Around here, restaurants are allowed to have smoking sections only if they have an entirely separate ventilation system than the rest of the restaurant. Most businesses just went nonsmoking, but there are a few (like the Denny’s near my house) that took the hit and installed a separate system for the smoking section. IANASmoker, but it seems to work just fine.
OTOH, it caused me to go to Europe with totally unprepared lungs gasp wheeze
For 200 years there were no laws preventing the use of lead in house paint, either. But when evidence was gathered that showed that lead was a serious poison and a danger, the government banned lead in paint. Do you object to that too?
In recent years there have been studies that show that smoking by person A affects the health of person B, who is a non-smoker. In other words, cigarette smoke is a poison to the general population. Hence, governement can regulate it.
Whether those studies are flawed or not is an entirely different debate. The point here is that the government has always had the right to restrict the use of poisonous substances. And it has done so, for 200 years, as poisons have been discovered.
Ed
I think they should ban cars from the streets.
Everytime I go outside I have to breathe exhaust fumes and particulate matter that literally takes years off of my life.
The smell is so nasty that I want to throw up.
Something needs to be done, please write your public representatives.
No, I think anti-smoking laws for restaurants are asinine. If people don’t want to eat in my smoke-filled restaurant, they can go elsewhere, or eat at home, or just deal with it. I can tolerate mandated non-smoking sections, banning smoking period is a bit too totalitarian for my tastes.
And for the record, I hate smoking. The smell of it makes me want to yak. But even so, I wouldn’t dream of requiring restaurants to ban smoking, anymore than I would want to institute a seafood ban if I hated the smell of fish. It’s not my place to tell the owner how to run his business.
Oh, and before someone jumps out with “But the smell of seafood won’t KILL YOU like the horrible evil that is the cigarette”, second-hand smoke isn’t quite the perfidious menace that the anti-smoking soap-boxers like to pretend it is. In fact, it’s just about as toxic as the smell of a slab of salmon. Stinky as all hell, though, I’ll grant you that.
Jeff
I’m sorry, but that’s untrue. Even though it has been proven to be a cause of cancer, it is also (and unquestionably) an asthma trigger for many.
Anti-smoking ordinances are not about punishing smokers or the comfort of non-smokers. They are about the workers.
Workers in a smoking restraunt smoke a bit of every cigarette in the place. Eight hours a day. Non stop.
As a civilized society, we have rules regarding hazardous chemicals in the workplace. You are not, for example, allowed to open a reastraunt with a big hunk of Uranium in the middle of it. You are not allowed to start a bar that has crumbling aspestos as part of the decor. Likewise, you should not be allowed to expose your workers to dangerous amounts of hazardous smoke without any protection.
Another more personal factor is kids. As a kid I was dragged to restraunts and my family would sit in the smoking section. I did not have the choice to leave or insist on sitting in the non-smoking sections. I did not have the choice to sit in another room as I would when my family smoked at home. It sucked. I was very very happy when they banned smoking in restraunts here for that reason.
Yes, I do.
I seriously doubt that many people, if any, would paint their houses in poison, once it was found out to be poison, nor do I think that any paint manufauturer would sell poison paint, once it is found out to be poison.
Lets “test” what I said, with you and I.
I, for one, would not paint my house with poison, regardless of whether there was a law against it or not.
That makes 1 out of 2 people who would not paint their houses with poison.
Now lets see about you…
So I ask YOU!
Once YOU learned that a certain paint was poison, would YOU still paint YOUR house with poison, if it was still legal?
Are you saying that YOU would not use poison to paint YOUR house, unless there was a law against it?
Everyone feel free to record you vote here, and we will see how many people will paint their houses with poison(even though it would not illegal to poison yourself).
I was in a movie theater in Seattle recently, without my inhaler (because I was not expecting smoke). Somebody lit up and took probably a puff or two, but it was enough to send me into a coughing, hacking, vomiting attack.
You’re welcome to follow me around and clean up after me if you like, but it is not true that second-hand smoke isn’t harmful. BTW, you’re welcome to take me to the hospital as well if that should be necessary.
Cars kill over 40,000 americans each year, without question.
4,739 pedestrians, some of them who were even toal non-drivers(i.e. very similar to second hand smoke deaths) are killed. http://www.iihs.org/safety_facts/fatality_facts/peds.htm
Why should people who are not in cars, who dont want cars, who choose to be a non-car person, or who are not allowed to drive, or any child, be killed by those who drive cars?
No car should ever be allowed to be operated within 1000 feet of a pedistrian or any sidewalk, or within 1000 feet of any school, or government building, any business, or any public place where people are not in cars .
If this saves just one childs life, why not outlaw cars to operated nearby anyone not in a car.
Any problems with that?
