It's become an American obsession, more evil than Bin Laden, more deadly than the republican party. What could this be? Smokers.
In most states there has been blanket no smoking laws. I can't speak for all states but New York state was blanketed without a vote. Now, I know, I know it's bad for you and second hand smoke is evil and the smell of smoke and smokers are disgusting. It's a bad habit, I know.
My question is, is it right for the government to tell a business owner what he can and can not do?
Before this law, one could walk up to two restaurants. One bragging on the door in large bold letters "NO SMOKING" the other "SMOKERS WELCOME". The patron had a right, like the business owner to choose. Now, we and they do not.
Granted, I know smoking is bad for you. But for one moment, consider this. I have a friend, an owner of a bar in Lake Placid. It's a sports bar and the majority of his business is local customers. Now, enter the no smoking law. My friend is going out of business and in need of filing his chapter 11. Is this right?
I do agree that restaurants who cater to children and malls and such should be non-smoking. But should we take away the right of the business owner and the patrons right to choose?
Whether I smoke or not, is not the issue here. My point being, the air we breath is toxic, or at the very least borderline. Remember in first grade when the teacher told you that you're breathing the same air as the dinosaurs? Well, it's all still relevant. Nuclear testing. Atomic testing. White Phosphorous (being used in Iraq to kill the bad-evil brown people). It doesn't go away. It's all still there and we are all breathing it. If one is so afraid of the air they breath, then why not stop that too. Or, my personal favorite, make the right stop talking - foul air and all...
I think, and this is just MHO, that we have no right forcing a private business owner into bankruptcy for the offended few.
Thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
I smoked for years and still fall off the wagon occasionally with a good cigar. I agree, this should be something the government regulates. If someone want to run a business that permits smoking then they should be allowed to do so. People who do not want that environment can stay away. The government should be able to regulate smoking in public places where people have no choice about being there such as public building and shopping malls but that shouldn't extend to a private business where people have a choice of being there or not.
Next thing you know the government will be telling us what kind of sex is OK between consenting adults. :-)
I used to be a smoker, also. After 27 years, I lost interest in the flavor and gave up cold turkey without much of the cravings.
Those with inherent addictive traits have a harder time dealing with such a dillema.
However, if the government arbitrarily imposes such a restriction on business owners and patrons, are they going to do the same with drinkers, overeaters, gamblers, and even bloggers?
Smoking is an unhealthy habit, but it's still a right, like voting.
Smoker or not, you're still a fellow human being who shouldn't be treated as second-class citizens for such an indulgence.
Next thing you know, they'll outlaw lighters but still sell you the smokes.
I've never been a smoker. But I believe in the right for those that do. It's just another choice in life someone made (good or bad) and they have to live with it. But to regulate it as far as someone's business is concerned...is absurd. As a non-smoker I have the choice of going there or not. Smokers are the ones being impinged upon in my opinion more so than the non-smoker. But that's just me. I know plenty of non-smokers who feel their business is the most important. I don't share those feelings. I'm a compromiser. Sorry for your friend and his business troubles. Why is so much attention on this stupid stuff (by the Feds) when people in Iraq don't have water or electricity? Not bombing Iran is more important! The leaders of this country are just so vacuous...probably because they've been in too many smoke filled rooms...ha ha!
Grudging agreement with you here, Ziem.
I smoke, but I have respect for others when I light up. I think they have gone too far with this. Even here, they have taken it to a new level.
I guess somebody has to weigh in on the other side.
* The City of Houston banned smoking in restaurants, and eventually in bars; it took effect this month. It was done by a vote of our rather large City Council (15 members), on two different occasions, with a year's lead time so businesses could accommodate. Cigar bars, etc. are explicitly exempted, and one can still smoke outdoors at places that have, e.g., patios. Ironically, many of the jazz clubs had already gone smoke-free as much as a year earlier, so the idea was not new with the city fathers/mothers.
* Your friend's going bankrupt is very, very unusual statistically. This was discussed at length in Houston before the ban was voted on. Other large cities that passed bans... I believe San Francisco was one... found both by patron counts and by anecdote that business was hardly affected at all. I'm sorry your friend lost his business, but apparently his is not the typical story.
* The issue involves whether the business is a public accommodation. Businesses that are open to all of the public are in many ways treated differently by the law from private clubs, etc. Would you want a pub, for instance, to be able to ban people of a certain race? No? The same argument of "business owners' rights" can be made in that case.
