Boy, that really tweaked you when I said you were angry, huh? You can’t seem to shut up about it.
Actually, what I said was that “you can build your own bar” was a ridiculous argument. I haven’t addressed the argument that you’re making now.
I don’t think your argument is ridiculous, but I do disagree with it. The problem I have with your argument is that it tacitly makes three assumptions: (1) that a free market will automatically provide whatever people want merely by virtue of the fact that they want it - (2) that the market is free - and (3) that no other factors can affect the market.
Your argument assumes its conclusion:
-If the demand is strong for non-smoking businesses, then there will be a lot of non-smoking businesses <-assumption
-There aren’t a lot of non-smoking businesses
-Therefore, the demand is not strong <- this statement derives from the initial assumption, yet is to be taken as evidence of that assumption.
I don’t think I ever said it wasn’t a good justification, did I? How exactly did I change my position?
There is no right to marry whomever you want. If you can find that in the Constitution, I’ll give you $100.
Neither is there a “right” in either your or our constitution to consume trans-fats.
I think you’re correct; I’m not aware of any such right. But that doesn’t mean banning them is necessarily good public policy. The fact that the government can do something doesn’t mean it should. The reason I have a different opinion about smoking regulations vs. trans-fat regulations is that smoking regulations are for the benefit of non-smokers, while the purpose of trans-fat regulations are to protect people from themselves. I can go into a restaurant that serves items containing trans-fats without necessarily eating trans-fats. The choice is mine. I can NOT go into a restaurant full of smoke without breathing smoke.
One of the basic functions of government is to protect us from actions of others that might hurt us or diminish our quality of life. But to nag us about “you shouldn’t do that because it’s bad for you” isn’t necessarily a good thing. You should be prevented from throwing rocks at your neighbor’s house, but if you want to throw rocks at your own house, it’s not really the same thing.
I don’t smoke. In fact, I HATE smokers. I can’t stand the smell. It makes me short of breath and my eyes water uncontrollably.
For this reason I don’t go to bars. I can’t stand the smoke.
But let me make this clear: This ban is bullshit! I don’t expect people to bend over backward to my every whim, that would be selfish of me. Bars aren’t FOR me, they are for people who like bars. If those people wanna smoke, let them!
Oh, so I can’t be a bartender. So what? I knew that going in: If I don’t like smoke, can’t be a bartender. Fine, gotcha. I mean honestly, who goes to bartending school expecting not to be around smoke?
I really think this is all about some sort of twisted “it’s our turn to oppress you now” strategy that the vindictive non-smokers have thought up because they didn’t get enough hugs or something.
A lot of them are dead from lung cancer. I’ve read several tearful reports from children of a nonsmoking spouse dying from lung cancer either before or after the smoking spouse does.
The fact that it wasn’t recognized “officially” doesn’t mean it wasn’t happening. Unoffically, it was already clear. It’s been perfectly obvious to me my entire life that “sidestream” smoke is dangerous. You can be killed by a bullet that wasn’t aimed at you, can’t you, if you get in its path? Why on earth would physics or biology care one whit whether you were the person who intended to light the cigarette?
As far as “small amounts” go, that’s subjective, for one thing. For another, cancer is a game of statistics. It’s not like you fill up a jar of pennies and only cash it in when it’s full. It’s more like being on a battlefield – sure, standing in a stream of machinegun fire is more hazardous, but you can still be kiled by a single stray bullet far from the hottest action.
Sailboat
The problem I’ve always had with smoking in bars and restaurants is that while not everyone smokes, everyone has to deal with the smoke generated by the smokers. Restaurants and bars aren’t going to arbitrarily ban smokers because they know that if they do so without the backing of an ordinance or law, they’re just alienating virtually all the smokers and discouraging a certain percentage of their non-smoking customers too. As someone earlier in the thread pointed out, non-smokers will sometimes make accommodations for their smoking friends by going to a place that allows smoking. Non-smokers, up until recently, have not wanted to make that big of a fuss about it, and so the status quo was that a minority was able to annoy the majority with impunity.
