San Diego, California, 10 or 12 years ago: A group of us were going to dinner, and we planned to meet at the bar near the pool. I ordered a bottle of beer and lit up a smoke. I asked the bartender for an ashtray, and he looked at me as if I were from Mars. "You can't smoke in here!" he said.
That was my first experience with the anti-smoking hysteria that has taken over this country. I do not dispute that cigarettes are not good for you, and I believe that people should be able to enjoy a smoke-free environment. What I do not believe is that the government has the right to tell a business owner -- particularly a bar owner -- that he or she cannot allow smoking in their establishment.
About four years ago, the Columbus City Council banned smoking in virtually all public places in our fair city. Some suburbs followed suit, but not all. So you had a situation in which it was possible to smoke in a bar on Olentangy River Road, but not in a bar a half mile away on 5th Avenue.
Since then, the entire state has gone smokeless, so no bar has any advantage over any other bar.
No one has ever been forced to patronize a bar, and no one has ever been forced to work at a bar. The do-gooders who promoted the smoking ban claimed that people wanted smoke-free bars. Fair enough. If the demand was there, all one had to do was open such a bar, and see what kind of business it would do. Then people could make their choices about which bar they wanted to patronize, and the property rights of all bar owners would be protected.
This was never a health issue. It is a property rights issue, and property rights are a bedrock of our social and economic way of life. Using the logic of the smoking ban, it is not so far-fetched to envision a day when perfume and cologne are banned in public places. It sounds ridiculous to even suggest such a thing, but the same could have been said for a smoking ban 20 years ago.
UPDATE: Found this little gem the day after original post. From 1992 (and no surprise, it's California):
8 comments:
There are many who feel this way
www.smokersclubinc.com
www.smokersclubinternational.com
www.forces.org
Smoking kills people. You should quit. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
On this matter, we must agree to disagree. Smoking is horrible. Government has a duty to discourage people from indulging in this insane activity just as much as it has a duty to discourage people from murdering each other or abusing children. I am grateful to America for leading the way on anti-smoking legislation. This encouraged first Ireland and then the UK to follow suit. My friend Trog died horribly of lung cancer caused by his nicotine habit. That's just one reason why I despise smoking and the pro-smoking brigade.
No doubt. So does eating too much and drinking too much.
Yes, YP, we must agree to disagree. The distinction here is that smoking is not the same as murdering or abusing someone else. If I'm sitting on my porch smoking, it doesn't harm anyone else. I firmly believe in the right of the individual to do as he or she pleases, as long as it does no intentional harm to anyone else.
One of my concerns about the anti-tobacco hysteria (and I am using that term intentionally) is that now they are going after employers to raise the health insurance premiums on tobacco users. I smoke, but I also eat sensibly, I exercise, and I am a good driver. The logical extension of the premium increase for smokers is an increase on fat people, and on people who don't exercise, and on people who use their mobile phones while driving. But how likely is that to happen? Not very. It is a dangerous thing to go after a segment of society that is doing something legal, but with which you disagree, because undoubtedly there is something that you do that others will find disagreeable, and you'll be next.
As a smoker and an adult who hates being told what to do I have to firmly disagree with YP. Yes smoking is bad for you but every day millions of people participate in activities that are "bad" for them and have harmful consequences to others and the environment. Unfortunatly, these activities do not bring in the tax revenue that tobacco does. Smokers will continued to be victimized until the government finds another group to brow-beat and tax. Unforunatly for Ohio, the anti-(anything that's enjoyable) zealots have turned their rage to gambling and casinos. Once they get rid of that demonic liquor I'll have to cross the border to have any fun.
Even tho I no longer smoke, I totally agree with you. Mostly in the bars, I think you should be able to smoke in a bar, maybe not a restaurant, but in a bar, it goes hand in hand! With companys raising insurance rates, they better do the same for the people who weigh 100lbs too much and sit on their bar stool and bitch about the smoke! Most of these people cost the insurance companys more then smokers!!
Toad! I don't smoke and am 100lbs overweight, not by choice but by medical reasons, I think smokers should be aloud to smoke in bars too...not all obese people sit on there asses! Insurance companies don't do anything to help the obese people get healthy either!
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