Smoking ban...exactly what is a public place?

Answer... it has been effected.

linky

Additionally, this argument is also made with regards to NYC and California. The anti-smoking brigade drags out numbers that seem to indicate that the bar and restaurant business has actually improved since the ban went into effect. Wow... bar owners are rolling in money!

Except that it's a damn lie. Food only restaurant profits are up, (most such establishments were already non-smoking even before the ban) and bar profits are down dramatically.

In the field, this is called 'data dredging.' It's also called 'lying through one's teeth and using deceptive numbers to back oneself up.'

It is because if smoking is legal in bars, then people will smoke there...

as for it being private establishments such as arenas and stuff, it infact in many places is a government by-law prohibited smoking in such "public" venues.

Ultimately I do think an open-to-the-public bar should be non-smoking.

I did mention a work-around -- a private establishment. Which usually requires papers to be signed and an official membership, but at least that way not EVERY bar is haunted by smoking which is the problem to begin with.

Besides, I still don't think it's that big of a deal to take smoking outside. If you're afraid of car-exhaust, what the heck are you doing smoking, let alone leaving your house?

Even then, car ehaust has fewer chemicals in it than tobacco... so what's a little more exhaust anyway?

Again... for the last time... I'm not saying no one should smoke anywhere. I just think that it's not a big deal to make smokers smoke outside.

As for bar owners... everyone in Canada thought it was going to be the end of them.... but they're still packed on their usual nights, except now smokers step outside to have a smoke when they need one and the air in the club... is cleaner! It was such a trip walking into a bar the first week of the ban and not feeling like I "wafting through" something. I could breathe.. which was nice because I stopped going to clubs and bars because the second hand smoke kept giving me cravings.

I could go out and have fun again.

Same with my gf. She's allergic to it -- gives her dry skin and rashes. She can finally go out and not have to "bear with it."

So far I've only seen benefit in forcing smokers to smoke outside.

Now if regulation went as far as to ban it from even smoking on a sidewalk -- ok that's too far and wholly unnecessary.

An open-to-the-public bar IS a private establishment!

Try this just to humor me... Go back and reread your posts but substitute smoking with something else.... anything else.... try "eating fatty foods" or "playing hockey" or "watching tv programs with naughty words." Think of something that you like to do that has the potential to harm others, like "driving." Does the very tiny (and unproven) decreased risk of adverse effects to your well being warrant taking away the right of everyone else to enjoy those things? Are you so important that your personal distaste for something outweighs the rights of millions of people who don't mind it? If you go into a smokey bar or restaurant it's your choice to be there. No one is forcing you. Do you go to friend's houses and make them change the music they're playing because it doesn't suit your taste? If you don't like a movie do you make everyone in the theater who's enjoying it leave? The world doesn't revolve around you, your health, or the springtime freshness of your wardrobe. If you don't like smokey bars or restaurants, don't go. Regulate your own behavior, rather than trying to legislate everyone else's.

Okay Chip; it's not that I haven't been listening to your point of view. I understand that many people like to smoke and should have the right to of course. It's not my place to say that you shouldn't. Nor am I arguing that we should alienate anything that could be potentially harmful to our lives.

Here's a great example of what I'm saying -- let's say I'm a former smoker who gave it up because I started having allergic reactions causing hyperventilation and skin irritation. My favorite band is coming to play at a local bar. I can't go because it'll be full of smokers.

.. not exactly a lot of comprimise there.

So while we have polar arguments: you don't believe smoking is all that bad for you, I believe it is very bad for you. You don't seem to think it harms anyone around you, I think it does harm everyone around you. You think you should have the right to light up in an indoor venue where there are non-smokers, I think you should take it outside and come back in when you're done smoking.

Problem is, I've even tried to start a middleground solution... and I haven't heard any yet.

The thing is, a bar just like a privately owned arena, or a privately owned condominium, is publicly accessible. Except that condos and arena have by-laws that say you're not allowed to smoke in the elevators or in your seat at the hockey game.

When we talk about giving the government too much control -- come on. The government does a lot more to screw you. So if anyone is up in arms to ban cars if smoking is going to get banned... I hope you can see the failed logic.