No business wants to throw away 20% or more of their patrons, so of course they allowed smoking. I’d argue that without legal backing, a bar or restaurant would not seriously consider banning smoking on their own due to the probable loss of business that might or might not be made up for by new patrons who liked the non-smoking rule. Businesses don’t like to gamble that way. An ordinance forces things, but it’s also the way you allow a business to have a choice. Before, the choice was between allowing smoking and probably losing money. Not much of a choice for a business.
For the same reason, the labor laws mentioned by another poster were imposed upon all businesses. If there were no uniform labor law, a business that did not provide safety for its workers might have an unfair competitive advantage over a business that did since it wouldn’t have to spend more money to provide equipment and conditions that would protect the workers. The more business-friendly among you might argue that the workers would choose to work for the safer company. Consider that the safe company might not be able to actually hire all the workers who wanted to work there, and that the possibly higher wages of the unsafe companies would provide an economic incentive for taking the risk. It’s the same situation with smoking bans. An unrestricted free market is not always a realistic solution for dealing with human considerations.
The rights of workers is a worthy concern, but I don’t think that’s the reason any of these ordinances or laws were passed. I don’t think public health considerations were really the reason either. I think that enough people got fed up enough that they decided to take action, and enough voters in their area agreed, so laws were proposed and passed. Don’t like it? Get the law repealed.
Personally, I think that the situation of smoking in a bar or restaurant is a bit like peeing in the pool. You all came there to have a good time swimming and having fun being in the pool. Some people decide that their feeling good is worth annoying everyone around them. They enjoy the momentary warmth and the relief of voiding, and don’t want to bother getting out of the pool to take a leak — besides which, they’d have to interrupt their fun — so they let loose right there. If someone complains about the yellow cloud in the water, they point out, “Well, you know that some people will piss in pools, so you shouldn’t gave gone swimming in a public pool if you didn’t want to splash in a little piss-water. Don’t go swimming if you don’t like it. Or, better yet, open your own pool and make your own rules if you don’t want to be around pissers.”
See, the thing is, enough people thought that whizzing in the pool was bad enough to deserve a rule against doing it. At public pools, they infringe upon your rights so egregiously as to ask you to pee in designated areas (restrooms) so that people who don’t like swimming in yellow-tinged water don’t have to. I don’t see the problem there, and I don’t see the problem with banning smoking in most public places.
If anything, smokers are getting off light since tobacco smoke is recognized to cause some health problems and smoking is a potential fire hazard, but the most you get is a dirty look or a minor fine if you smoke where you’re not supposed do. Take a leak in an alley, on the other hand, and you might find yourself arrested and registered as a sex offender, piss in the pool and you might be banned from ever going there again, yet public urination is a lot less likely to cause any real problems than smoking.
(Note for the literal-minded: I am not agitating for Urinator’s Rights.)
This is a fundamentally flawed argument, though. You make an assumption that a bar banning smoking would lose 20% of its business, because smokers would go to other places. OK - let us say 20% of the ‘drinking’ population are smokers. 70% are non-smokers who have smoking friends and will go sit in a smoking bar to be with those smoking friends, and 10% are, let us call them, the ‘hardcore’ non-smokers, who despise tobacco smoke to the degree they don’t feel obliged to sit with their smoking friends. If you open up a non-smoking bar, and you are the only one around, wouldn’t you attract those 10%? And that’s also not including all the people who tell us they don’t go out to bars because of the smoke, who would presumably dash out to get drunk in the new smoke free environment.
Now, either there aren’t significant numbers of people who dislike smoking enough to drink in a non-smoking environment over a smoking one, in which case I would suggest non-smokers use their market power more, or there are, and some other factor is preventing the spread of non-smoking bars. If the latter is true, I don’t know what it is.
But I will accept there is a reason that there aren’t lots of non-smoking bars. I’ll even accept that is a “bad thing.” As I said before, I’d happily go to non-smoking bars, though I wish they would emerge without forcing bar owners to do something they don’t want to do. What I don’t see is the rationale behind the all-or-nothing approach. If this is about choice, and the choice to have a drink without breathing smoke, then allow the choice to have a drink and breath in smoke at the same time. Issue a limited number of smoking licenses.
