[QUOTE=Sleel]
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.
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I’m going to try to explain this without resorting to insults, because given that I have said this whole thing multiple times, and given that you seem intelligent, it must be that I am not explaining myself very well - for that I apologize.
Bars, and other businesses, can chose what segment of the market at which to target themselves. Not every bar tries to be everything to every customer. There are bars that are more like dance clubs, karaoke bars, sports bars, etc. No one suggests a sports bar is trying to attract 100% of the population. And no one suggests establishing a sports bar (or a Red Sox bar, more specifically, to think of one example near me) is not a sound business practice. I hope that is clearer now.
[QUOTE=Sleel]
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.
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You mean there are people out there who want to work in non-smoking bars and people who want to work in smoking bars? And also customers the same? I agree, they might not be the majority. Hence my repeated suggestion, which you don’t appear to have read, that, for example, 20% of the total number of bars be permitted by license to be smoking bars, and the rest are tobacco free. I did listen to what you said about economic realities. I even accept there is an element of market failure here. Hence my suggestion that there is a solution that increases choice for non-smokers, both customers and employees, and does not eliminate choice for smokiers, both customers and employees.
[QUOTE=Sleel]
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.
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But why isn’t it realistic. Why is not allowing one out of every five bars to continue permitting smoking realistic? If you don’t think one out of five bartenders wants to work somewhere where people smoke, how about one out of ten? Under my proposed sustem, the majority of bars couldn’t allow smoking, as there would not be sufficient licenses. What is unrealiztic about that solution? I actually think it is better than yours. My way people walking past the bar who don’t like smoke are not subjected to it, while only those who chose to enter the premises are.
[QUOTE=Sleel]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Wouldn’t my solution make non-smoking the default? I would absolutely oppose smoking in common rooms at work on a personal level.
[QUOTE=Sleel]
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.
[/QUOTE]
I’m really sorry, but I don’t understand why you think 20% of bars allowing smoking and 80% not is a false choice. I appreciate this is voted for by a significant majority. I think Big Tobacco, and a very significant percentage of smokers have, through their behavior, brought this upon themselves. I accept that a government has the power to do this. Doesn’t mean I have to agree it is either the best, or even a good solution.
[QUOTE=Sleel]
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.”
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To be honest, I would absolutely support a business’ right to allow in people who did not bathe if they chose to do so. I’d also support the right of a business to operate a pool in which people could urinate, as long as they did not hide that fact. Spitting bars I would have no issue with on the same grounds, unless (and I am not a doctor) spitting plays a role in the transmission of serious disease - I seem to remember TB but that could be an old wives tale. If it does, I would oppose the spitting bar on public health grounds. Not, mind you, because people who entered that bar might catch TB - that’s their choice to take the risk. But because they would then spread it to people who had not made that choice outside the bar.
So, if you can show me smoking in a bar damages the health of people outside the bar, then I would be more likely to be on your side. But the difference between you and me on this is that you want the smokers outside the bar, blowing smoke into the faces of passers-by on their innocent way down the street, where as I want the smokers in the bar, in a limited number of venues, where everyone who enters knows and accepts that they will be exposed to smoke. You don’t think that is a reasonable solution, but you haven’t said why.
And I hope I have expressed this without any insults.
