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

i have no problems with smoking bars for smokers. all i am saying is good luck making it work. it won't happen. there is too much going against smokers.

and also, deep sea welders get paid well over 300$/hr. waitresses in a bar get paid 4.50$/hr +tips.

Prior to these bans, where were the wealth of bars offering no-smoking environments? You keep saying non-smokers can go somewhere else if they don't like it, because of the behavior of smokers. When it was left up to the business owners, you had patrons subjected to cigarette smoke. Well then if there are no non-smoking places, then I guess non-smokers just won't go to bars then. Well, voila, the same can be said for smokers - except that non-smokers are not doing anything that is affecting the health and comfort of those around them. You can make all the bullshit statements you want about smoking not being harmful, but it affects many people adversely to be around it. So just avoid the cigarette smoke, right? If there were non-smoking places without them being forced, I would say more power to you, have your smoking bars and smoke yourself into fucking oblivion for all I care. However, that has never been the reality. In workplaces, it wasn't the reality there either until there were laws on the books to prevent it. Same with airlines. The fact that non-smokers could just go elsewhere is a laughable argument.

these laws are great in my opinion. sucks to be a smoker, but it's a good way of getting rid of smoking over the course of several generations. smokers are a huge financial drain. and they hurt not only themselves but their friends and families.

it's difficult to make smokers quit and making it illegal wouldn't work. as a pack a day smoker at one time i know i would have broken as many laws as necessary to smoke. but curbing the smoking population over a few generations will make it much easier to make it illegal in 100 yrs.

perhaps you didn't notice - nobody smokes in star trek.

Then you don't patronize those establishments. Your distaste for cigarette smoke shouldn't outweight the rights of everyone else. If it was economically attractive, restaurants and bars would offer non-smoking alternatives of their own accord, and in many places they do. There was never a law that said an establishment couldn't be non-smoking was there? Your freedom wasn't taken away, your particular demographic was just underserved. Now there are laws saying that a business owner CAN'T cater to smokers. Do you not see the difference?

Why do you think we already pay about $4.00 in pure tax on each pack of cigarettes? Fat people are a MUCH bigger financial drain. I say roll the fat people onto a scale once a year and tax them by the extra pound.

http://www.webmerchants.com/spectrum/Smoking_Tolerance.htm

pretty good article from a non-smoker.

Has anyone come up with some proof yet on how much money the smokers are costing the health care system? (as opposed to how much the cars we drive cost everyone in so many ways)

I'll bet it was just a case of having no idea how much of a demand, if any, there would be for smoke-free bars. As we've seen from the ban in certain places, there is a large demand for them, but there is also a demand for a 'smoking-allowed' bar.


That's arguable. Don't fool yourself into thinking drinking cannot and does not affect those around you.


I wasn't making that statement, Cristiano. I was simply saying, why does it have to be so damn black and white? Why can't there be smoking and non-smoking bars? The demand is out there for both, whats the problem?


You're absolutely correct on this one. It's pretty difficult to change planes at 35,000 feet to get away from smoke-filled air. And, it's a major life change to quit your job to look for one that is a smoke-free environment.

Walking out of a smoke-filled bar is much, much simpler.

Chip... I'm afraid I have nothing left to say.

If it's going to destroy the bar industry and ruin the lives of smokers everywhere... what can I say?

It's obviously not cool to be a non-smoker and expect to have fun in a bar.

I just wish they'd let me smoke my kittens in public.

we can wish. unfortunately fat people represent 40% of canadians and 65% of americans. they will veto any proposition to tax them appropriately. they tried a fat tax in ontario and i think they lost the election for it.

they are a huge drain too, but not as much as smokers. 4$ just isn't enough. it should be 15$

Beleive it or not 'my ass' is a public place!

I wouldn't advise smoking near it though - for the obvious reasons.

FIREBALL!!!

It's kinda hard to STAY AWAY from it when you are having a nice meal in a restauraunt, and then some inconsiderate lout comes in and stinks up the place.

Shut up you HEATHEN!

Here's some differences between banning a loud kid or a smelly person from a restaurant:

-Smoking is MUCH more common. It's probably more common than all occurances of other "annoying problems" combined.

-Other things like a trouble making kid will readily be taken care of by the working staff, if it's way out of control. Would a smoker ever be asked to take it outside if it was bothering others, in a non-smoke-free environment? No, and they'd be offended if they were anyway. Not only that, but people have more courtesy, in general, about other things. At least they realize that their kid is causing a disturbance. Often smokers don't even consider asking if anyone else minds, and it's impossible to do in public anyway.

-Secondhand smoke is also a much easier thing to fix than a rank customer or a loud kid. Either go outside or hold out for (oh, my god!) one entire hour without a cancer stick. Problem solved. Much harder to shutup a kid. You can't put a kid out (legally), and you can't "take them outside". Unless it's to beat their ass so they shut up. lol...

I don't care what "studies" say this or that about the risks of smoking anymore. At this point it's obvious that it's harmful to smokers themselves, and any secondhand smoke study will be called "biased" one way or another. It's not beyond belief that there's going to be some kind of effect however minor, to non-smokers. Out of that list of crap they put into the things, not one of them is carcinogenic? Or maybe it is, but all of that crap gets stuck in the smoker and doesn't end up in the air at all? That is a little beyond belief to me.

Anyway it's not just the health effects to discuss here--you can't dispute the fact that it's annoying, and far more common than other annoyances out there.

I don't think I'm in support of an entire ban, but a requirement for a nonsmoking area is a damn good idea. I don't even mind a smoking section, as long as it's VERY well designed so that the crap doesn't spill over into the smokefree areas. (There should be some kind of standards in place to ensure it doesn't.) Having something like that should be up to the private business to decide on. I think Juro and Cris are on the right track here but I'd rather combine the ideas. "Optional smoking section with well designed ban enforcing nonsmoking areas." Possibly with some "ban exceptions" in cases where it's not possible to divide a small place up into smoking/nonsmoking because of it's design or whatever. Mostly small private businesses should be the only ones to enjoy that kind of privilege. (Anyway it gives them a small competitive advantage over corporations, if they attract lots of smokers. Not a bad thing.)

Not the simplest solution, but a compromise seems to work out the best, if you can afford the extra law/bureaucracy.

hehe Every notice that heathen and heaven are very similar?

the ignorance of smokers must be forgiven. smokers are addicts and therefore have trouble thinking rationally in this regard.

The welcome area.

No they aren't! You take that back!

On the 'loud kid' front, restauraunts should have age limits. No children under 5. If families wanna eat out thats what McDonalds is for. What? You can't afford a baby-sitter. Then what the hell are you wasting money on expensive food for? Same with movie theaters. If it ain't a g-rated movie get that rug monkey outta there! 'Children should be seen, and not heard'. Unless they are under 10 then they shouldn't be seen either. The cops have the right idea lately. TAZE the little bastiches!

This message brought to you by an ornery cherub tired of the bashing his image takes from screaming ripened human fetuses.

But... if you taze them, they start to cry... no?

Just for a second or two.....