See??? Gonzo really won’t be happy until he bans french fries! 
Drinking anywhere that non-drinkers are forced to acommodate your drug use is rude behavior. I should be able to go to a bar without having to worry about being accosted by drunks, having beer spilled on me, or wait twenty minutes to take a piss because of all the people whose bladders are full of Budweiser.
Regardless of the smoking laws, the considerate drinker wouldn’t be drinking indoors where there might be nondrinkers. If drinkers weren’t so rude, banning alcohol consumption in public wouldn’t be necessary.
Oh, wait, that one sounds really dumb.
There have always been non-smoking bars and restaurants in every city in America. If non-smokers were really that bothered about smoky bars and restaurants, they would have patronized nonsmoking establishments, and smoke-friendly businesses would have declined. There are, after all, many more non-smokers than smokers.
Since this did not happen, the logical inference is that anti-public-smoking legislation is being pushed by a bunch of whiny busybodies rather than any genuine preference.
There is a problem with that though; you have a certain element of very loud people against common sense laws who won’t accept defeat at the ballot box. They lost how many times in the past just to keep “fighting the good fight for the good of society”. Be it anti-smoking, anti-alcohol or anti-abortion they just won’t accept anything other than a full ban. You can point to how prohibitions have failed us in the past and are failing us even today ------- but they are a very loud and persistent minority.
I’ll go one step further - the people behind some of these laws really aren’t all that bright. “Public”, by them, is defined as bars and other places anyone can easily avoid. Let’s grab out pitchforks and drive all those nasty smokers outside! To the doorways, sidewalks, bus stops and all those other places we (those with actual health issues like my wife) can’t possibly avoid.
Ah, c’mon folks. I’m not against laws or reasonable controls. But that word “reasonable” has to be considered. And again, like with so many of these debates, remember -------- prohibitions just don’t work in this country.
This one I can actually answer with authority:
Not all IA casinos are run by Native Americans, but if they did enact the ban in casinos, it would not be applicable to the NA casinos. therefore there would be economic damage to the non-NA casinos, which would in turn negatively impact state tax revenues.
Source: I was actually the consultant that the lobbyist in IA contracted (thru my employer RSM) to prove that their was a negative affect to their revenue if they banned smoking in casinos.
What if the only job I can get is working in the coal mines? I have to breathe dirty air and risk death to feed my family? She coal mines be outlawed?
And, you still didn’t answer my question about the owner-operated bar.
First, because it’s a social good. The fewer places where a smoker can sit and smoke, the less convenient it is to maintain the habit, the more incentive smokers have to stop smoking. Including you as the business owner.
Second, because all your regulars aren’t the only people in the world. There are other people in the neighborhood who would gladly choose to patronize your business over the mega-chain across the street if they didn’t have to deal with the cigarettes. And you need those others in the neighborhood because your “regulars” aren’t permanent fixtures in the bar like the stools. Some will move, some will decide to stop drinking, some will find out that they like Dudek’s bar more than Kopek’s, some (especially if they’re regular smokers) will die or become too ill to hang out in a bar drinking and smoking. Maintaining the status quo, especially as a small business, is a good way to watch your business die over the long term.
Let’s be realistic here. We’re in the same neck of the woods. Since the ban was instituted here I’ve seen bars that have changed their business model, getting rid of food to fall within the revenue percentages and keep smokers. I’ve seen bars that have done extensive work to create welcoming and multiseason outdoor spaces where smoking is permissible and can happen 9 months of the year. I’ve seen bars that have said “eh, them’s the breaks” and sent their smokers outside.
What I’ve not seen? A huge number of bars closing. (And that’s even when the 10% poured drinks tax was put on them over top of the smoking ban.) Restaurants, yes, but restaurants fail at astronomical rates, and in this economy, there’s a lot more at play than whether or not people can smoke. At the same time, some restaurants, including some that were smoke-free before the ban, still regularly have long waits for tables even in the middle of the week, especially places that do good affordable food.
Then ban smoking. Don’t restrict private business from running their own business.
You don’t have the right to tell a business that they need to have a different business model.
If their business model has a high risk, that’s perfectly acceptable in our society because it’s their business. They put the money forth to open and maintain the facility. They manage and operate it.
Pardon me for taking some points in a slightly rearranged order.
First ------- if social good is what we’re after, we’re back to banning the private ownership of automobiles or at least taxing gasoline at a rate realistic with the damage cars cause to our safety and environment. Social good is achieved by changing things that affect all of society and not just small niche groups.
Second, not true. Non-smokers have already established “their” places and habits. They also had their chance during our draconian county-wide ban. I obeyed that one and not one of the cheap f**** crossed my doorstep. While they say they may visit me once a week or once a month, they will not be there on a daily basis or spend on the level my smokers do. Smoking is part of a social union and interchange common to neighborhood establishments - that union takes time and time, for me, is money. Non-smokers come in, spend little or nothing, and leave.
<<What I’ve not seen? A huge number of bars closing. (And that’s even when the 10% poured drinks tax was put on them over top of the smoking ban.) Restaurants, yes, but restaurants fail at astronomical rates, and in this economy, there’s a lot more at play than whether or not people can smoke.>>
Want to meet me and visit those bars soon closing? Maybe one or two that have already closed? I know I can arrange the first and I think I can pull off the second as well. I an NOT kidding; I’ll even pick up the bar tabs. I know one that will even open his books to you to examine. Then you can come back here and report - or at least be all the wiser for it.
