Kabbes,
So who draws the line? The smoker? The non-smoker? The cops? How do they draw it? Smoke detectors? Some special “smoke measuring” instrament?
Sorry about your reading problem. I was addressing the general proposition that “that government governs best which governs least”, which you quoted favorably in a general way, not in a manner restricted to specific kinds of laws.
But at least we agree.
Hello indeed. “LAW”, in this usage, means “police”. Yes, people can and do call the police, for good reasons and bad. What laws are on the books won’t change that one iota. At least you’re no longer blaming the statute.
But if you choose to resume doing so at a later point, it might help if you dig it up on Google and quote that sucker, so we can judge for ourselves.
Ain’t that equivalent to the conclusion you’re trying to argue for? It’s not really in keeping with good debate practices to use your conclusion in mid-argument.
I think I’ll just let that stand. 
Your reading problem is cropping up again. I’ve already mentioned that the law has existed for eons, and is called “assault”. Probly dates back to common law in Great Britain before they colonized North America. Them sixteenth-century liberals just wanted to write laws on everything, y’know? :rolleyes:
Reading problem indeed. I just don’t regard “Billy Rubin” as an authoritative cite.
But if you can cite a building code that requires that apartments be airtight, feel free to do so.
No, sorry. I don’t understand your explanation as to why they are different. You suggested:
[li]Perception. Hmm. Well actually, noise nuisance round here has to be proved via the authorities coming round with a meter to check the noise level. I should imagine that the smoke law would be similar. So it isn’t perceived, it is objective.[/li]
[li]Noise can travel through a properly constructed building; smoke cannot. So? The effect that I am in my appartment suffering due to someone else’s action is the same regardless of the cause. If it is the fault of the building construction, I should imagine that the smoker would have no trouble at all in suing his or her landlord for their loss. If it isn’t the fault of the building, then the smoker deserves what’s coming to 'em.[/li]
pan
Well in that case, how is the smell from cigarette smoke different from other possibly offending smells? Hmm??? You agreed that smoke cannot travel through a properly constructed building so then it must just be the smell right?
And I was totally joking about the meter thing, so they would ACTUALLY come into my home with a meter? Sorry buddy, you aren’t entering my home without a warrant…
And if the cop would use their little “meter” in your home, how can you be SURE it’s coming from mine unless you somehow had entered my apartment? As I said before, that’s not happening without a warrant.
Kinda throws your whole objectivity theory out the window huh?
You’ll find the regulations that govern fire safety here
Pay special attention to section 8.8 which refers to penetration of fire resistant membranes.
This is a draft which I think may be waiting to be ratified, but it doesn’t differ from the current regulations in this segment. I don’t think they publish the actual regulations once ratified.
RTF, I’m going to go have a nice thanksgiving. You do too.
b.
Thanks for the thought Billy, but I’m English and don’t even know when Thanksgiving is.
My exam results come out tonight though. You could wish me luck for those instead.
But I do hope that you have a good Thanksgiving. It sounds fun.
pan
That was directed at RTFirefly, but good luck on your exams as well.
b.
Some small coastal town in California(I forget exactly which, but it might’ve been Santa Barbara or thereabouts), has banned Perfumes in public…maybe it was Berkely or some shit-don’t remember.
Sam
I did. Hope you had a great Turkey Day too!
Maybe I found the prose hard to parse, but my experience with apartment living has been of drywall and airspace, not firewall, being between adjacent apartments.
And I’m not thinking in terms of routes for fire or smoke to pass freely from one apartment to another, but of molecules wanting to disperse themselves evenly: if you have more molecules of X on one side of a porous barrier than on the other, eventually they’ll even out. If I live in an apartment and smoke like a chimney, eventually the components of the smoke will seep through the drywall. (And around, through the inevitable cracks where drywall meets floor and ceiling, at the corners of the room, etc.)
The practical question is, how long does that take, in real life, in an apartment built to the codes of its time? If it’s a matter of centuries, then you’re right - it takes shoddy construction, and the next-door tenant’s beef is with the landlord. But if it’s a matter of mere months, then we’re back into the realm of public behavior.
