And no, I’m not overly concerned with your employment situation, and neither is your employer in all likelihood. I cannot comprehend a city where you can’t find a flex-time job that doesn’t allow smoking. Hospitals, malls, bookstores, retail outlets, non-smoking restaurants or bars, work-study, etc etc etc.
Don’t tell me a city should enforce the banning of a legal product because you don’t have the gumption to tell your boss you can’t serve customers in the smoking section. If it’s so deadly you’d quit and not look back. The world doesn’t revolve around you. THERE ARE CHOICES FOR YOU!
And a PhD candidate in Spanish looking for an office job? I really want to make a dig on that but I guess I don’t know what you mean by it.
Anyway, can we stay on topic, please? This is about city councils telling private businesses how to operate. But I suspect you’re left of Stalin and don’t really give a shit about anyone that wants to enjoy life in ways you frown upon.
Talk about fucking dense.
Not even Cecil believes the second hand smoke “studies”.
But I see you’re not referencing those; your evidence is that smoke annoys you. First you talk about how you can’t breathe around smoke, then you let slip that you occasionally work in a smoking section. So your “can’t breathe” is disengenuous at best. What you really mean is that you’re not as super duper comfy as you can possibly be, so fuck all the smokers.
I trust that next you will be supporting legislation to outright ban any and all consumption of peanuts in your entire city, becuase, you know, the peanut dust makes people with peanut allergies uncomfortable. But then again, since you probably don’t have peanut allergies, you probably wouldn’t support that ban.
Selfish hypocrites are annoying as shit.
I just thought of one more thing. The ban will include all workplaces. 2 weeks ago we had a guy from a heating company come into our home to clean the furnace. The caddy and I both smoke. How could this possibly be enforced if the specific language states that workplaces be smoke-free?
I don’t remember ever using the slippery slope argument, and would appreciate help in avoiding it now.
duffer I agree with you. Smoking rules are going from bad to ridiculous. NZ has just made all bars and resturants smoke free. Of course it was never against the law to own a smoke free bar, I guess most business minded types just knew this was not a money spinner.
Bars and healthy “eek I smell smoke” types never seemed to have that much in common. Maybe I’m wrong and I missed the bloke making millions from his smoke free chain of bars.
The thing that pisses me off most is the govts increasing ability to claim places as smoke free. If smoking is really that harmful (and I’m not arguing) why not just make it illegal. After all Heroin is illegal cause it kills. Cocaine is illegal cause it kills. Dope is illegal cause it makes people stupid. OHHHHHhh yeah alcohol is legal and it makes people stupid and kills them.
Hmmmmmmm could it be the govt likes smokers and the overinflated tax they pay? Could it be they like paying lipservice to non smokers but have a vested interest in having a percentage of the population smoke? Hmmmmm maybe.
Well if it is that bad just fucking make it illegal already! Stop using it to gather revenue!
Geez duffer, I don’t know why you are so concerned. After the Bush government closes the G.F.A.F.B. in the next round of closings, it isn’t like anyone will be going to those bars any way.
Might as well move down here to Fargo. West Fargo exempted certain bars from the ban.
I know. My sister and her husband live in W. Fargo, but the bars still “allowed” to have smokers aren’t their types of places. Such is life in those types of cities. I wonder what the stats on “second-hand smoke deaths” will be in 20 years. Doesn’t matter. The caddy and I are heading to Nevada this year anyway. The land of Sin City can’t let me down.
As an aside, Bush’s administration is hardly the first to be in charge during a BRAC (Base Realignment And Closure). If it closes, it’s because it’s not not vital to national defense. We’d lose some economic propping, but it would also help bring housing costs down to a reasonable level. Have you compared costs of GF vs. Fargo? It should give you damn Bison fans enough ammo for a year.
Go Sioux! 
This is a lovely platitude, but it isn’t reality, and you know it and accept it daily. We are a nation of laws which govern conduct in both public and private spaces. Just because you own the business, it is not your own private fiefdom where you may declare that certain laws do not apply to you and whomever else might enter the premises. It is a part of the social contract; by operating within a community, you agree that you will conduct your business lawfully within that community.
First of all, there is no such thing as a private establishment that serves the public. It may be privately owned, but when the doors are opened and anyone may walk in and patronize the business, as with a restaurant or bar, then the word “private” does not apply, and a suitable level of regulation is in effect.
First of all, I don’t know that many cities make any money off of tobacco taxes, which are typically applied on the state and federal levels.
Second, we accept that certain products are regulated. Both the sale and use of tobacco are governed by a series of specific laws, the same can be said for alcohol and prescription medications. Looking at history, we know that Prohibition was a failure. It didn’t prevent the use of alcohol, nor its sale, it merely drove it underground, spurred ancillary crime and created a law enforcement nightmare. The prohibition of drugs in the current day has done the same. There is no reason to try to go down that failed road with cigarettes. There are, however, several legitimate and readily demonstrated reasons to continue to regulate their use, just as we do with alcohol, and because of the nature of cigarette smoke (i.e. the inability to contain its effects solely to the user) to increase the limits upon it in public places.
Just because you’re outside doesn’t mean that your smoke automatically disburses and is completely inconsequential. Servers assigned to outside tables woud still be exposed to the smoke, as would other patrons in the outdoor seating area and every pedestrian who happens to pass by the tables of smokers. While the problem isn’t as intense because outdoor seating areas have the benefit of airflow, that doesn’t mean that the cloud of smoke generated by your cigarette and your exhalations magically disappears on the wind without affecting anyone else. The unwanted intrusion of secondhand smoke is a problem which should be eliminated not just lessened.
Duffer, since you have asserted that the simple thing for non-smokers to do is to go to smoke-free establishments, can you please give some evidence that there are actually smoke-free bars in places where the law doesn’t mandate it? By bar, I mean an establishment where the primary purpose is the service of alcoholic beverages, with limited or no food service.
Can you also provide some idea, even in simple ratio form, of how many seats are available in smoke-free restaurants compared to smoking-segregated restaurants in non-mandated cities/states?
I’m a music fan. Bars and nightclubs are great places to hear live music, especially jazz and blues. Those of us who aren’t physically capable of dealing with cigarette smoke are prevented from enjoying some of the best music being played in America because of the cigarettes. Having asthma or other respiratory problems doesn’t automatically make someone a health freak or a priss, and the mistaken impression that we stay away from nightclubs because we dislike the atmosphere – as opposed to the air pollution – is a significant barrier to establishment of non-smoking policies in such places.
And that’s why I haven’t mentioned any of them - I have only used my personal experience. I haven’t invoked any claims of death, long-term harm, etc. I have only said that smoke triggers wheezing/ difficulty breathing for ME, and sometimes an asthma attack.
‘Let it slip’? When I worked in the smoking section (the bar area of the restaurant), I had to use my inhaler several times during the night. Odds are (I’ve only worked in the section twice now) I’ll get a headache. I use my puffer because I have difficulty breathing, because I cannot get as much air as I should be.
You seem to think you’ve caught me in some terrible lie. If I allow myself to be placed in the smoking section, it must not be that serious…? Well, as I have mentioned, I don’t have that serious of a case of asthma - I’m not on steroids, I don’t have daily meds, just my rescue inhaler. But I can have asthma attacks just like any one else. So why am I working in the bar? Because I made really good money those two nights, and I need it badly enough to risk an asthma attack. If you want to tell me that’s a dumb, hypocritical decision, fine…I won’t argue with you. But I need the money.