do you support smoking bans in public places (ie bars, restaurants)?

when I smoked.

Is there any other way?

No, really.

Ahh, the days gone by...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_jacket

so I don't have to smell other peoples' rancid body odors.

I'd support a ban on smoking in certain places only if it also applied to peoples' B.O., which is a hell of a lot worse.

People marinate themselves to get rid of the BO (bathing would be better) in perfume and then smell like a mix of the perfume and BO. I don't CARE if someone gave you a big basket of scented soap, scented bath oil, and scented shampoo -- you DON'T need to use it ALL at once.

Oh and guys -- you WON'T get laid if you spray yourself all over with Axe. You'll just look like a desperate goober. :eyes:

people stop driving cars that pollute my lungs in public.

and have since gone cold turkey, yet, I feel the smoking bans in bars is a bit excessive. If you can't both smoke and drink and/or inhale second hand smoke in a bar, what is the point? I really am against the '2nd class' status our society is so wont to afford to smokers. There are countless other things floating around (like vehicle exhaust, plastics, Republicans, etc.) that are so much worse for us. It's fucking lame because like 'fat people' or 'gay people', smokers are a convenient and all too eagerly acceptable target for demonization for most of the mindless rubes in this country. I'm so far beyond being sick of this kind of shit.

I used to smoke like a chimney over 10 years ago...

to hear any GD, MF'n cussing filling up the pristine air either! Prosecute 'em for potty mouth.

Nothing like a good 'ol breathing :crazy: exercise
from time to time.

a no smoking restaurant for a no children restaurant.

My guy pal and I were out to dinner on Tuesday evening and at the table next to us, there was a lady with a laugh that sounded like she was laying a square, feathered egg.

Talk about ruining our dinner. She brayed constantly for over an hour.

Or a total ban on cell phones in restaurants. What is so damned important that we all have to hear your conversation concerning your hemhroids!!

.... but they made me quit cuz I wouldn;t wear the uniform of formal smokers.



I tried to be less formal, but no one would allow me to .....



...... So I quit.

You shouldn't have to inhale toxic fumes to work as a waitress or bartender. More precisely, it's widely illegal to expose workers to toxic fumes (from whatever source) where they work.

Not a very tough question, IMO.

when restaurants have smoking and non-smoking sections, it really does not make a difference. Sitting in the non-smoking section will mean that the table next to you is not seated with smokers, but you still breathe the same air people smoke in.

I'm VERY sensitive to second-hand smoke. I was the most estatic person in the world when NY (and later NJ) passed smoking bans, and it meant that I could finally go out at night without getting sick. I read in the NY times at the time that many business actually were busier than before the ban because people like me were finally going out.

There are bartenders who smoke too. If a bar wants to be explicitly a smokers' bar, it should be allowed. At the very least, you can license a percentage of bars to allow smoking. Failing to do this has killed a lot of bar business in New York, but I guess those businesses and livelihoods and jobs don't count, eh?

If people want to smoke and drink at the same time, and others want a job serving them, that's their prerogative.

Now you may respond with the line about how it's discrimination if the struggling vegetarian immigrant non-smoking pregnant unitarian mother of 13 children can't get the job in the longshoremens' smoking bar. Please! That poor lady deserves a better job than that! I don't hear anyone saying that kind of bullshit about paint shops or chemicals factories, not even if they produce plastic puke.

I fully agree with smoking bans in offices and theaters and banks. But bars? ALL BARS?! Only people who hate bars think like this, not to let the tobacco junkies have their own venue without coppers and priests poking up their ass to smoke drink and party seated warm and in fucken' peace. The non-smoking crusade has become a purity campaign in the long prohibition tradition. More cultural divide and conquer.

And all paint shops and all chemical factories. Workplace heath and safety is not optional. If a bar wants to explicitly be a smoker's bar, tough shit.

You don't have to be a fanatic to have the right to work where the patrons don't voluntarily produce toxic vapors.

The notion that bar business is down due to smoking bans is poppycock. Individual bars may have gone out of business (as they have throughout time), but the amount of liquor consumed in public establishments tracks directly with the amount of liquor consumed generally.

If you want to smoke, step outside.

What have you done to shut down the highly toxic (and dangerous) highway traffic today?

So where's your campaign and laws to ban paint shops and chemical factories?

The righteous struggle to curtail cigarette company abuses and get restitutions for the people they fooled back in the cancer-denial days long ago turned into an anti-sin campaign aimed at scapegoating smokers on behalf of making righteous control-freak pricks feel superior, plain and simple. A whole new category of pointless vice crime with a new bureaucracy attached.

While dangerous as a contributor to climate change, they don't meet OSHA criteria for toxic releases.

All paint shops and all chemical factories (in the US, anyway) are already heavily regulated -- as they should be -- with regard to the proper handling and release of toxic materials. These regulations cover not only neighbors of such facilities but also employees who might otherwise be exposed.

"Sin" is irrelevant to this issue. We're talking real injury suffered by workers.

If this is your argument for allowing smoking in bars, you just lost.

In the course of my work I've had occasion to interview workers' comp patients who will disagree radically with your misconception that "proper handling and release of toxic materials" can ever result in a completely safe workplace. There is no such thing. Fumes get out, glass fibers get out, some workers get fucked, but the paint and glass shops don't get shut down if they meet certain minimum standards. Even if they're making plastic puke.

Taxi drivers have higher heart attack rates, firefighters choose their risks, bartenders should be allowed to as well. Workers always choose tradeoffs. Some should retain the right they've had for centuries - to work in a smoke-filled bar, if they so fucking please. No one's forcing anyone to take the smokers' bar job, or to be a smoker.

