I am HEARTBROKEN over the Washington State Smoking Ban -- A RANT

[Cats Against Frist]

I was just reminiscing, today, over some Modest Mouse, of my heyday in Seattle. It was a whirlwind of pale ale and hefeweizen, sex, camping, parties, post-parties, puking in the street in Fremont, outside the Dub, smoking weed in the attic of the bagel store, in which I worked, music, debauchery -- just all-around good times. I've been away, for a while, and was planning on moving back, for a bit, to catch up with old friends, do some readings, hang out.

But for what?

I just read they passed a statewide smoking ban in Washington State. I have to tell you, that I think that this is jackbooted, motherfucking, Nazi SHIT.

We often have flame wars over this, but, no matter how many times it's played out -- I still can't understand why there's not enough room, in this world, for smoking and non-smoking establishments. If it's about "the workers," why the hell can't they say that, OK, every bar that's now smoking is going to be non-smoking, and if someone wants to open a smoking business, a full disclosure will be made to all employees and patrons that this is a SMOKING ESTABLISHMENT, and the people who don't want to come, don't have to come, and the people who don't want to have to work here, don't have to get a fucking job here.

The law is supposedly the strictest smoking ban in the country, meaning you can't smoke more than 25 FEET away from a residence. Meaning that people can't even pop out for a cigarette. Meaning that, in downtown Seattle, while you're waiting for the fucking bus, you can't even step aside (to respect those with the pristine lungs, waiting to be drenched in fucking diesel fumes) -- there's nowhere in downtown Seattle to smoke that's not 25 feet away from a business!!

So can SOMEBODY explain to me -- someone who's not an anti-smoking fucking NAZI -- why there can't be smoking bars in Seattle. I don't give a fuck about workplaces, restaurants, etc. I want to know what covering-furniture-in-plastic, having-sex-with-the-lights-off fucking puritain has a problem with smoking a cigarette, over a pool game in a goddamn Irish bar -- or outside of the fucking door for that matter.

I would never say "all bars have to be smoking," so what kind of balls do you have to have to say, "I want to go wherever my lily white lung pleases, without being tainted by a miasma of fun?" What kind of balls do you have to have to say that business owners and patrons cannot have a smoking establishment.

I'm a racecar in the fucking red.

[madeline_con]

1. So, no smoking in the attic of the bagel shop? n/t

[DanCa]

2. I dont believe in bans - even though i get ill from smoke.

I simply have no right to tell anone else what do. I feel sorry that a ban was put in place. Honest.

[mestup]

3. Hold on

:popcorn:

I've tried to ask these same questions, but I always get the crap beat out of me.

[Cats Against Frist]

8. It's because there's no rational fucking answer

It's like the gay thing, when the Mass. court said, "give us one rational reason why gay marriage is bad," and all the opponents could come up with was some recycled Santorum-whine bullshit about "destroying the family." Court said: thank you for playing, assholes.

There's no reason why a naziesque ban has to be put in place. If people are so fucking afraid of the air, they should all be walking, and staying inside their air-purified homes and making macaroni necklaces, while watching Peanuts DVDs. Good clean fun, you know.

What if someone wanted to say, OK, the AMA has recommended no more than 1 drink a day, for women, and 3 for men -- and we're cutting you fucking off, there? It will also keep you from getting fighting, drunk-driving, fucking somebody you didn't mean to, and puking on someone else. There's always a "good reason," for everything -- that doesn't mean it's rational, or right.

[Rowdyboy]

26. Thats it....Smoking within 25 feet of businesses is destroying the family!

Seriously, you have my sympathy. I quit in '91 (after 3 pks a day for nearly 20 years) and I think the whole thing becomes ridiculous when they ban smoking in bars. So whats next, banning parents from smoking inside their home if they have children? Banning smoking in private automobiles? Why not just outlaw cigarettes if the banners hate them so much? Answer: M-O-N-E-Y. Thats it, the tax revenue they make off smokers makes legislators unwilling to prohibit the practice. Once again, they whore after the almighty dollar.

Thankfully, I'm not affected any longer. You have my sympathy.

[KoKo]

171. The SMOKE...THE SMOKE...it's killing our BABIES!

ummm how many "babies" frequent bars? Throw the parents in jail for bringing the "babies" into the bars...

Freedom for some? Why not worry about Bush "Relaxing" our Air Emissions,too.