* Notice I haven't even addressed the public health argument yet. The short version: inevitably people who are not patrons of the business are affected by secondhand smoke. There's too much to go into in a blog comment, but it's a serious problem. Secondhand smoke is by now established as far beyond a mere annoyance; it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Repeated exposure to secondhand smoke causes many cases of cancer in nonsmokers.
Ironically, I'm usually a defender of smokers' rights. Both my parents smoked... my father smoked himself to death... and it's a minor miracle I didn't get started. Moreover, I was content when restaurants here had separate sections, if the A/C was sufficiently isolated. But often enough it wasn't. It's not enough, in a public accommodation like a restaurant, to tell the nonsmoker "if you don't like it, go elsewhere." It's like the kids who ran drag races down a local thoroughfare past a residential neighborhood: you don't just tell the neighbors to move if they don't like the dangerous activity.
Well, that was waaay too long for a comment, but I really felt someone needed to say these things.
Okay Steve, here goes.
I agree second hand smoke is an issue. But, do we really have a right to remove that freedom of choice for the patron as well as the business owner?
My friends bar is in Lake Placid, a town that survives completely on seasonal tourism and local traffic. When Locals, especially during the non tourist season, find it better to go home with a six pack and a pack of smokes, you're business is in trouble. Granted, tourists don't have much of a choice. Most hotels too are non smoking - but allow pets. So the tourist smokes outside.
I'm not even going to get into forcing people out in the rain and snow and freezing temps. My issue with these laws is nothing more than the loss of another freedom. Freedom of choice.
Look, let's pretend Mothers against drunk drivers decide that drinking in public places is bad. Is that ok? Let's be honest, it would certainly cut down on DWI's. But is it right?
Do I smoke? Yep, when I'm stressed. All I can tell you is this tobacco company has had a great seven years!! Damn! should of bought stock in the company!
"I agree second hand smoke is an issue. But, do we really have a right to remove that freedom of choice for the patron as well as the business owner?" - ziem
Does the proprietor OR patron of a public business have a "right" to engage in activity that demonstrably kills people who merely enter that public building regularly, e.g., employees, or (as in one actual case here) employees and clients of the business next door in the same building?
This isn't only about your right to smoke; that is something I will personally defend (and did, in the case of my late parents). Rights and freedoms compete among each other all the time; courts and legislatures (and if we're unlucky, executive officials) resolve the issues as they arise. And as I said, I was personally OK with separate smoking and nonsmoking sections in restaurants. But a duly elected representative council chose a different route, elevating the right of nonsmokers not to be subjected involuntarily to carcinogens over the right of smokers to smoke, in that one particular context. And a lot of accommodations for smokers were built into the law... with my full support. This is simply not a one-sided issue with only one group's rights involved.
FWIW, I don't smoke, but that was a chance outcome of my upbringing, and given the stresses we all face these days, damned if I don't sometimes wish I did smoke.
lol Steve! Like I said, I smoke under stress....
In my profession I can pick and choose my places and people to work for. Not everyone can, For that, I agree. But if your chosen profession is a bartender, one would assume the ickyness of smoking goes hand and hand with dealing with drunks, no?
Personally, if I go out to eat, I choose non smoking. I do like and agree with seperate rooms/stations. However a pet peeve of mine is a non smoker who sits in a smoking section and bitches about the smoke.
I just think with the few rights we might have left, leave this one alone. Don't kill the small business owner when you have a right to choose.
"In my profession I can pick and choose my places and people to work for. Not everyone can, For that, I agree." - ziem
I would certainly agree with you about the bartender. Musicians are a sort of middle ground; in the past, I've had to work in places that allow smoking, and sometimes it's not easy. But what about a bar (or other business permitting smoking) that is not in a standalone building, but is in a building that shares A/C with surrounding stores, offices, etc.?
Before the law was modified here... I don't know about now... there were privately owned buildings that permitted smoking (more accurately, the owners smoked in their own offices) but leased office space to other businesses.
The employees of those other businesses had no choice but to come to work.
Those employees, in turn, had clients who had no choice but to visit their offices to do business.
The building owners, aware that the city law required nothing of them in behalf of their nonsmoking tenants, more or less raised their middle finger, made no effort to fix the faulty A/C that allowed the smoke to come across, and thus forced about 100 people to breathe smoke every day... no choice, except to quit their jobs.
That's just not right. It's not A right, either; it's an abuse of the power of property ownership.