See, you are absolutely focused on sin and sinners, and I don't care even if you think you're an atheist. If there were three bars in your town and two of them were non-smoking, it's pretty obvious you'd still be deploring the smokers, because odds are they're having a much better time with their (on average) fewer years. Not because they're smokers, but because they're less likely to be prigs.

Mr Extreme Is Where The Life Is
Middle of the Road Is For Running Over

You need to exercise a little discipline in sticking to the point.

Of course nothing is completely safe. "Minimum standards" is the operative phrase. If a facility meets the minimum it's all good. Are there mistakes? Do some sleazebag employers cheat? Is the Pope a hopeless dick?

Yes, yes, and yes.

And who gives a rat's ass if they're making plastic puke. You got something against plastic puke? That suggests you're a dour individual opposed to fun and (presumably) obsessed with sin. See? It's easy to go off on trivial tangents if you just don't care.

Does a smoke-filled bar meet minimum standards? No. Is that comparable to the risks taken on by emergency workers? Not hardly.

Warlords in East Africa have for centuries (millenia, actually) retained the right to seize the powerless and impress them into slavery. I suppose they should continue doing so because, after all, they fucking please.

I have no moral position on individual smokers. I was one myself for a couple of decades and will no doubt pay the price in a reduced lifespan. If you want to smoke please be my guest. Just don't impose your toxic byproducts on hospitality workers in the workplace -- you don't have that right. If you, as a proprietor, insist on maintaining a hazardous workplace, ALL workers have the right to get in your face big-time.

Your argument, such as it is, comes down to "I wanna."

Weak sauce. And the tide of history is clearly against you.

is like a child kidnapped by slave traders? You imply a situation where the bar owner has effectively kidnapped the bartender for sale as a slave to the highest bidder?

Come on, why such a piker on the comparisons? Why not say the smokers' bar is like a bartender death camp? Then you'll totally win this argument.

Unless he/she wants to smoke *in* the bar. The issue is the wait staff (aka "hospitality workers") who would be subjected to unacceptable levels of toxic smoke working in such a place.

Employers don't have a right to maintain hazardous workplaces. Saying the person can just get a job somewhere else legitimizes unsafe practices. It's identical to a construction manager saying "We don't use fall protection when we work at heights. You don't like it, work somewhere else."

And my allusion to the slave trader was directly in response to your position that "tradition" (in the case of smoky bars throughout history) makes maintaining an unsafe establishment somehow OK. It doesn't. There are lots of practices that were once allowed that no longer are, precisely because they have been determined to be hazardous and unfair.

Football (unacceptable levels of concussions), boxing (ditto), most factory work (even with precautions), most driving jobs (self-evidently), casinos (advancing known addiction, ruining lives), anything to do with alcohol (which does not only kill the drinker, we all know there are plenty of non-drinking victims, often just innocent bystanders)... obviously your arguments could be applied in favor of alcohol prohibition.

Do you support prohibition? Would you legalize marijuana, or decriminalize any other recreational drugs?

I only brought up plastic puke as a particularly absurd example of consumer disposables that are at least as superfluous (obviously much more superfluous) to human needs as smokers' bars. But workers who want to get and keep a job at the plastic puke factory are still forced to take risks in production. (Again, these risks exist *even* if all rules are followed, so your example of the construction manager who breaks the safety rules is irrelevant).

What you can't face up to here is that the decision of what "hazardous and unfair" or "unsafe establishments" should no longer be allowed, while others continue, is arbitrary, or rather: constructed. A product of conflicting moral valuations, debate, and differentials in power. The smoking ban was a decision of politicians in power, pushed through against weaker opposition, plain and simple. It had nothing to do with the moral superiority or necessity of the ban.

Smokers are not allowed the freedom to set up their own bars and hire fellow smokers as their bartenders, if they so wish. There wasn't a referendum, either. You can pretend all you like, but long as other hazards in the course of unnecessary activities exist, you can't get around the reality. Smoke bans in ALL bars - bars, for fuck's sake! - are the product of the Puritan vice enforcement mentality run wild.

Do you go to bars, by the way? Your avatar says one thing, but your use of a barbarism like "hospitality workers" is worthy of one hellishly bloodless bureaucrat.

I sure hope anyone's reading this besides you, 'cos it's meant for the fans in the stands. We all know you aren't going to give an inch on your hellfire sermon.

;)

Similar things could be said of the rest.

Totally uninvolved non-drinking pedestrians get run over by drunks! People are killed in crashes and are beaten to death, all because alcohol drinking is allowed in public indoor facilities. It is true that you would never be able to wipe out drinking altogether, but the rate of these deaths among innocent non-drinkers would inarguably go down, if only we restored our country's proud progressive history of alcohol prohibition. (For many it was a progressive and enlightened movement, you know!)

Now all I'm saying is that smokers should be allowed to smoke in a minority of bars, and to hire smokers who want to work there as barkeeps. Sick!

Remember, the argument against voluntary, designated smokers' bars is NOT that second-hand smoke kills non-smokers, since they wouldn't have to be there (unlike the unsuspecting street crosser, who doesn't even know what's coming).

No, the argument advanced by MrModerate is that the bartenders and waiting staff (known as "hospitality workers" in Newspeak, as I've learned) would be subjected to smoke, hence "hazardous conditions," at their place of work. "Involuntarily," even if they want the job. And you can't just hire smokers, either, as that would be discrimination against non-smokers (like hiring 300-pound linemen is discrimination against anorexics, I guess). And, you know, it would encourage them to stay smokers, like being a lineman encourages you to stay fat.