Hey, all you Smokey Joes, if you’re that upset about the “no smoking” laws, write your sentators and representitives.
Or just hand out cigarettes to children on the street (to make up for the second-hand smoke they’re NOT getting because of these laws).
Or, best of all, maybe someone can break into the Library of Congress and forge a new amendment on the Bill of Rights:
Pretty stupid ideas you say? Well, hate to tell you, but so is smoking.
Driving is probably one of the most heavily regulated things in the world. There are designated places where we can drive. They’re called streets. There are federal and saftey regulations for every step of automotive design, assembally, sales, driving, and maitenance.
There are clear cut rules on how and where can use cars. These deaths are caused by people breaking the rules. They are caused because of human errors.
Besides, the entire economy would fall apart if driving was banned. Cars are a necessary evil. Most people drive out of necessity, or because they’re too damn lazy to walk, or too overweigt to ride a bicycle.
Cigarettes, on the other hand, are hardly necessary. They’re just evil. Not to mention stupid. They’re 100% unneccesary, actually. Nothing depends on them, save for the tobacco industry, and the farmers it employs. And people who need to use cigarettes to feel cool and attractive. And teenagers trying to get laid and/or be rebellious, I suppose.
1, Cars are NOT regulated enough if 5000 non-car people are still killed each and every year.
“Car people” continue to drive, regardless of how many non-car people are killed, and they have no remorse nor concern.
Car people are completely selfish, inconsiderate, thoughtless and self-centered, and only want to drive, regardless of how many non-car people are killed each and every year.
We need more effective laws against cars anywhere near non-car people. We do not currently have any laws against operating a vehicle within 1000 or 2000 feet of schools or pedestrians.
There is a lot of debate about whether or not second hand smoke really kills anybody. There is no debate when 5000 pedistrians are killed by cars. Cars are clearly fatal - there is no debate about that. Second hand smoke is still being debated.
Cars are NOT necessary. Ever hear of bicycles, trains, public transit, busses, planes, or , walking?
It has been historically proven that cars are NOT necessary.
For over 6000 years, it has been scientifically proven that humans have existed totally without cars, and evolutionists say humans have existed for over a million years without cars. - cars are in no way necessary.
(You are talking in circles about the economy. You cant talk about an economy falling apart which has been built around cars, any more than an economy built around cigarettes falling apart and taking away tobacco)
A famous dead guy (IIRC, Wifrid Laurier) once said “A man’s rights end precisely where the next man’s begin.” A person’s right to smoke in a restaurant directly infringes on my right to not breathe second-hand smoke, have an asthma attack, develop lung cancer and die. The reverse is not true–forcing others to breathe clean air in a restaurant is hardly a violation of their rights.
Until very recently, there wasn’t a restaurant in town where I could go and enjoy a smoke-free meal. That hardly gave me much choice if I wanted to go out to eat. Currently, family restaurants are smoke-free here and, in spite of the hullabaloo before the by-law was enacted, I haven’t heard of anyone losing business because of a smoking ban.
Cigarettes are a drug and drug use is regulated, including where you can use them. Alcohol use carries restrictions as well. I see no justification for suggesting that banning smoking from restaurants is a violation to someone’s rights.
What about the rights of the property owner?
You dont see that someone that who owns a house, restaurant, business, apartment complex, or building, does not have his property rights violated in whether or not the government shall determine whether or not smoking or drinking is prohibited or allowed on his private property?
Just what rights does any property owner have? Does he have any?
Can the government prohibit parents from smoking in their private home if children live there? Why or why not? If smoke is the danger, the danger is no less than if it were at a restaurant.
Is there any difference in rights between a private home or a private business?
Why can the actual owner of a business be prohibited from smoking in his own privatly owned business? You dont see this as a violation of his property rights?
Is there anything that the government cannot prohibit of any freeholder?
Does the government have a right to prohibit obesity( clearly a more dangerous health condition)?
Should any restaurant or food store be allowed or prohibited from selling food to a clearly overweight person?
I personally see more of a problem with selling food to an overweight person, than in allowing or not allowing people to smoke.
A restaurant that sells food to a fat person is clearly morally inferior to a restaruant that allows smoking.
People can go or not go to a place which has smoking, but selling food to an overweight person is clearly and certainly contributing to his death.
—And it is not enjoyable for me to sit in a smoke filled room. Why should I have to go outside in the cold to get away from it?—
Because you don’t own the building you’re in? This is like asking “why should I have to eat all this unhealthy, cheap junk food?” Well, you DON’T have to. If you’d like to pay more, you can get food that’s better for you. If you want a place that doesn’t allow smoking, chances are there is such a place. Sure, there may not be as many, and they may not be as diverse as you’d like, but that’s exactly the situation ANYONE faces when they want only specialty items.