I got the perfect place! Without smoking, food can’t pay the bills and staying under the food % ------- well, lets just say he isn’t making it by booze alone. Without some charity from some of us, his doors would already be locked. Restaurants were first to close and suffer the law as it was passed here, the typical neighborhood “bar and grill” will be next ----- but they won’t be alone or very lonely.
<<I’ve seen bars that have done extensive work to create welcoming and multiseason outdoor spaces where smoking is permissible and can happen 9 months of the year. I’ve seen bars that have said “eh, them’s the breaks” and sent their smokers outside.>>
I’ve seen bars just ignore all these silly laws and sin taxes as well; not that I would recommend such behavior. The extensive work you see to “get along” isn’t possible for the kind of neighborhood place I described - more the Olive Garden/FireWaters corporate bar with deep wallets and good locations near wealthy people. You’re talking the North Park Lounge type place the Limousine Liberals prefer. I’m talking the Stone Front and Cornerstone type places along California Ave.
TodderBob ------- I believe the politicians in Michigan tried to be honest and enact a ban. But the dishonest ones who figure “one step at a time” finally won out.
Tumbledown ----- clearly we drink in different bars. I am honestly laughing, reading your post again, because the places I go to the regulars are more permanent than the bar stools. Those have been replaced a few times; the people I met while I were in college are still there today. Or dead and replaced by the next generation - complete with a pack of Winstons and a full wallet they’re looking to empty. These places have survived in the same families, in some cases, for generations. Until the last few years and regulations -------- Uncle Sugar always liking the box store over the family business when he can get away with it.
Cite?
I provided the newspaper article on the Meadows study and the one person actually involved in some of the studies posted here. What more are you looking for? And how about a cite that non-smokers are NOT cheapskates at some social activities such as bars and casinos? I’ll even take the Massachusetts studies that were done well after the ban had already closed the smoker-friendly places and smoker dollars weren’t counted.
Money or health. That is the decision a worker in a place that allows smoking has to make.
Smokers can smoke their brains out if they want to, but they do not have the right to inflict their unhealthy choices on others. Stand outside and suck all the carcinogens into your lungs and body tissues that your addiction requires. Why you make such a choice is beyond me, but don’t make your stupid decision someone else’s health and cleaning problem.
That was as regards gambling. As I said, smoking and gambling are both addictive behaviors. “Eating out” is not an addictive behavior.
Have you read any of the threads about obesity? Are you sure “eating out” isn’t an addictive behavior and have you got a cite for that handy? Be warned - I have some friends handy from OA to help me debate the point.
And if you read my objections and those of others, you will see our most steadfast objections are to bars. Are you trying alcohol isn’t addictive?
As I so often have to say in debates with those simply against things people do ---- c’mon Doc, you can do better than that! You are talking about “those without sin”, I’m talking about us sinners. And we’re just a whole lot freer with a buck than the Virgin Mother.
We already discussed standing outside. That will help some of the psychosomatics out there but to the detriment of some with actual physical health issues over smoke.
I have really bad news for you - every job comes down to money or health. The work place without risk doesn’t exist. And it isn’t always personal risk - your unhealthy choices (whatever they are - trust me, I can find one) can get me killed as quickly as some second hand smoke.
But I like you - enough that I’m going to agree and lets just ban cigarettes and all smoking for that matter. We’ll let people smoke at home and only at home until we figure out how to get rid of them as well. That’s going to displace a lot of workers from a lot of different settings. What say we start by having you fired and give one of those people your job? Better yet, lets double your taxes so we can put all these people on the public dole! Hows that sound?
I got a feeling banning cars would be cheaper in the long run. That at least would create jobs for mass transit and the railroads as well as recovering homes in the inner city.
I have read studies that agree that smokers are bigger drinkers, true. Of course, you are right in that alcohol can also be addictive.
Define non-essential driving.
Of course you should.
Is this really problem at most bars? For that matter, is any of that a huge problem? I’ve been to lots of bars without ever having a drink spilled on me. Nor am I accosted by drunks. Every smoker who lit up in a bar poisoned the air I had to breathe. If every drinker spilled a drink on you in a bar, you might be talking about an equivalent situation. But they don’t and this equivalency is false.
Always? Evvery city? I think this is not quite true.
There weren’t non-smoking establishments.
Actually, the logical inference is that since these laws keep getting passed means they have popular support. This is a growing trend.
And there wasn’t a conservative news network until Fox, but then Fox came along…
8 Years we had George Bush, so obviously neoconservativism was in vogue.
Doesn’t mean we ban MSNBC just because there was popular support at the time.
And that cite that “eating out” isn’t addictive?
I don’t like the “nanny state” phrase that keeps being thrown around. If that really was the case, we would be addressing things that actually do “care about people”. Economics, the fracturing of society and things like that. But as badly written as these various bans/restrictions are? It’s hard to defend them - as you are finding out. If we meant what we said, a total and outright ban would be our ploy. Other than that, short of that, we really are doing it to make some sanctimonious bastards happy or just to prove we can.