[Maine-ah]

319. I had mentioned this before...

since the smoking ban up here, I see people with their babies in the bars. Yes, I'm serious. I pass this bar everyday the whole front is windows and sitting at the bar I have seen parents with babies.

So, great job stupid fucking state of Maine, you have now made it able for a parent to have a couple of drinks and get in the car and drive with their babies.

I agree with the OP, let us have smoking establishments, and let there be non-smoking establishments and offer up a waver to potential employees.

[Dorian Gray]

368. Rowdyboy...

I feel the same way. I quit only 8 months ago, and I'm glad I did. But, when Draconian law-makers are trying to ban smoking from inside autos, yet don't want to tackle the actual tobacco companies by making their product illegal, they shouldn't have a leg to stand on. We all know that the greedy politicos are salivating at all the money they get from cigarette taxes. The product does not cost $7.85 a pack to make, so where do you think that all the extra cost is going? To taxes.

[mandyky]

28. Lexington bars and restaurants are going outta biz

over this. I think they passed the ban 3 years ago. I am not sure if our town, Richmond, allows soming or not. Many franchise restaurants like Taco Bell, Arby's, etc do not allow smoking.

I agree, these bans suck.

[Democrat 4 Ever]

401. Sorry, but that isn't true. The Courier-Journal polled Lexington

restaurateurs when the ban was being discussed for Louisville-Jefferson County some months back. Despite all the dire expectations of loss of businesses, failing restaurants, it didn't come to pass. They could not find one incident of a restaurant closing because of the smoking ban. Not one.

It is like several years back when the wet-dry issue was put on the ballot for Hardin County. There was very vocal opposition because of "drunks on every street corner" more DUIs, higher crime, etc. The city went wet 3-4 years ago and the only difference found is we now have a better class of restaurants to chose from. No influx of drunks hanging on to streetlights, no increase in DUIs, no need to add additional police to handle the crime. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, it didn't come to pass.

That said, I am an ardent fan for no smoking establishments. For years I could not attend certain events because of a sever reaction to smoke. Could not join friends at a party or a bar or restaurant because I would literally be sick from the effects for weeks afterward. (I can't begin to tell you how happy I was when hotels started offering non-smoking rooms. Finally could have a vacation without being sick.)

I've never smoked so I don't understand the enjoyment or the addiction. I feel you are perfectly within your rights to do anything you wish to your own body but do not have the privilege of hurting mine or my kids or my grandkids. We both have a right to enjoy ourselves on nights out - your smoking where I can feel the effects of your actions is infringing upon the same rights you claim as your own.

I can well feel your frustration about any of your rights being curtail and wish I had the perfect solution but there isn't. Smoking is harmful and as long as it is, it is perfectly reasonable to protect people who do not participate. Flame away.

[mandyky]

446. All I know is what I see on Lexington TV News

I have been to Lexington to eat or drink a max of 3 times (over 8 years ago). I live 45 minutes away and have no car, so it's no skin off my nose. I am a smoker who stays home or takes food/drink out, if necessary, which is rarely.

[grace0418]

437. Manhattan restaurants seem to be doing just fine.

And the restaurants in California too. Maybe if the restaurants are going out of business, it's not the smoking ban.

[pointblank]

349. Nice points..

but lets lay off the Peanuts DVD's there OK? ;)

[justabob]

4. Beautiful, thank you

you said it. I don't live there, but do live under a (less extreme) smoking ban. :toast:

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cats Against Frist]

11. Whatever. Make an argument.

You know the Nazi stuff is tounge-in-cheek. Don't play neocon-offended.

[napi21]

6. I agree with you. Let me tell you a way SC gets around the

no booze sold on Sunday laws.

Any private club can serve alcoholic beverages to it's members, seven days a week. There are many "private clubs" where the membership is $10.00 a year. It's obviously a formality to declare you a member. That doesn't solve the problem of the 25 ft. from a business, but you might want to check on the possible solution to the smoking bar problem.

[Cats Against Frist]

16. The article that I read said that there's no exemption for private clubs

It did say that the legislature is "looking into it," though. I hope somebody does something.

[SoCalDem]

308. It will be like here.. Chi-chi "cigar-bars" for the upper crusties

will get to allow smoking,but the local places will not get such a waiver.. They tried it here, and were told NO.