I’m an anti-smoker and I think this is nuts. Here in Madison, Wis you can’t smoke in a bus shelter. You can’t smoke on a restuarant outside patio, but you can smoke inside the restaurant…?? Just this week they passed a law that says you can’t smoke in any business, even if you own it and you’re the only one in the office, ie) you are an accountant the only one in a one-room office-you have to go outside to smoke.
I can’t stand cig smoke, but it’s very close to going too far.
If a person cannot smoke in their own home, then where can they smoke?
Look, if you want smoking to be illegal, fine, make it illegal and stop getting the tax revenues from it. If you want those taxes, you have to give the smoker the right to use the product in a reasonable fashion. Reasonable[sup]TM[/sup] is a subjective term and can change over time. However, I cannot see a set of circumstances where smoking in your own home is not Reasonable.
Mowing the lawn at 4am is not Reasonable, at least by any standard that I would recognize. Mowing at 2pm is Reasonable, and should be allowed, even though it is just as loud then as at 4am.
Playing a stereo during the day is Reasonable. Playing it at full volume at 1am is not, and the cops would ask you to turn it down, if they were called by your neighbor.
It’s a matter of scale, and this law goes right off of it.
Apartment dwellers must put up with their neighbors and all of their foibles. Smoking and the associated smell is just one of them. If it bothers you so much, buy a fucking air freshener, your neighbor is participating in a perfectly Reasonable act that causes a minor annoyance to you. If every minor annoyance was illegal, I’d get a ticket every friggin day.
I’m an ex-smoker, so I thought I was one of the worst when it comes to not wanting to be subjected to other people’s smoke. However, even I think this is going way too far.
I agree with the “shoddy construction” idea, and I think this is something that should be addressed with the landlord by all the tenants. What if you were a closet farter? Your chain-smoking neighbor might accidently ignite one of your farts and blow the whole place to kingdom come. 
One thing I would recommend for people wanting their freedom to smoke is - move to the South. I moved here from the west coast, and I often wish we had stricter laws. There’s nothing to prevent people from smoking outside anywhere, especially right in front of the doorway to a business. In fact, that’s usually where the ashtrays are located. Cab drivers are also perfectly free to puff away while you’re in the vehicle with them.
If you really want freedom, move to New Orleans. In many restaurants there is no non-smoking section. It’s a smoker’s paradise.
As I’ve read through these posts, the one thing that I keep coming back to is this-- assumed risk.
Don’t these people realize that by living next to someone- in either an apartment, condominium, or some other odd close relationship-- that they’d have to compromise some things?
Jesus!
I don’t expect, nor should I expect, that once I walk into my apartment that the outside world doesn’t exist. Who the hell does?
You don’t. You interact with others and you compromise. I hear others being loud, and I’m loud myself sometimes. I smell others cooking and they probably smell mine from time to time too.
It’s part of living in and amongst other people!!
If you think you can, or should, be able to close yourself off from those around you the second you walk in your door, and you’re only recourse for action when that doesn’t happen is to create laws that make it so, than you really need to get a fucking life.
My one and only hope is that that sanctimonious fucks that dream up these laws will someday be as fucked by them as every other normal human being is hurt by them now is.
If the best you can do is to make others see your light, and if they don’t, fine the fuck out of them, than I truly, honestly, feel sorry for you.
Enough!!!
What would happen if we just took all the money out of tobacco, but left it legal? Tax all profits at 110% And did the same for marajuana?
Could be the cure. Who would want to be in the game if they couldn’t profit?
Pardon me, Chris, but it seems to me that you’re saying that only the recipient of the unwanted smoke should have to ‘compromise some things’.
Absent a law, there’s no reason for the smoker to compromise anything.
Come now, RTF, you don’t think smokers compromise right and left on a daily basis these days?
What world do you live in?
Smokers are being persecuted daily. More and more places are becoming smoke free-- restaurants, bars, city streets…
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see it’s open season on smokers, and it’s been so for years. It’s almost as if it gives some people an easy outlet for them to vent their virtuosity- smoke outside, over there, by the garbage can you piece of filth. I don’t want you doing anything that gets in the way of me.
Who’s compromising here RTF, the smokers, or the non-smokers?
And now, thanks to this law and more like it presumably in the pipe, smokers are being hassled in their homes as well.
