Drinking? I find it much more distasteful to run into people who are reeking of rum, not only because they stink, but also because they act drunk. At least smoking does not lead to people yelling at you, throwing up on the sidewalk, rape, and other possible effects of heavy drinking.
I am the lightest of light smokers (1.5 packs a week, about) but I think these laws are shit. I don’t care about the bar laws so much for myself since I don’t go to bars, but the social libertarian in me believes that bar owners should be allowed to allow whatever they want inside their bar. It IS nanny-statish and restricts the indulging of a legal substance. I think the government should either make smoking illegal (in which case there WOULD be protests, and I would be right there with them even though it would be a snap for me to quit, I don’t want my behavior controlled) or allow merchants to set their own rules, within certain restrictions… for instance if there was a shop in an enclosed mall that wanted to allow smoking they shouldn’t be allowed because it would drift into other stores that don’t want it. But free-standing bars and pool halls and casinos? They are places built for the satisfying of compulsion. It sucks if a band you want to see is playing there but that doesn’t mean you should get to restrict the property owner’s right to allow something. I hate drinking and am sickened by drunk people, but that doesn’t mean I get to walk into my favorite restaurant and demand they not serve alcohol.
And as for the litter of smoking… I always put my butts in an ashtray and if I can’t find one I’ll keep it in my pocket until I do. You’re only noticing the assholes.
In the US they would never make tobacco illegal. People love to hate smokers far too much. Smoking is the new PC discrimination/racism/bigotry. If these people weren’t hating smokers they might have to start hating something less PC,. like Islam or Blacks.
Do you really think all those people are really allergic to tobacco smoke? Granted some people are sensitive to it and others might have something else going on, but I’ll guess most people who say they’re allergic are in the “Eddie Hassle allergic to mayo” camp. They like to complain and being “allergic” draws attention back to themselves.
Personally, I would LOVE to see them make tobacco products illegal. The increased black market aspect would be interesting to watch.
I’m a smoker and this smoking ban in Summit County, Ohio won’t make me quit. It’ll just make me patronize bars less. But I don’t really patronize bars too much so…
I don’t mind going to non-smoking restaurants. I’ve even opted for the non-smoking part of a restaurant when dining with non-smoking friends (which means most of my friends.) But I really REALLY prefer when it’s the owner’s decision. The fact that it’ll be the government’s decision now makes me crabby.
A.MEN! I find drinking in public places totally vile and so far drinking has had a negative effect on many more people I know than smoking has. But no one seems to notice but me (and davenportavenger).
When I was younger my dad (an “avid” smoker) taught me how to “field strip” my cigarettes. When you’re done, flick the cherry off the end and curl it up into a ball and put it in your pocket. It’s so Charlie won’t know where you’ve been I’ve seen people look at me with a sort of wild look in their eyes if I’m out smoking in their yard - say at a party - and then sigh with relief when the butt ends up in my pocket. My change bowl at home is full of butts!
I’m a social smoker. I like to have a couple smokes when I go out for a beer with friends. Other people’s smoking doesn’t bother me. I just wish smokers in cars would
Studies have shown that smokers linger longer in resturants and bars, and that they also spend more money while they’re there. The business model is usually to get people to stay as long as possible and buy more drinks. Smokers don’t linger in non-smoking bars-- they leave the place to go outside and smoke, and often, end up leaving instead of going back inside.
There is a city near me which has banned smoking in all resturants and bars. Since all a smoker has to do is drive five minutes to a place outside the city limits, bar owners really have felt the pinch, or so I’ve heard from the ones to whom I’ve spoken. I haven’t eaten at a resturant or been to a bar in that city since the ban-- I drive to the 'burbs when I’m up there.
I agree that there are harmful effects from drinking, and they are often really bad ones. As i’ve said before, no-one ever went home and beat their wife after too many cigarattes.
The difference, though, is that this sort of obnoxious behaviour is not an intrinsic part of drinking. It is, in fact, possible to drink without getting obnoxiously drunk and without doing any of the things you describe. I manage it every time i drink, and i manage to find places to drink where the clientele knows how to behave in public.
It is not possible, on the other hand, to smoke in a confined space without sending your smoke into the air that other people breathe.
You’ll have to forgive me my skepticism.
Every single smoker i’ve ever met says that they dispose of their butts responsibly, and that other smokers are to blame. Yet cigarette butts litter the landscape, and i can’t go anywhere without seeing people drop butts on the ground or launch them out of moving cars.
It’s entirely possible that you are one of the golden exceptions to this behaviour, but in my experience (including among my own friends who smoke) those who drop cigarette butts are not in the minority.
Of course, the people who throw their butss away are simply a smaller subset of the larger group of assholes who think that the world is their garbage bin. But i have also known smokers who would never drop a coke can or a candy wrapper on the ground, but who flick cigarette butts all over the place.
Do we have to be allergic to something in order to find it unpleasant? As i said, i know smokers who complain about the smell of smoke and the fact that it gets in their hair and clothes. Is it really so hard to understand that non-smokers find being subjected to it objectionable, and that their reasons might be valid?
I tend to agree with this, to a considerable extent. It would also allow non-smokers to use their buying power to press for change.
About ten years ago, back was 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 numbers. 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 good because they have a decent ventilation system. Other places, however, turn into smoke boxes after only three or four people light up.
Good point. All day I suck exhaust from all the inconsiderate jackasses filling up my city with toxic pollution from their automobiles. Given the option I’d much rather share the space with a few smokers.
