Should smoking be banned in public restaurants?

[Ms2001]

Monty:

Certainly, if the owner doesn’t like green shirts (a bad childhood experience on St. Patrick’s Day?), he has the right to prohibit them inside his restaurant–but he doesn’t need a law for that.

Loud music is a similar issue. Too much exposure to loud music can damage your hearing. But the owner, employees, and patrons all know that the restaurant plays loud music. If their concern for their hearing outweighs their desire to be in that particular restaurant, they can go somewhere else, without the need for any law prohibiting loud music.

[Apos]

—Apos, stop whining. You’re mad because you have a disgusting habit that is looked down upon by intelligent people.—

It’s not considered smart to start a flase accusation of ad hominem with… some ad hominem.

But gues what: I’m not a smoker. Here is my entire history with drugs: I’ve smoked pot five times (nothing happened for the first two of those times). I’ve done one tab of acid. All of that was several years ago (there is a time and a place for everything, and it’s called college). End of history. I only use alcohol occasionally in cooking, and I’ve never been drunk.

I have one friend who smokes, and I badger her all the time to quit. But at least I have the courtesy to make plain that I am doing so out of selfish concerns: I don’t want her to take those risks: from my perspective, I share none of the benefits (the pleasure) but I share many of the potential harms (her getting sick or not living as long as she could).

However, I also refuse to simply generalize what I want into laws to enforce my will on other adults. My personal desires are not moral grounds for legislation. I do not have a right to impose my will on anyone else simply out of spite.

—Most of your posts in this thread have been sarcastic, unproductive nonsense.—

They have not been sarcastic in th least. If you think they are nonsense, that is your right, but I do mean them sincerely. I have been debating: you haven’t been responding.

—If you want to debate the issue, then debate. If you’re just going to vent your obvious frustration, then either take this to the pit, or go have a smoke and calm down.—

My frustration is only with those that desire to manipulate others without just cause.

[Apos]

—I think you misunderstood my point.—

You point was and is rather confusing.

—I was not making a deductive argument that few businesses would be non-smoking if the choice were left to them, I was making an observation, based on my experience as a consumer before and after the law was passed (and based on places that currently have no such law).—

Well, it’s kind of obvious why there would be many more non-smoking resturants after a law banning smoking. But where yuo got confusing was where you lost track of the argument we were having. We were talking about what resturants would do in the event that smoking was legalized again (albiet in different conditions) AFTER it had been shown that you don’t necessarily lose customers just because you don’t allow smoking.

You have no “observations” of such an occurance. Instead you suggested something about the behavior of owners that doesn’t gel with the reality that they DO serve different sorts of tastes that appeal to different people.

—I’m sorry, but empirical observation of how businesses actually operate trumps your theory about how they should just be left to their own devices, and everything just working out o.k.—

But my argument has never rested on things “working out o.k.” in your opinion. It rests on the fact that you have no right to demand that other people must supply you with the products and services you desire. If you want more resturants that ban smoking, start one yourself.

[Nightime]

Apos, you seem to be missing the main point. The rationale for banning smoking from public restaurants in some places is because it constitutes a dangerous work environment. Employers are not allowed to create dangerous work environments, even if the employees would be willing to work there, presumabably because allowing them to do so would cause massive exploitation of the poor and desperate.

The point is, it doesn’t matter who likes smoking. Just like it doesn’t matter if an employee enjoys being bombarded with deadly radiation. An employer does not have the right to subject their employees to deadly radiation if they can avoid it, no matter what anyone’s personal affinity for radiation poisoning happens to be. So IF smoking creates a dangerous work environment, then it doesn’t matter who loves to smoke. The employer cannot utilize such a dangerous work environment.

Therefore, the real issue here is whether or not allowing smoking constitutes a dangerous environment. Just how dangerous is second hand smoke? Personally I am on the borderline, but from the research I have seen I think it is dangerous.

[Urban_Ranger]

*Originally posted by Mr2001 *
Certainly, if the owner doesn’t like green shirts (a bad childhood experience on St. Patrick’s Day?), he has the right to prohibit them inside his restaurant–but he doesn’t need a law for that.

And your point is?