Tell me, how do you respond to those earlier here that have commented on the issue of B.O., cooking odors, or bad breath?
Should those items too be included and legislated? Fined if it’s offensive to others? Why is smoking the easy out here?
You insinuate that non-smokers are far more compromising than smokers, but you fail to see that it’s non-smokers intolerance and complete lack of compromise that allows these laws on the books in the first place.
Again, my only hope is that a law that infringes upon things that you find important will soon limit, curtail, or otherwise punish you for that vice, hits you close at home… or in your home. Then, and only then, will the people that dream up this shit start to cry bloody murder.
Because until then, I truly feel you’ll be too wrapped up in your sanctimony to see otherwise.
CnC: you fail to see that it’s non-smokers intolerance and complete lack of compromise that allows these laws on the books in the first place.
Actually, Chris, I think if you reread the linked article on this legislation, you’ll see that it wasn’t initially about smoking at all. Rather, it’s a general restriction on various other kinds of air quality degradation, which was expanded to include tobacco smoke. I quote:
So it looks like you can quit yipping about how this is just another instance of the evil nonsmokers persecuting the smokers with unfair regulations that they’d never impose on anybody else. It’s actually designed to control a wide variety of airborne pollutants. You’ll also be relieved to notice that the enforcement emphasis is on warnings, education, and strategies for mitigating problems, with the potential $750 fine as a last resort.
Again, I think that this legislation might indeed turn out to be vulnerable on civil liberties grounds, but I think you’re going way overboard in getting so bent out of shape about the underlying principle. It’s really not generally true that nuisance ordinances are merely a tool for a few people to inflict their “sanctimony” on harmless, well-meaning neighbors. Most people do still mutually put up with minor annoyances or settle their disagreements about them informally. I, for example, have never called the cops on a neighbor in my life. But if I do happen to run up against a really intransigent nuisance-spewer of some sort at some time, I’m happy that as a last resort, there’s a legal recourse which can be genuinely effective and doesn’t require me to institute a lawsuit on my own. And I don’t see why air quality shouldn’t be covered by such laws, as well as things like noise levels and general sanitation and so on.
(And your picture of the poor harassed smokers as meekly willing to compromise is kind of funny, to anyone old enough (yes, turned 38 yesterday, thank you, thank you! :)) to remember what public smoking etiquette used to be like! Practically no “non-smoking” anything anywhere, and no smoker would dream of asking if you minded before lighting up, restaurants and workplaces were thick with smoke… In fact, it was the smokers’ blithe assumption that they had a perfect right to smoke pretty much whenever and wherever they felt like it that drove the coughing non-smokers to seek legislative action in the first place.)
Yup, we haul them off to re-education camps, where they undergo extensive psychological tortures…er, re-education procedures…before we re-admit them into society.
Are we widening the debate here, or what? I’ll be the first to admit that banning smoking on city streets is ridiculous. But the notion that people shouldn’t have to worry about smoke wafting into their faces while enjoying a pleasant meal sounds like common sense. If that’s ‘persecution’ to you, then I reckon we don’t speak the same language, even if we seem to use some of the same words.
Nonsense - there has always been a limit, tightly enforces by the game wardens, on how many smokers you’re allowed to shoot. 
I haven’t been arguing this particular legislation, but rather, some of the more general issues it’s touched on. There has been no need for me to deal with B.O. in this thread.
I didn’t insinuate anything. I pointed out that, in the particular instance of this legislation, you seemed to only expecting nonsmokers to make compromises on account of living cheek-to-jowl with other people.
If there is conduct that infringes on others, then I generally think it’s good when laws limit such conduct. If you have to put your elbows into other people’s faces to enjoy life, please don’t cry ‘persecution’ when people ask you to stop.
Well, when they write laws that require me to make noise when I want to keep silent, leave litter behind when I want to leave nothing but footprints, and spew fumes when I have no interest in doing so, then I guess I will get my comeuppance.
In a way, I’m oddly not that worked up about this. I should be, because it goes against everything I stand for and think is right- personal rights, freedoms, and liberties. But it comes so close to bordering on the ridiculous and ludicrous that’s it’s almost impossible to take it seriously.
But I can’t just let these last comments go…
Who cares?