See... the issue is not annoying brats, kittens, or cars. The issue is that a bar is a public business because it allows anyone to walk in and enjoy the place. Which means everyone in that bar has to share the air... and as we all know, we need air to live. When you light up a cigarrette, you're fullfilling a desire you have to smoke tobacco and at the same time, you're making someone's day unpleasant or worse.

Leave? Walk away if you don't like it? No. If it's an open bar and anyone can walk in there, so can I. When you light up, you're hurting my right to clean smoke-free air. Why do I have to suffer for your enjoyment? Because I don't smoke and I should?

It's not a difficult thing to stand up and go outside to have a cigarrette. I'm repeating myself yet again. It's not the most horrible thing in the world and in the situation up here, the smoking ban has improved the bar experience for everyone. No one is losing money, smokers can still smoke, and non-smokers can dance without hacking up a lung with the rest of the smokers.

So unless we're talking about a solution, can we stop just repeating ourselves?

Your 'way' doesn't work to well either, Icon. Banning smoking in *all* bars puts the shaft to one set of folks. Allowing smoking in *all* bars, shafts a different set of folks.

Letting business owners decide what the environment of thier business should encompass, yes, including the decision to allow or deny smoking, is the only way both sides can be appeased.

i think cigarettes should cost 20 $ a pack. i don't think even the 50% taxes are enough to cover the drain smokers present to the public health system.

I think that's a start, Juro really I do. But I don't think it's enough.

There isn't incentive enough for bar owners to make a particular bar a "non smoking" bar as long as there are smokers out there or enough non-smokers that will actually stay at home and skip out on all the fun.

Especially if the bar is a music venue. Being a musician especially is a pain in the ass when you get gigs in small clubs and everone is smoking. Has a way of ruining your voice by the end of the night. Maybe it's just me.. I know a few singer I can name off who smoke on stage. I don't get how they can do it.

But anyway, I think it's a good start... but there has to be an incentive for the classification, which I thought the exclusive club idea served. Basically, you set up a bar except it's not open to the public. You have to become a member of the club that owns the bar... but once you're a member, you can go to that bar and smoke away like it's nobodies business.

It requires a little more paperwork than a "typical bar," but smoking is hard to deal with since it does fill the air that we all breathe.

chip i doubt these problems are because of smoking laws but because the american economy is down. the chains can whether the storm better.

in ottawa, where i currently reside, there is a city wide no smoking policy in bars, restaurants and clubs. it was a fairly easy shift and half a decade later, i still see all the same establishments doing very well. what is different now is that a lot of them have established patios, which are heated in the winter, to accomodate smokers.

i like the idea of leaving it up to the owner, but that would lead to descriminatory hiring practices based on the applicants smoking or non-smoking status. it just couldn't work under the larger framework for equal access.

Having seen the before and after here in CA, I can say that there is definatly room for both. Lots of my friends, myself included, like the smoke-free bars. But, there's also a lot of my friends (me too on occassion) that would like to have a drink and a smoke, w/o having to prop up a wall outside.

I don't really like the idea of having to join a 'club' or private bar to make this idea work.. Although, I would support it if *every* bar were a private club.

I think there are enough bar patrons on both sides to handle a variety of bars.

With that said, good ventilation goes along way. Constant circulation of fresh air would drastically help to reduce the amount of lingering smoke. I think the best example of this is by visiting any of the new mega-casinos in Vegas. They're not like the old, smoky, stinky ones at all. They pump tons of fresh air in all the time, and unless you're sitting fairly close to a smoker, you really can't smell it.

I think it could work, you'd just have to have to make sure the potential employee understands the risks involved with working at a smoking bar. A release of liability probably wouldn't hurt either.

Maybe build on that idea more. The pain is when a public access bar becomes a popular venue. Then you have non-smoker who don't pollute the common air of the venue and smokers that do.

Currently establishments can offer smoking rooms, but they have to be isolated and seperately ventilated from the rest of the establishment... which is expensive to integrate into existing establishments.

I still don't see it being such a huge pain in the ass to walk outside for a smoke, but if it's such a big deal, I'm glad a viable alternative can still be discussed. I think for the most part these last couple posts have been actually contructive.

First time I think in all my posts where things are being discussed and built upon. Wow.

You aren't the one that has to go out in the rain to smoke.

I guess if you're allergic to rain... but if you smoke, I'd imagine that'd be the least of your worries.

