Ohio smokers: get a fucking grip

The BBQ Pit
21

I suggest the only smokers you see are the inconsiderate ones. You won’t see me smoking around you because I respect your right not to be smoked at; you won’t see my butts because I pocket them until I can find a trash can.

The exception to this is if I’m in an establishment that allows smoking, and even then if you wanted me to keep it away from you, I would, though not to as great a degree of inconvenience that I might endure in a non-smoking environment.

They’re bringing the ban in for the entire country on England next July, and I totally agree with the principle. Sorry DianaG, I know where you’re coming from, but when you argue “public safety”, the argument is irrelevant. It’s about workers’ rights, and though we smokers can claim that workers can choose whether or not to work in a smoky environment, in reality, sometimes there’s no choice, and there’s also the risk of coercion. If we can make it safer for them, we should. And since such bans usually have about 70% support in most jurisdictions where they’re proposed, we haven’t got a leg to stand on.

22

I, for one, haven’t expressed an opinion. I have just explained why and law is the way it is. Making it an occupation safety issue was a brilliant legal maneuver. Expecting the legal code to be fair and totally consistent is ridiculous.

In any event, as jsgoddess said better than I could have, the workplace needs to be made a safe as is reasonably possible. In a coal mine, you have to wear a filtered mask. If there is asbestos floating around, you can’t work there at all unless you are removing the asbestos and only then with the proper protective equipment and training. In a bar, you can just remove the second hand smoke to the outdoors.

23

You don’t believe smoking causes secondhand smoke?

24

SSM = same sex marriage.

25

:smack:

26

I’m a non-smoker, and i’ve always been ambivalent about smoking bans in bars and restaurants.

But, for me, the occupational health aspect has always been the tipping point, the key reason to support the bans. I quit a bar job once because the smoke was getting to me. But i had a variety of options open to me at the time. Other waiters and bartenders aren’t so lucky, and i think that allowing them to work in a smoke-free atmosphere is a good thing.

One could make the argument that the free-market approach should rule. That is, if there’s really a market for non-smoking bars and restaurants, then owners should be able to choose to open such an establishment. There is, i believe, a reason why this probably won’t work, and i’ll repeat an argument i made in this thread.

About ten years ago, back when i was living in Australia, a bar in Sydney decided to go non-smoking. This was before any rules or legislation had been introduced, so it took this step in a city where basically every drinking establishment allowed smoking.

Now, there are plenty of smokers in Sydney, but there are also plenty of non-smokers, so i thought that the place might do OK. But after a couple of months it decided to go back to smoking, and it’s quite easy to understand why. You see, despite the fact that discussions like this tend to separate people into “smokers” and “non-smokers,” the fact is that people from both groups tend to hang out together. And, if a group of twelve people go out for a drink, even if there are only two or three smokers, chances are that the group will go to a smoking place in order to accommodate the smokers. A group of people that i went out with one night did exactly this, passing up the non-smoking place so that the minority of smokers in our party wouldn’t be inconvenienced.

So, for the free market approach to work, non-smokers would have to start exerting their numerical influence in everyday social situations. We would have to say, on occasions like the one described above, that we’re not willing to sit in a smoke-filled environment all night just to make our smoking friends happy. When smokers are in the minority in a group of people, they should be asked to accommodate themselves to the non-smokers. If that happened, then i think a choice-based system would work, and should be allowed to work.

I would prefer, if we’re going to take the regulatory approach to smoking in bars, that we first try to deal with the issue by enforcing stricter health codes for ventilation. I’ve been to some places where nearly everyone is smoking, and the air is still pretty good because they have a decent ventilation system. Other places, however, turn into smoke boxes after only three or four people light up.

And, by the way, i agree with the OP. Anyone who voted to ban same-sex marriage, and who complains about the smoking ban, should be laughed at loud and long.

27

Oh good, another smoking thread where we can all come together in harmonious understanding. :slight_smile:

And so you do. Just don’t take the other customers and bar/restaurant workers down with you.

Other examples of hyperbolic nuttiness following passage of the Ohio anti-public smoking referendum: one letter writer to our local paper finding enormous significance in the fact that the referendum was scheduled to take effect Dec. 7 (Pearl Harbor Day). That’s right - “JAPS BOMB SMOKERS!!!”. And a pissed-off woman from Indiana who has frequented restaurants across the Ohio line is outraged about the smoking ban - after all, she wasn’t allowed to vote on it. :rolleyes:

By the way, Diana, I am for cracking down on drunk drivers, polluting industries and other groups that threaten public health and safety, not just heedless people who smoke in enclosed public places. It’s not an either-or proposition.

