Clean Air/Smoke Free

[LustyxChan]

In my city, we are one of the few that hasn't banned smoking in bars, restaurants and lodging. As of right now people are trying to get the city to ban it. Clean Air St. Joseph

When you want to go drink or see a band play, downtown is where it's at. We have a lot of bars down there. We also have a lot of small business owners (tattoo shops, hair salons, etc). Around those areas there is always a lot of people smoking.

These small business owners are against the smoking ban. As for Bars, most owners say it could ruin their business. They say they have the right to choose or not to allow smoking and nobody should be able to tell them how to run their business.

There is just a lot of fighting going back and forth on this issue.

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In your town or city is smoking banned in your bars, restaurants and lodging?
How do you feel about this issue? Do you think it's okay or not?

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Here is what I think. Before I became a parent, I honestly really didn't care about smoking or not. I would say I wasn't really a smoker, but I did smoke here and there. Normally at the bars (mostly cigars).

When me and my husband tried getting pregnant and when I did get pregnant I avoided smoke completely, even avoided being around people while they were smoking. So for over a year of avoiding smoke, when I went around it, it made me sick. Smelled gross, made the people look gross, over all just a nasty thing to me now.

When my daughter was first born, when we would go shopping at Wal-Mart there would be employees smoking right at the front door. Families had to walk threw that, I had to take my daughter threw that. It was highly disrespectful. So I called and talked to the general manager there. Thankfully it was quickly taken care of and they smoke on the side of the building where they are suppose to.

I would say I know about 50 percent of the small downtown business owners in my city. So I'm around more pro-business then pro-clean air. I am constantly hearing what they have to say. Don't get me wrong, I do agree with a lot of what they say. Sure they should have the right to choose to allow smoking or not. But I also think it's not fair for the non-smokers and ones who want to stay healthy who would love to visit their business, but can't because of the smoke. There are bands I want to go see at some of the bars, but I end up not going because of all the smokers. You walk in and just see a big gray cloud floating threw the air.

I guess in the end I would say I'm Pro-Clean Air. Now that I'm a mother I have my child's health to worry about and more of mine as well.

It's such a big issue. I have a lot more to say, but for some reason I feel brain dead at the moment, haha.

[Mr. Matt]

I'm of the very firm opinion that the decision to allow or disallow smoking on a premises should rest firmly with the owner of said premises.

Anything tax-payer funded should have smoking bans employed if that is what the majority of the tax-paying public want, of course. Hospitals, pubic transport, etc. Anything else should be beyond the purview of the government. If the owner of a pub wants to allow smoking in his pub - well, he is the owner, and so it's his decision. So long as it's made clear before entering that smoking is allowed in there, nobody has anything to bitch about.

Incidentally, the UK pub trade suffered massively in the wake of the smoking ban. Some were even entitled to tax cuts as a result. It turns out that the people who were continually screaming about how unfair it was that they had to breathe smoke while they were out drinking, didn't go out drinking at all.

[Biiviz]

Smoking was banned in bars and clubs nationally here in '06. Nowadays I have a hard time imagining how anyone could ever have accepted people smoking indoors. Disgusting as fuck, even for me who smokes occasionally.

[Pethegreat]

I think Pennsylvania has a good system going that allows smoking in some places, but bans it in all others. For example if you have bar that is 21+ only you can allow smoking. All outdoor venues and casinos(21+ only) allow smoking, but stadiums and amusement parks restrict it to designated areas.

While I don't smoke, everyone in my group of friends but one person smokes. We frequent bars that allow smoking. I wish bars would have better systems for filtering out smoke when they can't open windows and let the place air out. Our favorite bar can open up both of their long glass walls in the summer which keeps the bar smoke free. Smokers love it because they can smoke, and non-smokers love it because the smoke does not linger.

[Nemmerle]

All these people in a viciously overcrowded, overheated pub where you can't hear yourself thinking are smoking! What a nightmare as I walk on by.

The main problem I have with smoking is that people tend to be wimps and security tends to be incompetent. A few smokers can screw up an evening for an entire room full of people and like as not security won't turn the smoker out on his ear and people won't go and make their complaints known to the management.

[Octovon]

I think the choice should remain with the business owners and should not be shoved down their throats by politicians.

We've had smoking banned in public buildings in Ontario for over a decade now and while it was widely applauded by general populace, business owners were far less supportive, particularly those that had spent tens of thousands of dollars installing ventilation systems for venues with smoking indoors. Smoking is also prohibited within 9 metres of an entrance to a public building, but that's a law that I've never seen enforced. I know in Ottawa, Canada's capital city, that smoking is now banned in public parks, on patios at bars and restaurants and several more public places with fines of $150 (more than the fine for talking on a cellphone while driving).