You non-smokers may as well be bible thumpers. You already have the self righteousness down pat

This is going to sound harse...

To the smokers, where you forced to take up smoking in the firts place? If non-snokers can live their lives without cigarettes (sorry, but it is a drug), why do you think you need the fag? Surely the will power to non smoker would be a greater achievment to be listened to and be taken seriously.

How about people who take vitamin tablets everyday, exercise, drink your 9 million bottles of water a day to keep healthy then go out for a meal with friends and then get bombarded by some1 elses smoke. These people have went out of their way to care for themselves and spent money on their health, just to be ruined by a smokers smoke. How would a smoker like a big fat sweaty hairy greasy not washed in a couple of weeks person rubbing your face in their armpit everytime you went to a bar.... That's not even as seriouse as what passive smoke is, yet it is unpleasent.

I think smokers are being selfish over the ban. Was this much bickering going on when they banned smoking in Malls etc.? It's something your going to have to get used to, because as we all know, the law is very hard to go against.

And actually, Ireland is not a dictative state. It has just as much freedom, if not more as any other places

*No personal attcks intended by this post*

No shit Chip. The equal access load of bull almost made me fall out of my chair. I know that I do not want to take the risks involved to be a deep sea welder. It is an extremely dangerous job with very lucrative pay. The employers discriminate against employees who are unwilling to risk their lives in shark infested waters in order to make a mint deep sea welding. There is always discrimination in the work place if we follow the Wu-train of logic. It is up to the employee to assess the risk and determine whether or not the risk is proportionate to the pay. (I can say from experience that bartending in a smoking bar is worth the risk because, well, smokers are better tippers, complain less and generally have better bar attitudes. )

As I have said before the non-smoking bars in my town book first rate bands. They are always packed (of course most of the band is found standing outside smoking between sets). The smoking bars are no different. They also get great bands but the band is out hanging with the audience between sets. There is room in this world for both types of bars. You can go to yours and I will go to mine. To tell you the truth, it seems that the non-smokers are just jealous because most smokers are not a bunch of stuffed shirt whiney assed brats complaining that the rest of the world will not conform to their comfort level. Pfft.

I still say that if smoking is banned based on faulty risk assesments then religion should be banned based on the known risks it poses to the entire human race.

Ohh and adrenaline is a drug too...so don't tell me that these health nuts are not junkies as well. The human race lasted a long time without "One a Day" extract of health vitamin packs and Steriod Flex machines.

A person rubbing my face in their armpit is commiting assault. When I smoke in a smoking bar it is not. You decided to go in to the bar knowing it was a smoking establishment. If I smoke in a non-smoking bar I am breaking the rules of the establishment and should be kicked out. Bottom line it is the right of the owner to allow or dis-allow smoking.

Risky business:

http://www.13.waisays.com/cancer.htm
Mutagenics in Prepared Food

Consuming prepared meat increases the risk of contracting lung cancer (1), breast cancer (2), prostate cancer (3), and colon cancer (4).

This only means that prepared meat contains more mutagenic substances than prepared food. Of course vegetarians get cancer too, though in general a little less (5), because vegetarians do consume prepared food, but no prepared meat.

Prepared vegetables contain less mutagenic substances than prepared meat. Therefore, 2 out of 3 scientific investigations show that consuming prepared Soya beans instead of prepared meat, causes less cancer. (6) And therefore these scientists conclude that 'soy is protective against cancer'. This however only means that, on an average basis, soy (and other vegetables) causes less cancer than prepared food.

Generally, consuming vegetables ‘proves to be protective against cancer’, simply because consuming vegetables is less cancerous than consuming other prepared foods.

However ; all prepared foods (including vegetables) contain mutagenic substances. (see this site) Foods increasing cancer risk the most, are prepared foods containing higher quantities of protein (like meat (7) and fish (), most fat (9), cholesterol (like eggs) (10) or iodide (like sea-fish, crustaceans and mollusks) (11).

Food that has been intensively heated, smoked (12), or salted (13), also highly increases cancer risk.

All prepared foods also contain non-HCA damaged protein, which is partly decomposed in the blood, originating free radicals. All prepared foods therefore will eventually cause cancer, ....if you live long enough.

http://ga.essortment.com/foodadditivesp_rser.htm
As an example consider the following:

Your decaffeinated coffee probably contains the solvent methylene chloride.