So the analogy to football players holds, insofar as they're paid. Like the bartender in the smoking bar, they're being subjected to an unnecessary workplace risk. Like the bartender, it doesn't matter if they say they want the job, according to MrModerate's logic, since we can't really believe them. They may just be saying that to keep the job, see?

Thus, as we have seen, smokers demanding a right to peaceably assemble in designated areas -- indoors -- and hire fellow smokers to serve them drinks is, like, SLAVE TRADING.

And you know this frenzy ain't stopping here. Third-term Bloomberg is near guaranteed to roll out a zero-tolerance anti-litter campaign on cigarette butts. Watch how the individual lawsuits and the enterprising politicians in search of vice campaigns will drive this - there will be a push to start enforcing no smoking in school zones, no smoking in residences lacking modern ventilation, etc. etc.

• Football/boxing: Risk, but not hazard. No innocent sufferers.
• Factory work: Not so. With proper measures, including technology, training, and a safety culture, you can reach as close to zero as any human endeavor can achieve.
• Driving: Again, risk but not hazard. It's quite possible to have an entire career on the road without any negative effects. In fact, most professional drivers do.
• Casinos: No innocent sufferers.
• Alcohol: When used within the law (i.e., not driving with BAC above the legal limit), risk is within societal norms.

Etc., etc.

What's different about the above examples and second-hand smoke in a bar is that people who have every right to expect (more precisely, demand) a safe workplace would be denied one under your regime.

I don't support prohibition of recreational drugs, although I'm far from sure you can drive safely on coke, heroin, or today's potent marijuana (so stay home!). Standard times to metabolize are not well known by potential users (making self-regulation iffy), so you've got a huge disincentive to allowing any motor vehicle operation under the influence of such substances. I also think you'd have big problems establishing Amsterdam-style cafes in the US even if pot was legalized, for the same reason you can't smoke tobacco in most bars (although, of course, the deleterious effects of pot smoke are not nearly as well understood or quantified).

The production of plastic puke is more inconsequential than the right to smoke in bars? Or less? Sorry, but it's beyond me to parse that comparison in any sensible way.

Your notion that because determinations of "hazard," "unfair," or "unsafe" are legal-social constructs they're automatically rendered invalid is nothing more than parlor anarchism. How would you recommend society govern itself without such constructs? Or does society not require any governing, self- or otherwise?

Somehow you thread a path from smoking bans to puritan vice enforcement. You've stated as much several times. Sorry, but it's a total stretch. The ciggie-grabber community doesn't give a rat's ass about sin. They care about cancer, heart disease, and emphysema resulting from unwilling exposure to smokers' toxins.

Sure I go to bars. I go to bars where civilized people who have chosen to smoke go outside when they do so. And I go with friends who designate a nondrinking driver or who get home on public transit. Pretty simple. Works like a charm.

And what's so barbarous about the term "hospitality workers?" Not everybody who serves drinks and food works in a bar, so they're not automatically barmen/barmaids, waiters/waitresses. I happen to live in a tourist area, where the hospitality industry puts 3 out of every 10 dollars in people's pockets, and I'll tell you, around here, they're hospitality workers. (And incidentally that's 3 out of 10 dollars earned in venues where the recipients don't get poisoned by second-hand smoke).

• Football/boxing: Risk, but not hazard. No innocent sufferers.

This would be equally true of a smoking bartender (or bar owner who keeps his own bar) who wants to work in a bar full of voluntary smokers. You say it's fine to pay willing young men to smash their helmeted heads into each other, although the results are predictable in concussion statistics and permanent brain damage once enough of them do. And I say it's fine to pay willing smokers to tend bar in a smokers' bar. Indoors.

(I also have to say, football is a much worse example for youth, who are warned off constantly from smoking but see this violent sport glorified everywhere as something to aspire to -- with predictable results in thousands of permanent injuries among deluded high school students who are encouraged by false hopes of one day being a college hero or a pro, though they wouldn't be drafted even in the 10,000th round.)

Your notion that because determinations of "hazard," "unfair," or "unsafe" are legal-social constructs they're automatically rendered invalid is nothing more than parlor anarchism.

Appaling strawman. Let the reader decide what my notions are from my own words.

The point is, you can't pretend objective moral basis for your desire to reach into private spaces and prevent strangers from smoking at a remote distance, at least not without grounding and debate and democratic parley among the differing interests involved.

You can't pretend that the rights of smokers to fucking well kill themselves in the company of other smokers (and of some of them to earn a living as smoking bartenders while doing so!) were represented in the top-down discourses that have led to the present situation in the states that have banned smoking in ALL bars.

If there was a vote in New York to allow smoking in 1/3 of all bars by license, how do you think it will go? (I only just had that idea, so maybe you'll be hearing about it on a ballot in a year or two.)

How would you recommend society govern itself without such constructs? Or does society not require any governing, self- or otherwise?

Continuing same strawman.

I AM engaging in a debate within the structures of this democratic society's supposedly open government, and I do so in the confidence that, as things constantly change, one day this society will govern itself in a fashion that respects and protects individual rights, including of both non-smokers and smokers -- i.e., by ending total prohibition and letting smokers have their own fucking bars so they can smoke in peace while served by smoking bartenders who are happy to make the wage and get the tips.

Somehow you thread a path from smoking bans to puritan vice enforcement. You've stated as much several times. Sorry, but it's a total stretch. The ciggie-grabber community doesn't give a rat's ass about sin. They care about cancer, heart disease, and emphysema resulting from unwilling exposure to smokers' toxins.

Oh, really? Who do you think you are fooling, seriously?