I was against these laws/bylaws before I started smoking and I'm still against these regulations. Business owners should have the option to allow smoking in bars and restaurants. If customers don't like it, they can go elsewhere. I've always hated the argument made by anti-smoking crackheads that smokers are always blowing cigarette smoke in their faces and that they're caught coughing their way behind smokers on the streets. There are no smokers who intentionally blow smoke in your faces! You'd have to be a total douche of a human being to be doing that.

In the end, with all these anti-smoking laws is the end result really "clean" air? I have a lot more concern for the millions of SUV's and other gas-guzzling vehicles on the road and the federal government's failure to adhere to anything close to resembling the targets set out by Kyoto.

[MrFancypants]

Currently restaurants and bars in some states of Germany have to provide a non-smoking area that is divided from the smoking area. Often this doesn't work too well though. It looks like the legislation will be changed to ban smoking in restaurants completly now. This must be very annoying for business owners, not only because of the decreasing profits from the addicts but also because they had to invest money into new doors, walls and ventilation systems for the current law.
It works for me though. The smell is rather annoying and spoils a restaurant visit for me. It sticks to your clothes and is bad for your health.

The common objections to such bans don't really convince me. People can poison themselves (atlhough they should be forced to pay for the costs in that case), but just because you own a business you don't get to decide whether your customers and epmloyees have to inhale carcinogens.

[Commissar MercZ]

I am in favor of smoking bans in confined public areas or places where restaurants cater to the public in general or allows for children to eat there. I don't really think there needs to be people smoking in a place like Denny's, Chili's, TGI Fridays, etc. where you will have younger people and children. I know in the area where I am pretty much all restaurants except for certain bars and such have total smoking bans. It was not always like that though, I recall when I was younger going with my parents to a restaurant, they would often specify "non-smoking" so I would guess for a long time they had restaurants divided where people could still smoke, presumably in the bar area.

Where I don't think it is necessary is city-wide smoking ban ordinances. I can understand why a restaurant or general purpose store would have a smoking ordinance, but a hole-in-the-wall bar shouldn't be expected to abide by that considering their clientele. Smokers need somewhere to be for social purposes like anyone else and it does not make much sense to make very overarching smoking bans on all enclosed workplaces, more so in areas specifically meant as bars rather than a casual restaurant with a bar.

That being said I don't smoke and this really doesn't affect me any way. Most of the places I go to aren't generally places to smoke at with or without law, and I don't frequent bars all that much.

[Nemmerle]

Originally Posted by MrFancypants

Currently restaurants and bars in some states of Germany have to provide a non-smoking area that is divided from the smoking area. Often this doesn't work too well though. It looks like the legislation will be changed to ban smoking in restaurants completly now. This must be very annoying for business owners, not only because of the decreasing profits from the addicts but also because they had to invest money into new doors, walls and ventilation systems for the current law.
It works for me though. The smell is rather annoying and spoils a restaurant visit for me. It sticks to your clothes and is bad for your health.

The common objections to such bans don't really convince me. People can poison themselves (atlhough they should be forced to pay for the costs in that case), but just because you own a business you don't get to decide whether your customers and epmloyees have to inhale carcinogens.

If they cared that much, they'd go somewhere else. Oh but there's nowhere else for them to go. Well, if you believe that then open up a non-smoking restaurant and watch them flock to you - or not, depending on whether you're right or wrong.

I think most people don't care that much whether they get cancer. That's how I explain the fact that someone didn't do the above and drive the others out of business. Sure, they might not want to get it - in an abstract sense - but most of them strike me as being dead inside already, so as long as they can get their hits in in the short term what difference does it make to them when they actually die?

[MrFancypants]

Originally Posted by Nemmerle

If they cared that much, they'd go somewhere else. Oh but there's nowhere else for them to go. Well, if you believe that then open up a non-smoking restaurant and watch them flock to you - or not, depending on whether you're right or wrong.
I think most people don't care that much whether they get cancer. That's how I explain the fact that someone didn't do the above and drive the others out of business. Sure, they might not want to get it - in an abstract sense - but most of them strike me as being dead inside already, so as long as they can get their hits in in the short term what difference does it make to them when they actually die?

That there are lots of people who don't care about their health is obvious. If people aren't smoking they are eating fatty meat, sugar, drinking alcohol and sitting in fron of the TV all day. At least in those cases they mostly manage to hurt themselves while keeping the damage to others small.
That doesn't mean that antismoking laws are a bad idea. Some people do care.

As for the magic of the free market stuff about opening non-smoking restaurants - I don't think this is how the economy works. There are many ways for business owners to screw their customers and make a profit that in an ideal world should put such places out of business. If you add everything that sets us apart from homo economicus you arrive at totally different outcomes. Like how there have been almost zero non-smoking restaurants prior to the ban in Germany despite the fact that a lot of people dislike the smoke for various reasons.