Your orange flavoured drink has tricalcium phosphate, cellulose gum, Xanthan gum and the colour tartrazine which is already banned in some countries.

Your yellow cheese has added colouring, possibly titanium oxide which is banned in Europe.

Your bread may have sodium-stearoyl-2-lactylate, caramel and calcium propionate.

Your margarine contains potassium sorbate and monoglycerides.

Your pickled cucumbers probably contain polysorbate 80, alum and artificial colourings.

Your sausages contain nitrites, which are known to cause cancer.

The list is almost endless but this brief look should give some idea of the threats.

Worse though, are those additives that you cannot determine from information on a label.

The US Environmental Protection Agency at one time identified 24 chemical carcinogens that went right through the chain and ‘appeared' on the dinner plate. These were the herbicides, pesticides and fungicides so liberally applied through the growing process of plant foods. Animals carry their own hidden "additives" with hormones for growth and increased milk production, antibiotics freely given to farm animals to prevent and cure animal sicknesses and residue from various chemicals given to ward off insects etc. Chickens are given mixtures containing copper sulphate, lead and arsenic to help growth and many of these remain in the meat and eventually find their way into the human intestinal tract.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=31052

In a 20-year study of childhood leukemia cases in an Italian province, children living near busy roads had an increased risk of developing the disease, according to an article in the International Journal of Cancer.

The study is not the final word on the possible link between traffic and cancer, but it "provides further evidence of a relationship between exposure to traffic exhausts and childhood leukemia," according to a team led by Dr. Paolo Crosignani at the National Cancer Institute in Milan.

The researchers note that benzene, which is found in car exhaust, is an established cause of leukemia.

Leukemia is the most common type of childhood cancer, but the cause is unknown for the most part. Several studies have detected an association between exposure to traffic exhaust and childhood and adult leukemia, but other studies have not found a link.

Crosignani's team tracked cases of childhood cancer in the Varese province in northern Italy from 1978 to 1997. For each of the 120 children with leukemia, researchers identified four children of the same age and gender who did not have cancer.

To measure exposure to traffic fumes, researchers sampled the air outside each child's home for benzene. They took into account traffic density and weather patterns, which can affect levels of benzene in the air.

Children exposed to the highest levels of benzene were almost four times more likely to develop leukemia than unexposed children. Exposure to intermediate levels of the chemical was associated with about a 50 percent increased risk.

Just a side note: there is far less evidence proving that ETS is a Class A carcinogen yet the EPA pushed the study through by altering the results to validate their hypothesis.
http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/all_page?item_id=9346
An estimated 33,440 new cases of leukemia will be diagnosed in the United States this year. Acute leukemias account for nearly 25 percent more of the cases than chronic leukemias. Most cases occur in older adults; more than half of all cases occur after age 67. Leukemia is expected to strike 11 times as many adults as children in 2004. (About 30,580 adults compared with 2,860 children, ages 0-19). About 30 percent of cancers in children ages 0-14 years are leukemia. The most common form of leukemia among children under 19 years of age is Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). Smoking in bars is far more important...right?

http://biorganic.ifrance.com/biorganic/additives.htm
Potassium nitrite (E249), sodium(E250), sodium nitrate (E251), potassium nitrate (E252) All preservatives inhibit yeasts, moulds and bacteria Cooked meats, salt meats, tinned meat, foie gras.
Cooked meats, salt meats, tinned meats, hard and semi-hard cheeses, cheese substitutes, herrings in vinegar.
Dangers:
- Chemically very reactive: they can make carcinogenic nitrosamines with amino-acids.
- Oxidises the iron in the blood. The resulting methaemoglobin can no longer fix oxygen, causing cyanoses, cephalagia.
- Increases hypertension.
- Provokes allergies: migraines, urticaria...

Erythrosine (E127) Red
Exclusively in cherries and cocktail cherries, glacé cherries, cherries in syrup, at a level of 0.015% to 0.02%. 0.1
- Mutagenic. At high doses it causes, in rats, thyroid tumours, hormonal changes, neurophysiological troubles.......