*Originally posted by Mr2001 *
Loud music is a similar issue. Too much exposure to loud music can damage your hearing. But the owner, employees, and patrons all know that the restaurant plays loud music. If their concern for their hearing outweighs their desire to be in that particular restaurant, they can go somewhere else, without the need for any law prohibiting loud music.

Will false analogies ever stop?

I know of no restaurants will allow customers to bring in huge boom boxes that are cranked up to the max.

[blowero]

*Originally posted by Apos *
**—I think you misunderstood my point.—

You point was and is rather confusing.

Only to you.

Well, it’s kind of obvious why there would be many more non-smoking resturants after a law banning smoking. But where yuo got confusing was where you lost track of the argument we were having. We were talking about what resturants would do in the event that smoking was legalized again (albiet in different conditions) AFTER it had been shown that you don’t necessarily lose customers just because you don’t allow smoking.

No we weren’t. We were talking about whether it’s good to have a law banning smoking in restaurants, or whether the individual restaurants should just decide on their own whether or not to allow smoking. In California, we already know what it would be like without the law, because we can recall what things were like BEFORE THE LAW WAS PASSED. And I am telling you from my personal experience (and others in this thread have concurred) that it was very difficult to eat in a restaurant without having to breathe other people’s cigarette smoke. Where are you getting the idea that business owners would suddenly and inexplicably act differently now than they did before the law was passed, and decide to have non-smoking restaurants, if we just left it up to them? And I will say again - in a place such as Las Vegas, where smoking is allowed, how many non-smoking restaurants are there? I’ll tell you: there are virtually none.

We’re not talking about some hypothetical world where “conditions are different”, and “it has been shown that you don’t lose customers by not allowing smoking”. We’re talking about the REAL world.

You have no “observations” of such an occurance. Instead you suggested something about the behavior of owners that doesn’t gel with the reality that they DO serve different sorts of tastes that appeal to different people.

I beg to differ. I had years and years of breathing other people’s disgusting foul cigarette smoke at practically any restaurant or bar that I ever went to. Why does that not count as an observation? You are ignoring all the emperical evidence and obsessing on the hypothetical issue of what might motivate business owners to ban smoking. Their motivation is irrelevant. The FACT is that people were in effect being forced to inhale others’ cigarette smoke, so we passed a law, which is infinitely more effective than just leaving it up to the business owners.

—I’m sorry, but empirical observation of how businesses actually operate trumps your theory about how they should just be left to their own devices, and everything just working out o.k.—

But my argument has never rested on things “working out o.k.” in your opinion. It rests on the fact that you have no right to demand that other people must supply you with the products and services you desire.

We have every right to demand clean air to breathe. Clean air is not a “product or service”, it is an environmental condition. California has a right to pass a law banning smoking in restaurants every bit as much as it has a right to pass a law banning restaurants from smearing excrement all over the tables.

If you want more resturants that ban smoking, start one yourself.

I don’t have to; smoking is already banned. YOU are the one who seems to have a problem with it. If you want smoking restaurants, you can elect politicians who will support your cause. Here, the electorate has already spoken.

[Apos]

—Therefore, the real issue here is whether or not allowing smoking constitutes a dangerous environment.—

No, that’s secondary. Primary is the issue of whether the government should prevent people from choosing to undertake activities that have a certian degree of danger to them. You keep asserting this as if it’s usage by government officials as a rationale justified it. But it’s sitll an open issue as far as I’m concerned.

[Apos]

—I don’t have to; smoking is already banned. YOU are the one who seems to have a problem with it. If you want smoking restaurants, you can elect politicians who will support your cause. Here, the electorate has already spoken.—

This is just flat out cynical. That fact than an electorate HAS chosen to deny some people the right to do something is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not it should be able to in the first place: whether doing so is just.

—We have every right to demand clean air to breathe.—

Not from other people on their property, when they never forced you to be there in the first place! This is like demanding that a Chinese resturant serve Italian food, because it is what YOU want.

—I had years and years of breathing other people’s disgusting foul cigarette smoke at practically any restaurant or bar that I ever went to. Why does that not count as an observation?—

Because it’s an observation of the worng thing. Their behavior after realizing that they don’t have to allow smoking to make a profit may be different.

—The FACT is that people were in effect being forced to inhale others’ cigarette smoke, so we passed a law, which is infinitely more effective than just leaving it up to the business owners.—

Effective at what? They weren’t forcing you to inhale other’s smoke to begin with.