So why can't smokers go smoke in peace at an indoor establishment with a big sign out in front that explicitly labels it as such? Certain elements of the "ciggie-grabbers" (nice term, it fits) want to invade and obliterate sites of perceived vice, or they wouldn't come up with the lame-ass justifications you've provided -- grounded in the concept of workers' rights, no less. Long as those workers aren't smokers, I guess.

And what's so barbarous about the term "hospitality workers?"

The problem perhaps is that it's not the least barbarous. It's perfect for the servers at a well-polished ladies' temperance bible reading group. It also fits, if what you're aiming for is a world under the antiseptic health dictatorship of the Surgeon General. (Inside joke for those who know a certain Frank Miller comic.)

Okay, MrModerate, have the last word, cos this need not go on forever for either of us.

As they say: SEE YOU IN HELL.

when i say "small privately owned", i'm referring to a neighborhood place where the owner is the bartender, and there isn't a waitstaff. and the bartender and all the regular patrons are smokers?

i'm in favor of the bans, i'm a non-tobacco-smoker, and i think that there should be a way for a bar to choose to be a smoking establishment.

But if the municipality bans it, maybe not legally. Family owned, perhaps, so that all "employees" are also "owners."

So in this exception you're prepared to allow, treating your children's health as incidental to your desire to own and run your own smokers' bar might be okay, or making your wife pretend she wants to work there, but hiring a willing adult smoker who isn't related to you but who genuinely wants to work as your bartender would be a horrible violation of workers' rights, comparable to slave trading.

And you say your "moral/ethical" pronouncements have nothing arbitrary in them, eh?

(I know, I know, last word I said... but I hadn't noticed this yet. And now truly: Bye-bye! See you in hell!)

Or, everything in the world is not derived from the concept of "gimme?" You haven't put forth a single argument that invalidates workers right. Apparently because you can't.

Ta-ta!

I do not believe that is legal. A person would not be able to get a job simply because they did not engage in such a dangerous habit.

I hear they're discriminating against anorexics. They also don't like people who are in the least reluctant to violently ram their bodies into the rib cages of armored others, which is well known as an extremely dangerous habit and borne out as a hazard scientifically in the statistics.

And they require their employees to overfeed! Being fat is the only risk factor that kills you even more than smoking, so saith the Actuarial Gods of Our Brave New World.

Or the modelling industry, discriminating against beautiful fatties like myself and encouraging self-starvation - a very, very dangerous habit and well recognized as an addiction and mental disorder by the modern medical community.

You need to bring this case to Walmart - they mainly want docile and stupid employees, and actively reject anyone who's too witty or self-assured in the greeter interviews. Docility and stupidity are very dangerous traits to cultivate, and can be shown to shorten lives.

Funny, the bar is guaranteed to hire someone on the basis of his or her personality and looks -- some bars will actually prefer rugged-ugly to pretty, it depends on the bar, right? -- or else the job goes to a friend of the management. But if a smokers' bar chooses to hire a smoker -- watch out, that's discrimination!

Remember, this isn't a classic Puritan anti-vice campaign, in which prigs are up in arms because someone somewhere is having a kind of fun they don't partake in. No, the argument against smokers' bars employing smoker barkeeps serving a smoker clientele is that we have to defend the workers' rights that are otherwise only ever trampled and laughed off in every other context of capitalist civilization.

warned it's a smoking establishment, and get over it? Like the poster said, a lot of bartenders and wait staff smoke. Also, a lot of non-smokers don't complain about smoke, so live and let live. Some bars should allow it, post signs and get on with making a living. No one is forced to work there.

Didn't you miss the posts up-thread where exactly what you are suggesting was equated with the SLAVE TRADE!!?!!

How dare you, madam?

My parents ran a successful bar and restaurant that allowed smoking, and every once in awhile they'd get a waiter or waitress that would whine about the smoky rooms. My Dad promptly informed them that no one was holding a gun to their heads to keep them working there. But of course, the whining only happened on slow nights, when the large tippers weren't there.

But when the place was booked solid, not one single word from the complainers. Hypocrites.

That means workplace health and safety is optional? Nonsense.

Funny how so many DUers suddenly forget all about workers' rights when smoking is being discussed. The "oh well, he can just get another job" argument can be used to justify all kinds of callous mistreatment of workers.

Anything less is an epic injustice.

The stimulus money would be very well spent in this sector, as well.

of things, but sorry that's not how life is. Drinkers tend to love to smoke, they pay your salary. What is the answer? Why can't everyone chill a bit more and realize life is not the same for everyone. Really if your gonna die, chances are it's already done. Sorry to say but don't you kinda think your time is with you from day one, from the day you are born ? IMHO Short of playing in traffic.

As far as bars and restaurants go, it should be up to the owner of bar or restaurant to determine what legal activities go on in his or her privately owned land. The consumers can make the decision weather or not to enter the property of the owner and spend their money there. I am not a smoker, but the no smoking ban in bars in my western PA hometown is putting a hurt on small bar owners.

ideally a bar or restaurant could provide seperate sections, with adequate ventilation systems, to accomodate both.

dp

Such systems don't really work, are hideously expensive, impose a huge anticompetitive burden on small publicans who can't afford them, and still expose employees to toxic gases.

Nope. Just have the smokers step outside.

Ah...

Then again, you could take YOUR ass outside.. you know... where the FRESH AIR is... but as long as you're the one getting to play control freak and tell others what to do, it's ok.. right?

If you don't want to breathe my smoke, there's plenty enough fresh air outside for *everyone*.. go enjoy some of it.

I owned a small restaurant.. the day the smoking ban kicked in here in Tennessee my business cut in HALF.... and I never recovered from it. Anyone who thinks smoking bans don't hurt businesses are just flat out stupid, in my not so humble opinion...