This is generally correct, except in a situation where there is widespread information and plenty of options. At the moment barstaff don’t have a range of options within the industry, but that would change under a licensing scheme. And plenty of jobs provide an economic incentive for taking risks and we don’t jump up in arms. I’m a pretty hard core union guy and I don’t have an issue with it as long as it is done in a voluntary fashion, with widespread information, and within certain limits (gotta throw the qualifier in there).
Well, the rights of workers was the express reason for many of the ban. I think the powers that be realized that a ban couldn’t be sold on any other basis as most people (with some exceptions) realized they don’t have a right to a smoke free bar, where as the right to a smoke free workplace is much more powerful. And saying “get the law repealed or shut up” isn’t really the point. I think it is a bad law on multiple grounds. I think a less bad law would be one that had a broader range of choice involved. Unfortunately, sensible solutions don’t tend to get passed the DC Counsel. And, for varying reasons, I don’t have a vote here.
Sorry, I just don’t buy the “if people had wanted it, it would have happened” argument. After all, I could turn that same reasoning back on you and say that if it’s really true that 90% of the population does not want smoking regulations, then this huge voting block would have removed the legislators who are passing these regulations out of office, and replaced them with legislators who would repeal the regulations. That hasn’t happened.
That’s beautiful. 
You really just CAN’T be bothered to formulate an argument, can you? You don’t seem to get it. When I call you a turd, that insult is a fun little window dressing on a pit-style ARGUMENT. But with you, it’s like you get the idea of nasty language, but forgot to bring points and rejoinders with it.
Yes: if you feel like some business establishment isn’t catering to your needs, too bad. They built those businesses themselves with their own money and work. None of that is owed to you in the form of having to make things the way you like it, and certainly not with the laughable claim that they must do so to give you a “choice.”
You have a choice: the choice to not be an envious tool.
Sorry, but no matter how you slice it: “You can build your own bar”, is a shitty argument. You can call me all the names you like; it’s still a shitty argument.
Speaking of “can’t be bothered”, you obviously can’t be bothered to read what I wrote. I have no idea where you are getting this idea that I think anything is “owed” to me.
Here’s the situation:
-A law regulating smoking has been passed.
-YOU and other smokers are bitching about it.
-Some of the smokers who are opposed to regulations are crying that it’s unfair. They argue that there should be no regulations, and that the “free market” will automatically provide whatever people need. And you have advanced the preposterous argument that people can “build their own bar”.
-I have simply disagreed with your reasoning. The “free market” didn’t take care of the situation, so when enough voters decided they wanted to have non-smoking environments available, for the public good, our representatives in the legislature passed some regulations. If people are peeing in the pool, you enact regulations; you don’t just say “open your own pool”. That’s how representative government works. I have no problem with that. YOU are the one having a problem.
YOU are the ones whining that something is “owed” to you, not me.
You are not “owed” a public bar where you can smoke without leaving your seat. You may desire one, but you are not owed one.
For someone who throws around so many ad hominem arguments, you sure are sanctimonious about “formulating arguments”. :rolleyes:
And my argument is flawed? You’re saying, “Hey, you might lose up to 90% of your patrons, but, oooh! look, you can keep 10% plus maybe, possibly, attract some new customers.” Yeah, that’s an attractive prospect for a business.
It doesn’t matter how widespread the information is, some people will have to take jobs knowing that they are putting themselves at risk because it’s a choice between working and not working at all, unless you impose uniform rules for the whole industry. In addition, I can see free market competition driving wages down for non-smoking bars by glutting the market. You’d have people taking a job knowing that they were damaging their health just because the wage was better at the smoking place, or because they might not be able to get a job at the non-smoking place because anyone with a choice would preferentially apply for that job. In essence, the lack of a ban would force some people to work in a smoking job even if they would prefer a non-smoking one.
I’m not really talking about the specific case of Ohio, I’m talking about smoking and smoking bans in general. Yes, worker conditions was one of the hot points in getting this law passed, from what I understand. In California, where I used to live, I remember the topic being mostly about the patrons, while also considering the worker problem. I was talking about the underlying reality, not the expressed “reason” that got the most attention.