—Where are you getting the idea that business owners would suddenly and inexplicably act differently now than they did before the law was passed, and decide to have non-smoking restaurants, if we just left it up to them?—

Because they might realize that they could charge a premium to people that wanted a truly non-smoking dinning experience. What you seem to be implying, by supporting this law, is that you want something from bussiness owners, but don’t actually want to have to pay extra for it: instead it would just be easier to force them to do what you wish.

Indeed, you are SO meanspirited, that you refuse to even allow SMOKERS to pay extra for what they want.

[lynn73]

My husband would probably say yes, smoking should be banned in restaurants because who wants to smell second hand smoke while eating. For that matter, I don’t need the smell of smoke spoiling my meal either. Smoke doesn’t always honor no smoking areas, it can drift right over. I suppose it should be up to the restaurant owner whether he wants a totally smoke free environment or not.

[DoctorJ]

RRs of less than 2.0 are generally considered statistically insignificant.

This is entirely wrong. Any relative risk can be statistically significant if its 95% confidence interval does not include the null hypothesis. A RR of 1.2 with a CI of 1.1 to 1.3 is statistically significant. A RR of 4.0 with a CI of 0.5 to 7.5 is not.

This is not the only misunderstanding or distortion of basic principles of epidemiology presented in the linked “debunking” of the EPA’s study. This one cracked me up:

The term “Meta Study” is often used to describe this type of report, but the word “study” is inaccurate. The EPA has never conducted nor financed a single ETS study. They have only analyzed the studies of others. It is more accurate to refer to it as an analysis, and to its publication as a report.

Uh, yeah, that’s why they call it a meta-analysis. I’ve never heard the term “meta-study”.

A meta-analysis is one of the best ways to get information when an exposure leads to a rare outcome; individual studies are rarely going to have enough power to get a significant result. The fact that the WHO’s study, and several in the EPA’s meta-analysis, did not find a significantly increased risk of lung cancer would not be surprising even if a difference did exist.

To make a poor analogy, if I have two screws, and one is 1/8" wider than the other, I’m not going to find a difference between them with a yardstick marked off in inches, no matter how many times I measure them. More people in the study = finer marks on the yardstick. A meta-analysis simply takes all the little studies and analyzes them as a single data set.

That said, I haven’t dug through the EPA’s report, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were doctored somewhat to fit their political bent. They are, after all, a political organization.

Dr. J

[Nightime]

Apos:

No, that’s secondary. Primary is the issue of whether the government should prevent people from choosing to undertake activities that have a certian degree of danger to them. You keep asserting this as if it’s usage by government officials as a rationale justified it. But it’s sitll an open issue as far as I’m concerned.

No, I didn’t just assert it. I speculated that the reasoning is that if businesses were allowed to create an environment as dangerous as they wished, it would lead to poor and desperate people getting killed or injured. For instance, if mining operations had no safety standards, many more people would be buried alive. There would be desperate people willing to take jobs where they were exposed to radiation. If you are going to argue that businesses can create an environment as dangerous as they want, you have to deal with the fact that the poor will be taken advantage of.

If you agree that businesses do not have the right to be as dangerous as they want, then the issue here is whether smoking is dangerous enough to meet the danger standard.

[Apos]

—I speculated that the reasoning is that if businesses were allowed to create an environment as dangerous as they wished, it would lead to poor and desperate people getting killed or injured.—

Ok: so is the only possible solution to that problem then banning whatever one decides to call a dangerous workplace? Why isn’t it banning poor people from making stupid, desperate decisions? Or paying poor people not to take dangerous jobs? Paternalism can take on many faces: which one is most justified?

It seems like a similar issue to droughts. When there is less water, the price should go up, giving everyone the proper incentive to not waste water. But well-meaning people complain that if the price goes up, poor people won’t choose, or be able to drink enough. But that’s simply no excuse for screwing up the incentives: keeping water cheap so that everyone overuses it and causes much bigger problems. If the price of the system is paying poor people either with water bill subsidies (or even in-kind water to satisfy those paternalistic souls who always worry that the poor, whom they supposedly respect, will make the wrong decisions) so be it. The taxation required may be an injustice, but at least it is not as great an injustice as what is done to sellers of water.