[lumpy]

381. Private booze clubs existed in Seattle

in the 40s&50s to get around the 'blue' laws. VFW, Black and Tan, Magic Inn, Queen City Yacht Club among many others. Magic Inn had food, music, dancing, good entertainment as well as a great place for singles. Black & Tan had great after hours jumpin' jazz mixed with the cocktails. VFW was mainly around for drinkin'and gabbin'. Saturday was the day to stock off for dry Sunday. I swear Seaatle was the drinkenest town around in those days.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

7. Good on you!

That took some nads!

Why can't smokers have a puff in Seattle or any of the other cities where it's been banned?

I can tell you that rather easily. Smokers are the twenty-first century's newest n*****s. Sorry to put it bluntly, but it's true. When a political subdivision starts enacting laws that blatantly discriminate against a single, discrete group based upon the perceived unsavoriness of that's group's activities, it's bigotry, apartheid, what-have-you.

I can feel the flames licking our heels!

:evilgrin:

[alarimer]

19. Smokers have shoved their nasty habits

on the rest of us for years. ALL buildings and workplaces should be smoke free. Your rights end where my lungs begine. Obviously no one on this thread gives a shit about the people who have to breathe this crap all day. Get cancer if you want but don't you dare give it to me.

[Cats Against Frist]

23. I don't want you to have to breathe the crap all day.

I don't mind the ban on workplaces and public (neaning owned by the state) buildings. I don't mind the ban on 25ft (only if a person can smoke inside the bar), and I don't mind if you open your own non-smoking bar, and bust out the crackerjack and Chutes 'n Ladders.

I would even say that I could go with a grandfathered-ban for the workers. But you need to explain to me, why a new start-up can't proclaim itself a "smoking establishment." I'm listening.

[LWolf]

423. Theoretically:

That would be fine, as long as any citizen who wants a smoke-free job within a reasonable distance from their home can get one; then the "go work someplace where people don't smoke" is fine, because employees CAN actually do so.

I think 25 feet is silly; outside the door is fine with me.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Warren DeMontague]

256. Most people don't expect to be able to indulge all their nasty habits

in public bars and restaurants.

When they start throwing cigarette smokers in prison like they do users of recreational drugs, then I will start listening to how "oppressed" they are. Asking someone to go outside (although the 25 feet thing I think is a little onerous) is not 'oppression', or 'prohibition'. It just means you need to go outside to light up.

[lumpy]

392. I most areas you would have

to stand in the middle of the street to puff re.25ft rule. Will smokers be walking back and forth up and down the block to get around this? The whole thing is hilarious. I see nothing wrong with smoking in bistros if allowed by the proprietors. At least the smoke is contained in one spot.

[symbolman]

41. YOU would NOT BELIEVE

the CRAP that comes out of a car's exhaust.. do YOU drive one, because you are endangering the planet AND MY HEALTH..

I love people that scream at smokers while standing next to EXHAUST and HIghways and smoke stacks..

just because you can't SEE what's coming out of the back of a car doesn't mean that it's not THERE, and filling areas with no wind..

I can't even walk down Times Square or some parts of NYC as the exhaust is so bad I feel Like I'm going to fall down..

Cigarettes are the LEAST of your problems.

[merwin]

51. I wouldn't have a problem if they enacted exhaust limits in a city either.

This is only ONE step to making our cities cleaner and healthier.

[lumpy]

399. I thjnk of downtown Portland Oregon.

The vehicle exhaust on a hot day is miserable.

[hfojvt]

251. a slight difference

the car exhaust is a by product of an activity. Smoking is more like millions of people going outside and starting their cars and idling them for a couple minutes for pleasure, and because they are addicted to the sensation.

I would love to see car usage be lowered - more biking, walking, and mass transportation. I do not own a car myself, and bike to work and the store.

[Warren DeMontague]

257. So, no running your car engine inside restaurants and bars, either.

Sounds reasonable to me.

[Mutley]

324. Exactly.

How many people here have stood next to a bus while it's blowing out 50 times the amount of chemicals as a cigarette, but they do nothing but cry about the dude smoking 10 feet away.

[symbolman]

576. Here's what I'd like to see..

National SEE WHAT YOU ARE BREATHING DAY across the usa..

At least once a year or more everyone is dispensed a Blue pill which they must drop in their gas tanks on the same day, in the morning - that will dissolve and not harm the engine, but that will make the exhaust from the car VISIBLE - a nice BLUE cloud will flow from the back of every car in America.. (We could match it to the terror alert color for that day!)

THEN, as we all go to work, walk down the street, sit on benches in the park, eat in restaurants we will wonder why the hell we can't SEE more than two feet before our eyes.

Entire Cities would simply be a giant cloud of BLUE probably viewable from the space station.