I think we all agree (even smokers) that cigarette smoke is unpleasant. But there’s a huge difference between *“Your cigarette is bothering me.” * and “CoughHackCough Your cigarette is KILLING me!!! I’m ALLERGIC!!! CoughHackCoughDramaQueenHackCough”.
cowgirl, you wouldn’t give me the stinkeye as I smoke my cigarette outside my office, surrounded by idling diesel trucks.
I’m one of the considerate smokers. Believe me or not, I don’t care. I go for 8-12 block walks during my breaks at work, usually finish my cigarette about halfway through and carry it back to the trash can near my building, I make a consious effort to stay downwind of nonsmokers even if they’ve told me it doesn’t bother them. Actually, most people are shocked when they find out I’m a smoker. I used to ride the bus with a woman who didn’t know I was a smoker for over a year, even though I’d always just finished one when I got on the bus with her. Yes, some of us are considerate.
Of course, this has nothing to do with whether smoking bans are good or not.
I am against the nanny-ish approach. I’d rather have mandatory labeling and leave it at that. Let the market decide.
You can have a restaurant that allows smoking. You make it clear to anyone who wants to work there or eat there. No one is forced to walk through the doors. If the demand exists, the restaurant (or bar, or whatever) will do well. Otherwise, it’ll go out of business.
The only places I’m in favor of a ban are those where one has no choice - public services and other government facilities. No smoking in the library or the DMV or the grocery store or office environments. But leisure and pleasure sites should be free to operate as they wish, provided there is a clear indication at the entry whether the facility is smoking or not.
I’m not a smoker and I don’t like being around smokers, but when you’re an adult, you can make your own choices, good or bad. As long as I know how to avoid you and your smoky option, I’ll do fine.
Personally, I think that what we need to do here is to stop taking these half-assed measures and just line all smokers up and put a bullet in their heads. We should also pile all literature, movies, other media and art that depicts smoking in any way up and burn it (in the last and final smoking area on the planet) and we should send all business owners that have ever allowed smoking in their privately owned establishments to a re education camp. After that, we can go after the perfume wearers, followed by the gum chewers and I don’t know go from there. Perhaps the fat people and the establishments that sell unhealthy food, defiantly pornography and then maybe work our way towards state ownership of all property and businesses so that we have a centralized way of making sure that everything is safe and wholesome for the sheep-like population that is unable to care for themselves or look after their own interests.
I’m also wary of the government and state influence on this affair. Personally, I HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE smoking and wish it would disappear tomorrow, forever. However, it is a person’s decision/choice/addiction.
I’d love to say “well, if smokers will take care of their cigarette butts and not litter them everywhere or not turn restaurants or bars into mushroom clouds of smoke, I’m relatively cool with it”, but I can’t. I don’t enjoy sucking others’ smoke, and if a place wants my business, they’ll not have smoking allowed. Smokers ARE people too, even though they’re equated with animals. There should be places for smokers outdoors…think of a gazebo or something. Businesses should have adapted to the growth of anti-smoking laws.
Smokers, if a business goes above and beyond to provide a superior product and has a place for you to smoke away from everyone else, would you go there? I’d think you would.
Then again, alcohol does a whole lot of damage and you don’t hear about people trying to stop that.
Compare it to marijuana (which I’ve never done) and it’s spposed/apparent/percieved benign-ness as well as its legal status. Obviously, these decisions are money-based.
An initiative passed in the most recent local election that (1) bars smoking in all enclosed buildings and (2) bars smokers from lighting up within twenty-five feet of the building’s points of egress.
I’m like mhendo and others who find the tobacco habit distasteful and appreciate the freedom to eat and socialize without suffering the irritation and stink of others’ smoke, but at the same time realize that people should be allowed to do to themselves whatever they want as long as it doesn’t infringe on my life. Light up in your car or your house? Feel free. In my car or my house, or at my workplace? No thanks, strenuously expressed.
And I think the new law goes way overboard. Twenty-five feet away from the door of every building is, in some dense neighborhoods, nonexistent; the middle of the street isn’t twenty-five feet away. This makes areas of several square city blocks non-smoking areas, indoors and out, and I think that’s unreasonable. I also think the law’s failure to provide accommodation for certain highly-regulated exceptions, such as members-only cigar clubs with disclaimers for dues-paying attendees or whatever, is unfortunate. Had I drafted the initiative, I would have also included a tavern exception; if you’ve got a business where the only activities are beer, darts, pool, and televised football, why not allow smoking as well?
In any case, despite being an emphatic non-user of tobacco, when I had the ballot in front of me, I voted “no” for the above reasons. I would have voted “yes” for a more reasonable anti-smoking law, but this one, not so much.
In the end, it passed with something like 65% of the vote. So what do I know.
Oh, I don’t doubt that there are a lot of asshole smokers out there, in fact I just got back from my smoke break an hour ago and even though there are four ashcans out there set up in a line there were STILL butts all over the ground. They might have flown out of the cans from the wind, but I really doubt it. Especially since a lot of them were stepped on. People suck.
Gah.
I have asthma, and smoking can sometimes make me start wheezing/ coughing straightaway (and other times not.) So when I do start coughing, or I do rush through the group of smokers, I wish I could tell them that I’m really not trying to be ChurchLady-ish about their smoking; I just don’t want to have an asthma attack. But that’s way too long to fit on a button, you know?
And I’ve noticed the drama queen ones are the ones that start the hacking fit when they SEE you have a cigarette, whether any smoke is near them or not. I’ve had people do that when I haven’t even lit a cigarette yet or when it’s been out for 2 blocks and I’m just carrying it till I get to a trash can.