Is not the same as having the right to poison someone else. Sorry.

You have every right in the world to get up and leave if you feel you're being poisoned. No one is holding you down at your table and forcing you to stay there and breathe. I bet you didn't have a problem with smokers being taxed to death to fund SCHIP if it hadn't been vetoed, did you? What stake did *you* have in that bill? None, right?

Of course not. No taxes are completely fair. But the scent of spoiling red herring is in the air again.

Back to the point, as a patron, I would never visit a smoking-permitted bar. My choice.

As a hospitality worker, I would demand that every employer follow the laws regarding safe workplaces. As I've mentioned before, workplace health and safety is not optional.

By any chance are you opposed to the 40-hour week because it interferes with your "right" to extract greater value from your employees?

"Back to the point, as a patron, I would never visit a smoking-permitted bar. My choice."

See, you get it that you have the choice of where to patronize and where not to patronize. You have the choice of getting up and leaving. It should be the choice of each individual business owner whether they want to allow smoking inside their establishment or not. If they feel they can make it without the patronage of nonsmokers, so be it. The same for a business owner who decides to ban smoking in his/her extablishment. It should be a CHOICE, not a Government MANDATED decision. Period.

"As a hospitality worker, I would demand that every employer follow the laws regarding safe workplaces. As I've mentioned before, workplace health and safety is not optional."

Anyone putting in an application could ask whether it's a smoking establishment or not, then make their decision whether they want to work there or not. No one is forcing them into working there, are they?

"By any chance are you opposed to the 40-hour week because it interferes with your "right" to extract greater value from your employees?"

When I had my restaurant, I paid my employees higher than any other restaurant in the area... even the servers. I always paid overtime, too. I worked all my life, and know the value of good labor.

There are so many venues where smoking is not allowed, that any that do (through noncompliance or loophole) are freaks and not long for the world. A nonsmoker putting their nose in the door would do a quick 180 and find some other place.

And, no, no employer has the right to deny employment to a prospective worker because that worker insists the employer follow the law. Period.

The question was: "do you support smoking bans in public places (ie bars, restaurants)?" so, yes, it's ALL about patronage. It's not a public health issue, it's more fodder for the Nanny State.

The bottom line is: If you don't want to breathe smoke, don't patronize establishments that allow smoking. If you DO patronize them, don't whine about it...

The bottom line is: If you don't want to breathe smoke, don't patronize establishments that allow smoking. If you DO patronize them, don't whine about it...

This is why the Ciggie-Grabbing LAdies' Moderation Brigade (CG-LAMBs) has now discovered the Workers' Movement, see? The only sophistry they got against what you say is that it's a crime to offer a job at a smokers' establishment. Apparently more of a crime than offering a job in a tank blowing up Arabs, or at Walmart having the soul sucked out of you one minute at a time, because you're not going to see the CG-LAMBs nearly as angry about minor stuff like that. The important thing is that the sons of Dean Martin don't get to party like pop.

No one in this Country is *forced* to work anywhere. They aren't *forced* to patronize establishments that they don't agree with the policies of.

The government has no business whatsoever telling a business owner that he can't allow a legal activity in his place of business. This nothing more than an attempt by nanny staters & antismoke nazis to make smoking illegal.

Because it exposes people to second hand smoke against their will. People who want to go to a bar to smoke or to be exposed to second-hand smoke are not being exposed against their will, hence I'm not discussing them. Employees and potential employees (who have a legal right to a safe workplace) would be exposed against their will by the employer (who doesn't have a legal right to maintain an unsafe workplace).

So, unless there's some way around the "no right to maintain an unsafe workplace," then smoking needs to be banned in bars.

If an establishment allows smoking and you don't like smoking, don't put a fucking application in there. Period. It's that goddamned simple. What part of it are you having a problem grasping?

Where is *anyone* being to FORCED to work here? Is someone forcing YOU to work somewhere you don't like? What the problem is here as that there's too many nanny staters that want to whine about something *they* don't like, then force others to change to suit them.

I'll tell you what... you like to go to bars, right? Well, I don't like bars, they're a public health hazard. They serve products that alter the minds of their customers. Some of these customers become promiscuous and spread diseases as a result. Others patronize these establishments to feed their own addiction/disease. Many more of these patrons break laws and drive after consuming the products served in bars, which leads to numerous deaths of innocent people. What about the barmaids and/or servers who get followed to their cars and are assaulted by the drunk whose advances were turned down earlier by said barmaid/server? What about *their* legal right to a safe workplace? I have just proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that bars are a public health hazard... do you support banning them?

No employer has the right to maintain an unsafe workplace.

Period.

Saying "if you don't want to be breathe known, uncontrolled toxins, don't apply here," is wrong, and in most US jurisdictions, illegal. Employers don't get to deny employment to applicants because the applicants are unwilling to be exposed to unsafe and illegal conditions. (Contact sports like football are given a pass, primarily because the proportion of the population directly affected is microscopic, so the social burden is minimal. The same cannot be said of drinking and eating establishments.)

In *my* nanny state, employers don't get to kill people. If that's too restrictive for you, move to someplace where the respect for working people and human life is lower.

Your attempt to set up a strawman involving assaults on barmaids by drunk patrons is identical in character to every other example you've trotted out during this entire discussion: preposterous, irrelevant, illogical, and showing every sign of being driven by a platoon of personal demons nipping at your heels.

So good luck with all that. As I've said before, the tide of history is clearly against you. If you can't handle it gracefully, you're going to find the future very tough to bear.