It would be a real EYE Opener for those that think that a cigarette OUTSIDE is some kind of problem. I smoke now, trying to quit again, as it's DUMB, and I don't mind having to go outside at all to smoke.. it's the great outdoors and my little cigarette is hardly going to cause global warming, etc..

BUT IF people could graphically SEE what they are missing, the nearly invisible exhaust from DOZENS, THOUSANDS, BILLIONS of cars running all day, they might start riding bikes..

As for all this second hand smoke crap (which I do NOT expose folks to my smoke ever, as a courtesy) - when I was a kid (I'm 53 now) EVERYONE SMOKED..

MOTHERS Smoked while pregnant, had a few beers each day as well, the house would be filled with a FOG in the upper third of the rooms just about everywhere I went as a kid, other people's houses too, and I'm NOT DEAD..

Most of my friends haven't DIED from second hand smoke, they died from Obesity, other cancers (yeah I know, I know, smoking causes ALL cancers) - it's not like people get cancer from pollution, industrial crap poured into rivers, lakes, oceans, etc)..

It's just as dumb to smoke as it is to believe that the billions of tons of Sulphuric Acid poured into the sky by factories and smoke stacks, and other poisons aren't KILLING people..

Major cities now have HUGE numbers of children who have asthma on a scale never before imagined, and in a nearly smokeless society - and that is coming from CARS, TRUCKS, TRAINS, SMOKESTACKS, AIRPLANES, even the SHUTTLE - which supposedly puts out the equivalent of about 100 jet liners taking off, all at the same time, might be a 1000, not sure..

But some scientists say that a Shuttle launch is the SINGLE most polluting factor of the air known.

Off the SmokeBox, er Soapbox now :)

[marions ghost]

326. excellent point...

let's get real about the total amount of air pollution in the air we breathe. That's the real issue.

[Carni]

387. AMEN! You nailed it!

Not to mention Freon/R12 and all the other crap being blasted forth by cars...smoking is indeed the least of our air quality problems.

[lumpy]

396. Barbecues, campfires ,fireplaces

should be banned as well. Got a kick out of people who won't allow cigatette smoking in their backyards but have no problem with their kids running around the barbie.

[Verve]

478. "Cigarettes are the LEAST of your problems"

Ya gotta start somewhere. Eliminating the least of our problems sounds good. You can only go up from there.

[catmother]

64. finally, someone i agree with. i was going to say "your rights

end where my nose begins". it makes me ill to just walk past a building where people are outside smoking. i stopped 22 years ago, not because of health, but because it was offensive to my non-smoking friends and i was totally addicted. it controlled me. i would pick up butts out of the ashtray and light them when there was a snow storm and i couldn't get out.

i feel if i can stop -- anyone can.

i also think it's unfair to the workers in restaurants who work in the smoking section and have to be subjected to this shit.

if my sister reads this post, she will have a fit. she's a smoker and a very militant one.

[Mutley]

325. I'm sure those workers will appreciate it when

they lose their jobs because business is so slow that the owner has to cut his/her staff in half to save money. It's happened in my state in the counties where smoking has been banned. I know several people who have said they'd love to breathe that smoke in all day if they could just have their jobs back. But no, instead they are forced to live on unemployment because every OTHER bar in the area is having the same exact problem, and they can't find a job doing what they know how to do. People without a car can not always hop a bus into the next city or county to get to work (or in this case, the next STATE).

[MojoXN]

313. Then go to establishments that don't allow smoking.

WHAT exactly is wrong with letting business owners make the decision? If only 25% of people smoke, only 25% of bars will likely allow smoking, right? Right? You'll have your 3/4 of places where those of my ilk are ostracized, and I'll have my 1/4 of places were I can smoke in peace. WHAT THE HELL IS THE PROBLEM WITH THAT???

MojoXN

[Mutley]

323. You know, no one is forcing you to go to these bars.

There are plenty of bars everywhere that don't allow smoking in them. Why can't smokers have the few left that DO? This isn't like the price of fuel where it's such an outrage because we have NO CHOICE but to pay those exorbitant prices. You have a choice. Stay home. Go somewhere that does not allow smoking. But don't be like the ones we fight against and assume that it is right and proper for you to force your own personal values and morals on everyone else.