You guys really don’t seem to get that the issue here is that of a few people (smokers) trying to force their choice of habits on the majority (non-smokers). This law and other like it provide a way for the majority to enforce their will. Before, there was no rule, so smoking was “allowed”. Any smoker could say, in essence, “There’s no law against it, so fuck off,” and a non-smoker’s only choices were appealing to the owner, putting up with it, or leaving. With an ordinance in place, the default position is that of the majority: no smoking. Really, you shouldn’t have to make a law, it should be common sense that you don’t have a right to harm or annoy someone in the absence of some law to force you to not to.
You keep talking about choice. I don’t think you understand that there really weren’t many choices involved. You could “choose” to not go out or you could “choose” to go to a bar where a certain amount of people would be smoking. Making a non-smoking rule wasn’t a realistic economic choice for any business that depended on customers coming in and staying for an hour or more. For workers, the choices were even worse: job or no job, health risk or no health risk. There might have been an illusion of choice, but in reality there was no choice at all.
Like my location states, I live in Japan. Here, the smoking rates are around the level that they were in the US in the '60s, and there are very few choices about where to go if I don’t want to deal with tobacco smoke. Virtually any bar that said, “No smoking,” would go out of business due to the plethora of choice in bars that do allow smoking. Since I came here, there have been a few family-style restaurants that put in non-smoking sections, and in some places they have expanded those sections, presumably due to patrons requesting non-smoking seats. The chance of any jurisdiction actually banning smoking is nil, though, despite the popularity of non-smoking sections in a few venues.
So I have a choice of either not going out at all, going to one of three restaurants (no bars) in my area that have non-smoking sections, or being around smokers. Nice to know that the 80% of females and 50%+ of males in Japan who don’t smoke have such great “choices”.
And I have to agree with lowbrass. Saying, “Open your own bar,” is a shitty argument.
No, you really don’t understand what I am saying. I am not saying you will keep 10% of your customer base. I am saying you have 10% of the population as your customer base. Read it again.
That’s just not true. Do you accept that there are bartenders out there who will voluntarily work in a smoking environment, because they prefer it? I know for a fact there are. I was talking to some of them last night. Now, I think, in a situation where people are presented with information, and have a range of options, they are the best judges of what is best for them. In many situations that does not happen, and that is a bad thing. In a world I have posited, where there are smoking and non-smoking bars, I believe in allowing people the choice where they work. And we allow people all the time to take less safe jobs for better pay, or because they simply prefer that job.
Most places I have seen pass bans base it on workers’ rights. That is a much more solid argument, rather than your right to dictate to a bar.
And you have not read anything I have said, clearly. I told people I would not object to a law banning smoking in the street. I am talking very specifically about limited places where people can smoke. Why is that so threatening - that there are a limited number of bars where people can drink and smoke. There would be a big sign on the door. You could drink elsewhere if you don’t like it.
I do talk about choice. What I am suggesting gives choice, to the customers, to the bar owners, to the bar staff. What you are suggesting does not give choice. It dictates, no smoking. I agree with you - the market failed to provide no smoking bars. So you can go the other way, and have 100% non-smoking bars. Or you can look for a situation that pleases the most people. I like to think my solution gives everyone (except those who want to ban smoking entirely) a happy solution. The ordinances don’t.
What you may not be aware of is that there were TWO initiatives related to smoking on the Ohio ballot this fall.
One initiative was to establish a state law banning smoking in all public places with a few exceptions.
The other (backed by Big Tobacco and some bar and restaurant representatives) was phrased as an anti-smoking initiative, but in reality would have overturned all local anti-public smoking laws in the state and allowed smoking in all bars and restaurants under certain conditions. It was presented as a constitutional amendment, so that if it passed, it would take precedence even if confused voters approved the real anti-smoking initiative as well.
Voters weren’t fooled. They defeated Big Tobacco’s bill and passed the ban on smoking in public places by a wide margin.