You've been unable to come up with an intelligent response in.. what? ... 3 days now? Yet you keep trying to pass your nanny state views off as gospel. You were wrong yesterday, you're wrong today and, due to your seemingly willful ignorance, you'll be wrong tomorrow, next week, next month & next year, too.

You also seem to fail to understand that you don't have a *right* to work anywhere. You have a *choice* of where to put in applications. Like I said, if you don't want to work around people smoking, don't put in an application for work at a place that allows smoking. It's very simple to understand. For most people, anyways.

You also don't understand that you don't have a *right* to dine or drink anywhere, either. You have a *choice* as to whether you *want* to dine/drink somewhere, but you don't have a *right* to. A business owner, however, has a right to refuse service to *anyone*, for any reason.

Sorry, but nanny staters pushing their own selfish agendas don't cut it with me.

interviewed painter Salvador Dali on his show. Dali, a consumate showman and world-class asshole, was werbling and queeping on in some unintelligible fashion about the whichness of what and how his art had changed reality as we knew it. Cavett, never one to suffer fatuity gladly, turned in exasperation to the Great Man when he briefly paused for breath and uttered the immortal syllables: "wubba-wubba-wubba."

I can't beat that.

Wubba-wubba-wubba.

Bye now!

:thumbsup:

Does the wellbeing of their employees enter into the equation?

If I'm a factory owner and I don't want no damn gub'mint stooges telling my employees to wear safety glasses, it's my business, right?

Smoking is legal. He or she who applies for a job must make a decision if working in that smoky environment (which is legal) is the right thing for them. If cigarette smoke was that much of a bother to me, I don't think I'd apply to work at a smoky bar.

... and this differs from public smoking bans... how?

I don't mind going outside but I feel for the mom-and-pop places that lost business because of it.

Outside, no.

I am a smoker.

Schools, hospitals and offices, yes. Stores. Post offices. Restaurants where the main focus is food? Yup. Clubs where the main focus is live music or dancing? OK.

Neighborhood dive bars where all the employees and regulars are smokers? No, I think that's stupid. There should be places where people who like to smoke and drink at once can do that.

And I say this as a non smoker who really doesn't like smoke. I think the choice should be up to the owner. I probably wouldn't eat in a place that smells too strongly of smoke.

tux or tiara while puffing away? Or is it more about a really snooty attitude and the queen's English while drinking tea served in the best Royal Doulton Bone China in between drags?

and selected "Other." I think that as far as bars and nightclubs and, in particular, private clubs go, it should be left to the owner's discretion. I think that there are enough smokers and nonsmokers to support both kinds of establishments. With regard to workers being exposed to toxins, there are many, many types of work that expose employees to dangerous substances that have nothing to do with tobacco smoke. For example, nuclear plants, x-ray techs, nuclear scientists, construction workers, plumbers, etc. To my mind, those employees accept a certain degree of risk in doing their jobs and so could those people who choose to work in smoking establishments.

Ideally, I see no problem with restaurants having smoking areas that are closed off from the non-smoking areas, but I can deal with it. It's not like you're going to be in a restaurant for three or four hours.

But bars, I see no reason for a ban there. You're an adult, you're going there to drink. If someone doesn't like the smoke, go to a club or a TGI Fridays or something.

Seriously, that's the answer. People should be able to decide what kind of environment they want as owners and patrons, I'm still capitalist enough to relate to choice.

As far as workers that's just a lameass strawman. There will be plenty of each, go amongst your own and be happy.

Nothing sucks more than a smokeless bar. What's the point? If you like such freak shows then I'm sure all the non-smoking drinkers will develop their own locations that are properly lame and antiseptic.

..should be forced to inhale it. And I've acquired a taste for the cheap stuff, so it's really bad.

:)

PB

But if someone is in a bar, restaurant or other eating place, there is NO WAY they are likely a "non-smoker. Fact is, they are "second-hand smokers" whether they like it or not. Smokers can't get off so easily when there are more than their own lives at stake.

you go to where the air is clean and we'll go where we don't have to listen to whining.

The problem is that nanny staters aren't satisfied with breathing "clean" air, rather they feel they must impose their will on others.

If you don't like Indian food then don't keep going to Indian restaurants, the Italian place you love is down the damn street.

Restaurants: yes

Bars and clubs: should be up to the management.

for the Constitution or property rights.

(I am a non-smoker)

make it illegal once and for all for Christ Sake, or leave it be.

This is like complaining about having to wash your hands after using the bathroom.

Yeesh.

whether smoking should be allowed or not.

If you don't want to be around smokers, you are free to go somewhere else.

You have to protect laws that protect your workers, and no smoking laws are among them.

You can't have exposed wiring. You can't have needlessly slippery floors. You can't remove the protective guards around heavy machinery.

And in the more progressive state you can't needlessly expose your workers to carcinogens.

"It depends on whether you live in a free state or a slave state."

Oh, can the drama queen nonsense. Would you like to whine about laws against asbestos too?

Many people actually enjoy tobacco (I don't).

Believe it or not, you get to choose where you work in this country. But, I have no doubt that you would like to have control over that as well.

Just people who can't stop because they're hooked.

But that's all besides the point. You can't compromise your employee's, or your customer's, safety, just because they want to.

that just wouldn't be the same if you had your way.

I will say it again, you get to choose where you work in this country (for now).

"If my employees don't like it, they can work somewhere else."

Sorry, your argument fails.

environment. Aren't you special...

BTW, an argument for freedom always prevails over an argument for domination.

Didn't that vile old bag die of lung cancer, BTW?

You don't have the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater, you don't have the right to wipe your ass with a hamburger patty and serve it to a police officer, and in some of the better states you have to take measures to keep your employees from getting cancer.