Smokers can probably still get a break at the few recalcitrant Ohio businesses that haven’t complied with the ban yet - since the state hasn’t gotten around to establishing the penalties for violation and no fines will be issued for awhile. Non-smokers will have to keep the heat on to assure adequate enforcement.

28

I don’t think there have been any studies that show that smokers are more or less likely to engage in same sex marriage, but if you mean you don’t agree with the analogy between banning same sex marriage and banning smoking, please elaborate.

29

Overall, the blanket tobacco bans are obviously fascist, so as long as one is cool with that, go with your bad self. Smoking in public places is one thing, but the definition of a “public place” has morphed into virtually everywhere. I rather suspect the bans will be relatively shortlived.

30

Jawohl.

31

I don’t. Just like seatbelt and helmet laws, they will stick. People will adapt.

32

This post is so full of stupid that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Can you please explain to us how the new Ohio ban is “fascist”? It was decided democratically, you know, by a vote of the people. It can be overturned by a vote of the people.

Short lived? In your dreams, Smokey. The bans have been in effect in some California municipalities for over twenty years. Could you possibly show us a cite for some of the hundreds of cities, states and countries where such laws are in effect that have gone back to the old way?

33

A similiar ban has been put in place in Norway these last years. Much bitching and moaning in the start, but now, hardly a world. People adapt. To both sides of the debate; give the smokers some credit. Going outside is just shrug now.

34

We’ve had the indoor smoking ban in California for over 8 years now, and as an occasional indulger in cigars I didn’t have too much of a problem with it.

But I think it’s gone a little too far now, since you can’t smoke in most outdoor places either.

35

You’re right.

One is an over-reaching attempt by a bunch of idiots to inflict their stupid world-view on a minority, and the other says you can’t smoke in bars.

36

Here’s a published example of the silly extremes this law is being taken to, ie forbidding semi-truck drivers to smoke in their own cabs

37

I know there’s no garunteed overlap, but given that a majority of voters were against SSM, and a majority were against smoking, it seems that a person that voted against SSM shared your views on smoking.

<----- Supports SSM as well as the right to choose to allow or forbid smoking in your private establishment.

38

Smoking in public I have always seen as not a right, but the ability to infringe on other’s rights, along the lines of the right of you to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose - likewise the right of you to smoke ends at the tip of my nose. By banning it in those situations you are protecting the rights of the people from a group who wished to deny you your rights.

Smoking bans restrict our ability to do some things in some areas, it is restrictive along the lines of the speed limit. It sets limits on people for the good of the masses.

SSM is a ban on the legal recognition, it does nothing to restrict the act of SSM, nor the acts committed in SSM by the participants. No state enforced behavior modification is attempted in banning SSM.

39

It’s interesting that you bring up the coal mine issue. You do realize that up until the government forced the owners to install safety measures, men died all the time in the mines. Not only from freak accidents due to unreinforced walls, etc., but from “black lung,” which was essentially a build up of coal dust in their lungs. My grandfather was burned over 40% of his body due to a coal mine explosion back in the '50’s. The accident ended his career, throwing his family into poverty, and nearly ended his life. The owners didn’t give him a dime or a damn.

Happily, some nosy “fascist” activists took up the coal miners’ cause and put pressure on the coal mines to install safety measures in place to better protect the workers. It was met with great resistance from both the owners and even some miners who were afraid of losing their jobs. Their argument was that nobody was forcing their employees to work there and that they should chose another profession if they didn’t want to accept the hazards of working there.

Now I doubt there’s a person alive who would support rolling back the safety measures forced upon the coal mines. It seems a bit barbaric to turn a blind eye to people’s health just because they need a job.

So for those who think the smoking ban will be short lived, let me predict that it will be overturned just as soon as OSHA allows coal mine companies to forego safety masks and reinforced walls. It’s a safety issue, stupid.

40

I am just astounded at the ignorance of history shown here.

Whoever black rabbit quoted here seems to have missed that the Nazi’s and the Russians lost, quite literally, millions of their soldiers fighting each other. Nearly 1/3 of all the Russian men of that age – enough that it showed up in population statistics for decades afterward.

Well, yes, he did try to do it all at once, in the 1923 putsch attempt, but lost.

Then later, he did do it ‘all at once’, by his party winning an election. And what do you mean “the people never saw it coming”? – certainly they did, they voted (44%) for it to come! And it didn’t happen little by little after that, most of the legislation giving Hitler complete control of the government, outlawing other political parties, etc. was all passed soon, within a year or so.

Don’t these people know history at all?