—If you agree that businesses do not have the right to be as dangerous as they want, then the issue here is whether smoking is dangerous enough to meet the danger standard.—

It most certainly can be both when the question is on the margin. Some people don’t mind the risks of second hand smoke: some do. Those who do mind will have to be offered more to be encouraged to take a job where there is second-hand smoke. Again, why is making the choice for them justified?

[Doctor_Goo_Fee]

YES.

Should this really be in Great Debates?? What’s the debate?

I mean, we’re talking about PUBLIC places where people are EATING FOOD and paying money to do so.

Don’t go simple and think just because restaurant smoking is already allowed in many places that’s it’s in any way humanly acceptable.

[Doctor_Goo_Fee]

and APOS–

SCREW the dangers of second-hand smoking-- it wouldn’t matter if inhaled cigarette smoke cured all diseases known to humankind and made you smarter and better-looking to boot–

your smoke and my food don’t mix and never will.

[blowero]

*Originally posted by Apos *
—I don’t have to; smoking is already banned. YOU are the one who seems to have a problem with it. If you want smoking restaurants, you can elect politicians who will support your cause. Here, the electorate has already spoken.—

This is just flat out cynical. That fact than an electorate HAS chosen to deny some people the right to do something is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not it should be able to in the first place: whether doing so is just.

WTF? I wrote that in response to YOUR comment that if I want clean air, I should open my own restaurant. And you call ME cynical for responding in kind? Hello, Kettle? Pot on line 1.

—We have every right to demand clean air to breathe.—

Not from other people on their property, when they never forced you to be there in the first place! This is like demanding that a Chinese resturant serve Italian food, because it is what YOU want.

No, it’s not ANYTHING like that. Let’s stop with the false analogies already.

—I had years and years of breathing other people’s disgusting foul cigarette smoke at practically any restaurant or bar that I ever went to. Why does that not count as an observation?—

Because it’s an observation of the worng thing. Their behavior after realizing that they don’t have to allow smoking to make a profit may be different.

Yeah, suuuure…:rolleyes:

Because they might realize that they could charge a premium to people that wanted a truly non-smoking dinning experience. What you seem to be implying, by supporting this law, is that you want something from bussiness owners, but don’t actually want to have to pay extra for it: instead it would just be easier to force them to do what you wish.

Oh, wonderful idea. “You want a non-cockroach dining experience? - sorry, that costs extra.” “You want clean dishes? - that’ll cost you”. You’re seriously suggesting that people ought to have to pay extra money for clean air? Your position is bordering on anarchy. Sorry, but you don’t automatically have the right to do whatever you please in public if it affects other people.

Indeed, you are SO meanspirited, that you refuse to even allow SMOKERS to pay extra for what they want.

An ad-hominem attack? C’mon, Apos - you’re one of my favorite G.D.ers; I expect better from you.

[CasperQ]

*Originally posted by Apos *
And I guarantee that if the law allowed bussiness owners to open bussinesses that clearly said “we allow smoking here” in San Fransico, then a few places would do so, and they’d make a killing from smokers willing to pay a premium for the convienience.

Obviously the business owners in non-regulated states have not been convinced of the benefits or lack thereof regarding regulation - otherwise they would have enacted this independently of any government legislation!

Should it be a law? Nope… though I’m surprised some savvy restauranteer hasn’t already made this a reality.

The question wasn’t whether or not smokers have the right to inflict their smoke on others (though obviously everyone has an opinion) but whether the government has a right to require smoking/non-smoking in private businesses. My answer to that purely subjective question is NO. Though the laws, by the very nature of democracy, are subjective! That’s why we vote… :o)

[raz]

I say if you’re so addicted to smoking that you can’t even sit down and eat a meal without lighting up a cigarette, then you’ve got a severe problem.

Just my .02 on the issue.

[Urban_Ranger]

*Originally posted by Apos *
It seems like a similar issue to droughts. When there is less water, the price should go up, giving everyone the proper incentive to not waste water.

As far as I can see, smoking in public places is no different from pollution, and pollution is an externality. That is, you can’t fix it with the laws of economics - government has to intervene to correct the situation.

[hansel]

Why not just pass a law that any smoking section must be properly ventilated? Is it so hard/expensive to install sufficient ventilation/air filtration that SHS isn’t a problem?