I don’t care how or why it was ‘originally conceived’. What’s on the books now is on the books now. Why would how it started out have anything to do with how it ended up?
It doesn’t.
As it stands now, it specifically persecutes cigarette smoke. It’s written into the law.
Ooohhhh… that makes it so much better. They’ll try and teach smokers how not to piss off nonsmokers, and if they don’t get that right, they’ll fine their asses. How quaint… the classic carrot and the stick approach.
Now tell me, does the “education” part of that re-training include a part that explains what, specifically, is the legal threshold for ‘pissing off a non-smoker’?
If they’re going to re-educate me, and make me better, than it’d be nice if they could get that part straight. Because if it doesn’t, it’s gonna cost me.
What a load.
Smokers have rightfully curtailed certain behaviors that were once pretty arrogant- no argument there, it’s as it should be. And you’re right, it took laws to do that. But when is enough, enough?
When will the nonsmoking pendulum stop swinging so wildly and so dramatically that it becomes a compromise on behalf of both parties? I’m all for that, honest. But what’s happening now isn’t compromise, it’s persecution.- nonsmokers are persecuting smokers.
Why not? Would you argue that point if it were included? Or since it only includes smokers, who rights are apparently not important to you, it’s not worth you’re effort to talk about, you talk about “some of the more general issues [this legislation has] touched on”?
No, I expect everyone to make compromises, including nonsmokers. Show me where they’re compromising here. You can’t, can you?
I’d agree, if it’s reasonable, rational, and achieves a common goal or good. But this doesn’t, it’s completely uncompromising- any level of cigarette smoke, if deemed by someone else, arbitrarily, is too much, for whatever reason, than the other person must either stop or be fined.
Where is the compromise in that?
And how, honestly, could this not be taken to the next level of BO and other odors?
In a way it should, if it offends me, right?
Why wouldn’t that be a reasonable law under your terms?
I think you’ll only get your comeuppance when you’re hit with a law that’s completely arbitrary and decided by others who aren’t even remotely concerned with your interests. In fact, they’re actually contemptuous about your interests.
Again, I wish I were more emotionally riled up about all this, because it truly is something I stand for. But I’m not. I’m almost in a state of, ‘This is so ludicrous, it’s laughable’. Because of that, my arguments lack passion and urgency at a time that I think that they’re needed most.
Unfortunately, I just can’t get past the ludicrously of it all.
No, you can’t do that: that’s the conclusion that you’re arguing toward. You can’t use it in support of the points that you’re trying to make in support of that conclusion. That’s called ‘circular reasoning’.
BTW, you have the ‘as it stands now’ part wrong, too: much to your relief, I’m sure, Montgomery County backed down.
For a guy who isn’t all that emotional about this issue, you’re sure writing with a great deal of histrionics and arm-waving.
Kimstu said something earlier that’s worth amplifying on:
In general, laws don’t embody compromise, on their face: you do X, you can be fined up to $Y and spend up to Z days in jail. The compromise is embedded in how society uses them.
For instance, a couple years ago, I was over the speed limit by a sufficient margin that I was eligible for a six-month jail term - no joke. (I was on a 4-lane, limited-access, divided highway that had a 35 mph zone, if you want to know.) But the reality is, they’re not going to throw anyone in jail for speeding, except in the most extreme circumstances. I think they fined me about $100.
And in the case of nuisance laws, much of the inherent compromise takes place at the level of how the citizenry uses those laws before the cops are ever involved, because the cops rarely do get called, in the numerous everyday situations where the nuisance laws apply. When the neighbor’s stereo is too loud, most of us just grit our teeth and wait for him to turn it down. If it persists long enough, or happens often enough, we try to talk with the offending neighbor. And only when that fails, do most of us consider appealing to outside authority.
And then, of course, the police, when they get there, usually don’t charge people at all - they tell the neighbor to turn down the stereo, and then they drive off. If they get enough different complaints from enough different people, they might actually charge the guy, but not before.
That is how these laws generally work, in practice. If you insist on presenting a distorted picture of the way the law is generally applied, then it’s easy to reach false conclusions.
I think the burden is on you to show that this law would have been applied in a more aggressive fashion, since that’s what you’re in effect claiming.