Comments on: Bans and the Banning Banners Who Ban Things, Cont’d

By: Amy Phillips

Amy Phillips — Sat, 08 Nov 2003 01:49:07 +0000

Swamp Justice: That was the rule under the NYC smoking ban too. There was an owner operated bar in my neighborhood that was always packed and a lot more fun than its neighbors, and I don’t normally smoke. However, under the NYS smoking ban, that exception was abolished, and those havens disappeared. The NYS ban also screwed NYC businesses by superceding an exception to the NYC ban allowing owners to permit smoking in a separate room with its own ventilation in which no non-owner staff worked. Many bars paid huge sums of money to have such rooms built, only to find them useless 6 months later. I oppose the ban in general, but I find the screwing over of local governance to “strengthen” the ban equally pernicious.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 14:45:31 +0000

Smokers are more fun because they tend to be a little less inhibited, in my opinion.

By: Swamp Justice

Swamp Justice — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 00:58:44 +0000

In California, smoking is banned even in bars. Some bars have worked around this problem by restructuring their business as a profit-sharing co-op. If every employees is also an “owner”, then no employee is being forced to work in a smoking environment by their “boss”. They are all “bosses”. :-)

By: Brady

Brady — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 00:11:53 +0000

How right you are, Dan. Even when I would not want to smoke I’d choose the smoking section when I’d go out to dinner b/c it was usually a more fun envirnoment. Now the bastards have banned smoking everywhere that is not a “bar” (based on food/liquor sales). Somehow they all now seem boring.

But, of course, we are the state that first showed the world Nicotini.

Reason the law passed was money. The cancer associations, etc. dumped more money (think like $1 mill) into the fight than the food industry.

By: Dan W.

Dan W. — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 21:05:01 +0000

But people that smoke are often more cool and interesting than people that don’t, so the places that are voluntarily smoke-free are boring.

I want to go to the cool places and hang out with the cool people, but I don’t want to smell bad.

I demand that the government grant me this wish.

By: brooke

brooke — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 21:00:04 +0000

But loads of places are smokefree voluntarily. If people really don’t like smoke, why don’t they stop going to places that allow smoking? Why get the government involved?

By: Swamp Justice

Swamp Justice — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 20:42:11 +0000

I am torn by these smoking bans. I understand that people have the right to CHOOSE to smoke. But their smoking is not “victimless”. I doubt second-hand smoke causes cancer, but it smells bad and makes MY clothes smell bad.

People have a right to drink beer, but we don’t think it is acceptable for beer drinkers to spit their beer on my clothes.

btw, I am an ex-smoker.