So let's all get in our cars, drive by some kids playing ball, go to the bar, drink a glass of white wine with a cherry on top, order some potato skins smothered with processed cheese product and prepared meat, call the waitress back for some yeasty white bread cheese sticks oozing with semi hard cheese and pepperoni (and another glass of white wine with a cherry on top) and laugh at those dangerous cancer causing smokers standing outside...pfft.

.. and I suppose smoking makes you humble and wise.

Come now... we almost had a discussion going.

I doubt a smoking bar would become popular with the non-smoking crowd. Biker bars are not exactly popular with the yuppie crowd, are they? People will gravitate to a bar that offers them the type of atmosphere they want. So what if a smoking bar became popular. Noone is making non-smokers go to it.


Quite possibly because you're not the one who would have to step outside into the freezing/snowing/raining/humid/hot night air.

When I was a smoker, I did walk outside to have a smoke. Because I didn't want to just light up and make the non-smokers deal with it or leave.

If you smoke, then you're affecting the people around you. Some of those people may not want to smoke. There isn't a problem with not wanting to smoke and there are a million reasons not to.

The problem I think with making it a free choice for business owners who operate bars is that they've had that free choice this whole time and 99% of them offer smoking. That's why legislation is coming into place because this whole time, non-smokers couldn't do anything about it except deal with it or leave. Which is totally not fair -- just because someone missed out on the "cool train" and didn't start smoking, they should stay at home or scour the city for the one non-smoking bar?

That doesn't really sound like a middle-ground solution to me.. sounds more like a pro-smoker solution. Okay, so what else can be done?

Many venues in Canada where there is a smoking ban offer tents or awnings over their patios in the winter now, with heaters. Combine that with other venues that may have seperately ventilated rooms and there should be plenty of choices for smokers.

Either that or have a denomination that gives bar-owners a stronger incentive to be smoke-free. Otherwise you might as well drag along your whiny kids, your flufiest kittens, your screeching brakes, your loud boomboxes, and whatever other nuisance and or allergy inducing thing you can find and just sit in a bar and see how many people you can tick off.

Because when you sit and a bar and light up... that's what you're doing. There may be other smokers in that bar who don't care and think it's great... but there are non-smokers there too who didn't do a thing to make your day suck.

You guys should legalize marijuana and open some "coffee shops" where you could buy and smoke whatever you wanted.
I'll have a cupcake, some coffee, and a pack of camel droppings, por favor!

Herein lies my problem with broad bans on smoking. Biker bars have to adhere to the bans too, yet 90 or more percent of the patrons smoke. I was listening to local talk radio here and they talked to owners of several bars that are pretty much sit down and drink, smoke, shoot the breeze types of places and many of them already realize they won't make it after the bans are in place come March. Their customers have basically told them they will either stay home or go across the river to another county and hang out where there is no ban. One of these bars, in North Minneapolis called Irv's has been a fixture since at least the 60s and they have already announced they will be closing down come ban time. The owner said that she and her customers feel as if they are being chased out of town. This is a prime example of why there should be exemptions. Irv's serves popcorn and that is all the food you will get there. It is not a restaurant.

The restaurant/bar I work in spent 12K plus USD 2 years ago walling and sealing off the bar, and installing AC/heat for the bar. It does not share air with the rest of the building. Now, a little over 2 years later, they are being told they have to stop smoking in there. They were proactive on the issue without government intervention and look what it got them. 12k in the hole.

I am not against bans against smoking in restaurants or restaurant bars that share air. I am not against smoking bans in arenas etc. I am against bans in places which are bar only or with seperate bars.

I would like to touch on the point some have made about the poor employees forced to work in bars with smokers. Thanks for the concern, honestly I mean that. Concern is one thing, but when you start to try to force people change their behavior because you're worried about my health, that's crossing the line. I am a part-time bartender who has never smoked in my life and I am fully aware that it may be dangerous for my health. I am not your child so please don't base your reasoning for being pro-ban on bar employee's health.

funny you should say that

It was done in Belfast one day and i mean A DAY and it was so weird, the police laughed and told them nicely to stop allowing the stuff to be smoked in it.

I'd hardly call a smoking ban not doing a thing to make my day suck, or the days of those that are losing their jobs and businesses. "Make your privately owned business something that I enjoy or I'll force you by law!" Great attitude.