Some scientists suspect that smoking may in fact cause cancer.

But the problem is second-hand smoke.

:eyes:

Oddly enough, they were the same states that grow tobacco. Even more oddly, they're the states that consider themselves "pro-life"

Now THAT is hilarious!

Or so I've heard. Don't smoke them myself.

Because they have the chance to get the hell away from control freaks like yourself.

Damn nazis.

Then I'm sure you can talk your employer, the world's biggest tobacco company, into bankrolling your trip.

Tell them you're trying to get the Romulans hooked on cigs. They'll pay for your whole vacation!

Think you can last that long without a smoke though? Can't have that onboard something with huge hydrogen fuel tanks, you understand.

Please tell me you did NOT just go there.

Enjoy your pizza.

do you think smokers do it on purpose so as to have no regard for anyone else, Whats you vice ?

Makes about as much sense, doesn't it?

Bottom line..... whatever carcinogens you want to put in your body are your own business. Just don't put them in mine. That's the only logical way to look at it.

If you don't want to put carcinogens in your body, stay out of my business.

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Actually, I think you are in the wrong place. You would no doubt feel more at home over there where they like to control other people's lives.

BTW, tobacco, like all industries, gives money to both sides.

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Oh, excuse me... I mean the "Altria" corporation :eyes:

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Or, "outside agitator."

Workplaces used to be a much more dangerous place.

Employers would say liberals had no business butting in. Besides, the workers like it when you leave off the protective guards. It makes their job easier.

or else you must be some kind of control freak who has no respect for the constitution.

Now bend over. I've had extra chiles and you're gonna love this. Extra juicy just for you. Bend over and take it you constitution loving toad who defends my right to fart into your face.

You deserve to have your face farted in.

If there was a consumer demand for non-smoking bars and restaurants, they'd be all over the place. What business does the state have telling private businesses they can't allow smoking in their bars? The only argument the shrill non-smoking faction has is concern for worker's health. IF the workers are willing to subject themselves to the almost assuredly over-blown effects of second hand smoke*, that should be their business.

I quit smoking over two years ago, but that doesn't lessen my disgust at the number of people willing to throw away rights in this country simply because they want to go poison their livers and not have their hair smell like smoke the next day.

*I was one of six kids growing up with two parents who smoked over a pack a day each. None of us developed any health concerns due to second-hand smoke. And I can say the same for pretty much every household in my neighborhood.

GODDAMN IT, IF I WANT TO SHOOT UP IN PUBLIC AND LEAVE MY DIRTY NEEDLES LYING AROUND SO THEY CAN STICK OTHER PEOPLE THEN THAT'S MY GOD GIVEN RIGHT, BECAUSE MY ADDICTION TAKES PRIORITY OF YOU WHINY ANTI-JUNKIES !!1!1!!!!!

:sarcasm:






















* the preceding message brought to you by George HW "Poppy" Bush and the Afghanistan Opium Growers Association.

as well as the true Crack Kingpin.

The combination -- Drug War + Drug Dealing -- is neither incidental nor contradictory. Prohibition and vice-trading go hand in hand, one creates and necessitates the other.

So your idea that it wouldn't be better to let heroin addicts get their stuff legally (and shoot up in clean, indoor spaces with medical care available, not in the bogus scenario you describe) is rather foolish. It is BECAUSE of prohibition that the conditions you present as a parody of legalization -- needles in the street, etc. -- exist. Prohibition puts the needles in the street. Probitition makes Bush and the Opium Growers rich. That is why they oppose legalization.

So please stop twisting fact and logic. Thanks.

of any sort after the disaster that the 18th amendment started in the 1920's.

Organized crime really thrives when the government tries social engineering through lawmaking.

I, too, think drugs should be legalized. The smoking Nazis are going to push too far pretty soon. They may already have. The banning of smoking in bars is probably going to be widely ignored and flaunted by many. There was another thread about "Smoke-easys" popping up all over the country.

When people start disrespecting some laws, it breeds contempt for other, more necessary laws.

I was a smoker in CA when it happened and everyone adapted fine. Just had to get used to going outside to smoke. OH went into effect and same thing. Now I'm a non-smoker for 9 years 8 days and I notice the difference in air quality and am pleased with it.

But that's as far as the bans should go. Trying to implement a ban outdoors in parks or in your own apartment is crossing the line.

just shut up. Go where it isn't ok if you feel that strongly or go where it's ok if you don't care. Lets talk about the three wars that are going on now. No one has to be around second hand smoke if they don't want to, enough, enough now. So you love the food but they still allow smoking too bad don't go there find some other food you love. No one has to go anywhere they don't want to- enough already. There will probably always be people who smoke until its illegal and until then just shut up and grin and bear it. No one ever needs to be around smokers if you don't want to and feel that strongly. Take another door into the office, don't go to the restaurant that still allows smoking. Order delivery so you don't have to walk by the door. If you can't afford delivery then go to the store. Stop being so hard on everyone that has a vice. All the anti smokers here tell us you have no vices! Why is it that anytime someone that doesn't smoke (but may have a million other problems) jumps on everyone who smokes. Before you jump on the disgusting smoking ban (and it is disgusting but smokers don't need you to point that out) can't you be kinder with people that have a real problem. Do you feel so superior because you never feel pray to smoking. But what is your secret? cause you know you have one.

:rofl:

I'm a smoker. My concern about the eating area was for children. I was just recognizing they don't have a choice where they are taken to eat.