That’s the “happy solution” most of us decided on.
I read it, I just think that you’re full of shit. Accepting 10% of the population as your customer base and completely passing up the opportunity to have the 90% come to your place is not usually sound business practice. Going for a different market is fine when you have access to a large population that can all patronize you without much difficulty. For bars and restaurants, which don’t exactly operate on a nice thick margin to begin with and which depend upon foot traffic and people within a certain radius of travel time by other means, limiting yourself in this way is certain death.
Funny thing, I also know people who work in bars. There’s no choice here, if you work in a bar or restaurant you will be working in a smoking environment. I know a couple of non-smokers who hate it, but don’t have much choice in employment. Yes, I accept that there might be people out there who prefer smoking jobs, but I doubt that they’re anything like a majority. You haven’t listened to anything I said when I pointed out reasons that bars wouldn’t be able to offer the choice because of economic realities. You are proposing choice where there is none.
You’re just talking past me. Again. I already explained why limited places to smoke isn’t a realistic solution. What would happen is that the majority of places would allow smoking, leaving no real choice. You can smoke elsewhere if you don’t like it. Go out to the fucking street or patio and leave the 80% of people who voted for the ban in peace.
My workplace is progressive for Japan in that the employees aren’t allowed to smoke in the common room. There is an area set aside for them to smoke in. I don’t mind that. I’ve got no problem with limited smoking areas. What I object to is a situation that would make allowing smoking the default. I’ll tell you what, when I last went to California it was incredibly nice to be able to go just about anywhere without having to walk through random clouds of smoke. Even the smokers among my wedding guests from Japan remarked on how clean the air was inside, though they grumbled a bit about having to go outside to smoke.
It’s a false choice. I don’t think your solution would solve anything at all, actually. The ordinances seem to be something that most people don’t object to, or they wouldn’t have passed it. Hell, I just looked it up and it passed by a 5-1 margin. You don’t get much clearer than 80% of people agreeing on something. According to what I’ve read of the law, you’ve still got the option of tobacco stores, patios, and clubs to smoke in too. If you’re so adamant about choice, those are options for exercising your choice.
Look, I don’t get this. Why is it so hard for people to get their heads around the idea that the people doing the annoying/disgusting/distasteful/unhealthy/whatever thing that affects other people are the ones who need to adapt themselves to the situation? Nobody’s agitating for spitting and non-spitting bars. Nobody proposes that people who choose not to bathe should be allowed to stink up a place because they’re exercising their rights to be dirty. Nobody wants to change the rules to allow pissing in the pool. Basic courtesy about behavior in public didn’t work when it came to smokers, so they made a rule about it. After years of putting up with it, people said, “Enough. No more pissing in the pool.”
<off-topic>
Accepting 10% of the population as your customer base and completely passing up the opportunity to have the 90% come to your place is not usually sound business practice.
[/QUOTE]
Seems to work fine for gay bars.
The largest bar in the state of Minnesota is a gay bar, and they seem to do quite well. (Though they do have quite a few non-gay customers. For some reason, pre-wedding bachelorette parties seem to like the male strip show at the gay bar.)
</off-topic>
Wow, thanks for the info. Not knowing much about the Ohio law before now, I was surprised to find this out. So I read a few articles on it, and yes, this thing was passed by a DIRECT VOTE OF THE PUBLIC. And here I am arguing that the people’s elected representatives passed the law, when actually the people themselves did. Well, so much better for my position.
Now I am just utterly mystified that ANYONE here was making the unbelievably stupid argument that there was no demand for non-smoking venues. This law wasn’t forced on the public, the public VOTED for it. That just makes my case a slam-dunk. Is there any better evidence that people want something than the fact that the majority of them voted for it? How could anyone argue otherwise?
“If people want non-smoking bars, then the free-market will provide non-smoking bars”. BULLSHIT! It wasn’t providing what people wanted. If they already had what they wanted, they wouldn’t have voted for the ban, now would they?
Case closed.
By the way, it would have helped if I had read the OP more carefully in the first place, since the fact that it was a ballot initiative was mentioned in the very first post. :smack: :o