If you want special treatment from people that are offering to sell you things, all you have to do is pay more to those that offer it.
But these lawmakers don’t even have the courtesy to allow smokers to pay more for their vice to eat in special smoking-allowed resturants. Instead they’re supporting banning it outright. Why?
Here’s the only two answers that seem plausible to me so far:
-paternalism, which is: we don’t like smoking, even when people choose to and its allowed by the people who own the property they’re on, so we’re going to make life hard for them.
-sheer spite: we don’t like the idea that smokers can eat in resturants that we wouldn’t enjoy because of the smoking. Even though the existence of a resturant that allows smoking doesn’t hurt us at all (in fact, its mere operation actually lowers the prices on the other resturants we CAN go to and enjoy, which makes us better off), I’m jealous that you are enjoying eating in a resturant that is not to my tastes.
—The evidence shows that when anti-smoking laws are enacted, restaurants stay full and money is not lost. Under your proposal, restaurants would either remain all non-smoking or would have to install smoke-eater systems of questionable efficacy and considerable expense for no added increase in revenue. Why would they bother?—
Because then they could capture all the revenue from people that wanted to smoke. At the very least, why should they be able to target this market?
Or did you think that the data supports the idea that smokers wouldn’t pay a premuim to be able to smoke while they eat? Cus it doesn’t…
If resturant owners really didn’t experience a drop in revenue, then why not just throw out the law, its duty done? If it really wasn’t worth it to the owners to allow smoking, they’d keep their places non-smoking. If there is a premium to be had by being all non-smoking, why wouldn’t you expect that the owners would go after it?
Should we ban human reproduction, as well? Since parents are responsible for 100% of the human deaths on the planet, as those bastards keep “makin’ babies.” Sound good to you?
Are you talking about cars or cigarettes? If you’re talking cars, start a new thread. If you’re talking cigarettes, then talk cigarettes. Don’t confuse the two, and don’t try to make an argument for cigarettes using cars as a negative example. That’s neither good debate, nor logically sound.
Like I said before, if you’re so mad, write your congressional leaders, your mayor, and your governor. That’s about the most pro-active thing you can do. Or, start a grassroots “pro-smoking in public” group, get some under-the-table funding from Philip Morris, and call yourself an activist. You’d be fighting for all American’s right to inconvieninece other Americans, be very bad examples to children, and perpetuate a completely unnessesary and outdated habit which has been proven to cause cancer! You go, girl!
Also, please enlighten us as to how the economy would fall apart is smoking were banned in all public places. I’m curious.
Best,
TGD
Two things. First, I completely agree with you on the point that it’s rather absurb for non-smokers to go into a smoke-friendly restaurant, spend their money for a meal, and complain about it afterwards. It’s like giving money to someone you don’t like. It’s like voting the opposite of that you believe. It’s dumb. People need to realize that spending money is more then just a monetary transaction. It’s also supporting something, be it a restaurant, a store, or an industry. By giving your money to a restaurant that you don’t like, you’re essentially paying them to do what they did to you to other people.
Second, why do lawmakers deem it illegal for a couple to have sex in a crowded restaurant, right on the table? Why can’t someone smoke pot in a cafe, even if they have a prescription for it? Why can’t McDonalds use porn on their menus to increase sales? Why can’t Camel make Joe Camel commercials anymore?
Silly questions, right? So is what you’re asking.
Smoking is a social vice that we, as a society, are trying to either eradicate or cover up. There may be a lot of smokers, but they’re not the majority. Smoking is a not a right. Tobacco is a regulated drug, as is alcohol, as is marijuana, as is morphine, demerol, and all the other good stuff. When cigarettes are put in their true company, drugs, do you still feel that they’re something you really wish to fight for? Asking for more rights for smokers is, essentially, asking for more rights for drug users. Are you surprised that the government hasn’t been all that supportive?
—You’d be fighting for all American’s right to inconvieninece other Americans,—
As far as I can tell, you’re the only one arguing that you should be allowed to inconvience anyone: the fact that it’s via legislation doesn’t magically make it any more sound.
I can’t wait for your pit thread TGD, you roundly deserve it.
—When cigarettes are put in their true company, drugs, do you still feel that they’re something you really wish to fight for? Asking for more rights for smokers is, essentially, asking for more rights for drug users. Are you surprised that the government hasn’t been all that supportive?—
I’m not surprised about the government. I’m surprised that intolerant people would try to morally justify their prejeduces and desire to abuse others.
—Silly questions, right? So is what you’re asking.—
No, they’re not silly questions. That you find them to be beneath your consideration (however you might come out on them) is not, in my opinion, something to be proud of.
hmmmmm…