For what it's worth, I think MADD is a bit... mad, and I wouldn't be too surprised at anything they do. But people sitting on bar stools or at tables quietly sipping their whiskey (i.e., not driving, not fighting) are no active threat to people around them in the way smokers, even if they're similarly sitting quietly and smoking, do in fact create a health hazard. So I don't think the analogy is exact.
Whew! I think I need a drink... nah; it's too early yet. :) My blog host (same as Bryan's) is physically moving the servers today, so my blog is in a truck presumably somewhere on US 59. :) It's a bit strange not having my usual outlet. You're being very tolerant of my ranting here; thanks!
Not a problem Steve, rant on!
Here in Arizona, you can't even smoke within 20 feet of a door or window of any public building.
I'll give you the common AC. But, what about free standing buildings? What about those that don't share a common AC unit?
What about this? In some states (I can verify NY and AZ) the cost of a pack is $1.25, the taxes on that one pack is $4.oo or more. We are heavily taxing these people and taking away their rights.
I'm also talking about blanket no smoking laws. A law that takes in the entire state without reguard to business or building. These states spend more on smoking police than they do internet preditors and crimes against children.
Personally, I can think of better uses for my tax dollar.
Well, as a person who completely hates smoking, thinks that morons who smoke drive up healthcare costs for the rest of us, has picked up thousands of cigarettes in my time from lazy asses who throw their cigs out of windows or on the ground, i say "Fuck em".
Smokers, which are most of my family and friends, are inconsiderate with their nasty habit. I have no problem with making tobacco products completely illegal just to get them away from me. I'm coughing right now. Why? Probably has something to do with my damn mom and her two pack a day habit.
:)
Z, uh not that I meant to go on a rant or anything...
;)
ziem, thanks. For the record, today (Tues.) I'm blogging at The YDD Annex until further notice, probably at least the rest of today. The YDD itself is visible on the web, but I am unable to post to it; there's a service my host did not or could not restart after the move.
The whole smoking issue is anything but straightforward. If smoking cigarettes were like drinking booze, i.e., if one could do it in a crowd w/o imposing a health hazard on that crowd, I would unreservedly defend a smoker's right to smoke in public. As it is, there really are two people's rights involved. It ain't gonna get easier.
I thought separating sections in restaurants was a good idea. That's harder in a bar, I admit, especially a club you go to to hear music. Everyone, smoker or nonsmoker, wants to be where they can see and hear the band.
I generally oppose any "sin tax" including this one. What's next after cigarette taxes: extra taxes on fatty fast food, because it costs more in medical care over the eater's lifetime? extra taxes on birth control pills as opposed to condoms, because there's more risk of contracting a disease? Where does it end? All of us, with very few exceptions, engage in some risky behavior. Tax 'em all, or tax none of 'em... I say tax none.
Then again, ranting liberal that I am, I think a progressive income tax, federal or state or both, should do for most purposes. YMMV. :)
I blame this on air conditioning. Now that most places cannot open windows and even if they wanted to, they can't. So smoking in a confined climate-controlled environment became a natural casualty (ironic). Then it moved outdoors; ok, fine. Then it moved to the parking lot and in many places it's not allowed there anymore either. So, yes smoking seems to be the bane of society and the war on smoking is almost as militant as the war on Christianity.
Get rid of air conditioning, which is bad for the environment anyway and open the windows and let the property owner decide whether to allow smoking or not.
Should government regulate smoking in privately-owned establishments? No. Bars and restaurants are not public places either; they are private. Anyplace that can set a guideline for admission, like a minimum age or appropriate attire, is not a public place. Yes, they are open to the public, but they are not publicly owned. Thus, the public should not be allowed to petition the government to regulate something that is a voluntary choice and does not cause impairment like illegal drugs or alcohol.
As an aside, any ever notice that we were healthier as a people when we smoked more and ate less? Think back to the late 60's and early 70's when more than half of American adults smoked. Now, less than 25% smoke and we are facing a big crisis because of obesity. Yes, smoking is bad and the education campaign that began in the 1970's did get people to quit but there was no pending health care crisis coming because of the amount of smokers. However, we do have one because of obesity. And, yes, now we have a war on food, too, and this should not be regulated by government either. One voluntarily puts smoke in her lungs. One voluntarily decides to chow down on Big Macs and oversized portions at restaurants. On must voluntarily choose to exercise and manage one's diet.
Brian:
Word!
Post a Comment