After a few years of light smoking on and off and a few bouts of bronchitis, I now have full-fledged asthma (at 36). Breathing in smoke in indoor settings triggers an asthma attack (which can in it's severe form be deadly). I really don't want to breath something I'm allergic to so someone else can get their fix. When I did smoke, I'd go outside so others who didn't want to breath it, didn't have to. It's not that hard. If someone can't handle it, they should stay home in their own zone where they are free to do as they please.

want to. But you use to smoke, was it ok in your opion then ? Whatever, I don't care all I'm saying is you never have to be around any smoke if you don't want to. How about Bus fumes , can you be around those ?

I'd go outside around non-smokers. It was a no-brainer. As for bus fumes, I've never been in an enclosed building with a bus. If I stood for an extended period of time behind a bus, no doubt I'd have problems. However, not being a dumb ass, I doubt I'll be doing that anytime soon.

Addiction is pretty powerful reason for cognitive dissonance, isn't it?

I like to smoke when I drink so I really don't support the ban on bars unless the owners want to have a non smoking bar. But in other public areas I think it's acceptable.

Oh, I voted YES and I am a non-smoker (tho used to do a few herbal cigarettes)

Interesting poll --- do we see a trend? :)

Half of the respondents are opposed.

Nothing to stop people from running non-smoking establishments, and the customers can choose where to go.

Perhaps with the collapsing economy, more people will be forced to get their priorities straight and stop obsessing over this.

I think that there are so few things that people can control in their lives anymore, that relatively minor things loom large. Many are like "the princess and the pea" - no matter how many mattresses are stacked up, the sensitive princess can still feel that pea.

If you read historical documents - everything from personal diaries to novels - you will find people complaining about many irritating things; coal smoke, horse manure and many other things. But you will never find anyone complaining about tobacco smoke. Most of this uproar about smoking is in people's overly active imaginations, and in their emotional need to control others in a society in which they have little control over anything and little power or autonomy.

Taking on industrial polluters is difficult. Beating up on smokers is easy, and you get to feel self-righteous and kinda environmentall-y and "progressive."

I am more worried about the out-gassing solvents from everything from carpet to automobile interiors to CDs then I am anyone smoking around me.


.

people should be able to be free of cigarette smoke even in apartments. that's not the case now. if you are asthmatic and your neighbor smokes, then you suffer for their actions.

concentrations of pollutants in places with indoor smoking are often far worse than anything you breathe outside.

We all still smoke in the bars here in Philly, ignoring the idiotic ban.

Now if only they can ban them from casinos. Fat chance, I know. :)

I couldn't stand being stuck in the casino for hours waiting for the bus to come back and having to inhale that nasty smoke. The "non-smoking" section was a joke. It is so much cleaner now.

Regards

I usually reply, "No, mind if I fart?"

My answer is "No, mind if I fart?"

Sorry, duplicate post

Even before it opened, there was a huge sign on the window that stated that, along with the fact that no one under the age of 21 could enter.

I asked one of the waitresses how that was working out. She laughed, and told me people still come in, order a meal, and then complain about the smoke and that the kids aren't allowed.

There are several other restaurants within a mile or two that do not permit smoking.

:shrug:

Public areas yes i.e Yerba Buena Ctr for the Arts park & commons is all non-smoking http://www.ybca.org Bars while patronizing 'the public', are not per se public in that people go there for less that public reasons, same with restaurants though theyir being more confined spaces. Walking down the street puffing on a cig blowing smoke on people at a stoplight? Look, if you can't wait till you get out of *public-range* then you got a problem and it ain't mine

Who the Hell goes to a bar and does NOT expect to be around smoke?

If you do not like being around smoke, then stop going to smoke filled bars. How fucking dumb can you be?

But airspace got invaded. :eyes:

Then again, I live in Arizona where it's a beautiful 70 degrees most of the time in January. :)

Seriously, I have no problem refraining from my habit in the workplace and restaurants.

Smoking is a smelly, unhealthy habit, but demonizing people who smoke isn't the way to go.

I think whether or not to allow smoking should be up to the individual establishment owner. Total smoking bans are a sign of creeping fascism.

If the French are okay with it, then anyone else on the whole fucking planet should have no problem banning smoking in bars and restaurants!

on the planet. Those guys are born with ciggies in their mouths, then the doc lights it up and that's the baby's first breath.

So if they can quit smoking in cafes and bars, where they have a Eurotrash image to uphold, then it shouldn't be a problem for anyone else.

Oh, and BTW, the other French stereotype I can attest to is not true: There are PLENTY of fat French women in Paris!!!! (Probably gained the weight when they quit smoking!!)

designating it as a "cigarette friendly" establishment,I'm ok with it.

...anyone going into a bar should just deal with the smoke. Every other public place, I support a ban.

(Full dislosure - I have COPD, so that colors my attitude a tidge.)

Disclaimer: I have allergic asthma and cigarette smoke triggers it.

If anyone had any compassion, empathy, or concerns for asthmatic folks like myself, they'd support a ban.

Asthma affects an estimated 17 million people in the US alone and is a growing problem.

At work, in the hospital, on airplanes.

All the people whining about health concerns in bars are fucking hypocrites.

I would rightfully be kicked out of any restaurant if I were to insist on lighting incense sticks that smelled like rotting intestines. I don't see why sticking it in your mouth makes it any better.

Yet because of the area I live, a huge number of people who live around me smokes, most of my friends do. So whenever I hang out with them, I'm forced to take the abuse except when we're in either of my two vehicles.

but that's a personal opinion. Where I live (British Columbia), the issue was trumped completely by workers' compensation regulations. Smoking creates an unhealthy work environment, and is therefore not acceptable.

In many places, you can't even smoke outside, and never within a certain distance from the entrance to a public building, or under an overhang.