[FogerRox]

371. Smokers have shoved their nasty habits

Diesel Buses have shoved their nasty habits-
Coal burning power plants have shoved their nasty habits-
Chemical plants have shoved their nasty habits-
50 yaers pf NUKE tests have shoved their nasty habits-

I thikn one might get the drift here

[rman]

455. 2nd hand smoke is trivial in comparisson to polution of the environement

by cars and industry.

If all smoking would be banned it would hardly have any effect on your chances of getting cancer.

[ArkDem]

9. Oh, the HUMANITY!!!

[Broken_Hero]

535. what part of AR?

my wifey works in Bentonville...

[shockingelk]

10. If it's about "the workers,"

... why the hell can't they say that, OK, every chemical plant that doesn't provide protective equipment to employees has to start providing the equipment, and if someone wants to open chemical plant and not provide equipment, a full disclosure will be made to all employees and patrons that this is a DANGEROUS JOB, and the people who don't want to come, don't have to come, and the people who don't want to have to work here, don't have to get a fucking job here.

[jmowreader]

134. Bad simile, shockingelk

Not only does OSHA make chemical plant owners provide personal protective equipment necessary for the task at hand, of a certain specified quality, but they make them ensure that the employees use it.

[shockingelk]

281. So why not the same for cigarette smoke?

What's the difference between carbon monoxide in the workplace and cigarette smoke in the workplace?

Gov should regulate one but not the other? Why?

[jmowreader]

352. Okay, since you asked...

here's what they should do.

There is a machine called a Smokeeter. It is an industrial air purifier that was specifically designed to filter tobacco smoke from bowling alley air. It works. The center I play at has them, and I'll tell you right up front that if I'm playing on lane 4 and someone's smoking a cheap cigar on lane 5, you cannot smell the smoke.

I know it works on the particulates and odors, so I would imagine that it also pulls the CO and other poisonous gases out of the air too.

Now! Let's say, for shits & giggles, that we passed a law stating any public gathering place that was willing to install Smokeeters (or another equally-effective filtering system) and was willing to pay to maintain them and to have them tested at random times by some special air quality agency (the costs of running the air quality agency to be paid for by testing fees), could receive a "Smoking Establishment License." Anyone who couldn't or wouldn't install this kind of air filtration would receive a "Non-Smoking Establishment License." With your license would come a placard to attach to the door stating the kind of license you had.

I think pretty much everyone would find a reason to be happy in that situation. Bar owners who wanted to attract smokers could do it. People whose lot in life is to be bureaucrats could find jobs. People who smoke can find places to smoke in, and people who don't smoke could choose to frequent either non-smoking places (of which there would be many) or frequent smoking places with the knowledge that there's good air in them too. Employees of smoking places wouldn't have to work in a cloud of toxic gas. Smoking establishments' cleaning bills would go down--smoke dirties up a place.

* * * * *

Look, I'm not Ann Coulter, a woman who would answer the question "why is the sky blue" if you asked her how long George Bush's penis is. So I'll answer your well-intentioned question.

The difference between carbon monoxide in the workplace and cigarette smoke in the workplace is how the two are produced. With CO, you either generate it on site by running engines in the building, or you deliver it in tanks for use in whatever process you're doing. (Call a welding supplier and you can get all the carbon monoxide you want.) For CO abatement, you can ventilate it to the outside, contain it in the process equipment, provide your workers with forced-air respirators, absorb it in some kind of filter media, or figure out some way to avoid using or generating it in a closed space.

Cigarette smoke, OTOH, is generated by your paying customers. And since they're all addicted to it, if you tell them that they can't smoke either inside or outside the bar (as Washington has done), they will not come. They will buy liquor at liquor stores and food at supermarkets and hold parties in their homes. When they're doing that, they're not spending money at your establishment. If half of all Washingtonians who drink in bars also smoke, and they're no longer drinking in bars, you have a problem. I know MY business couldn't survive an immediate 50-percent reduction in traffic--and there ain't a bar in America that's got the cash reserve I do.

Now read up two paragraphs and look at the ways to abate toxic gases: filtration, ventilation, PPE and elimination. (Containment won't work here.) PPE is out in this situation: Imagine a Hooters Girl in her orange shorts, white tank top and Racal mask. You'd muss your hair with that thing. Elimination means eliminating customers--and businesses. Which leaves you with filtration and ventilation. You can use chlorine, phosgene, cyanide, diisocyanate, lots of other chemicals in your business--and they're all worse than cigarette smoke--so long as you take steps to reduce the hazards. Why not cigarette smoke?

If we're going to regulate it, and we should, we should regulate it as we would any other necessary toxic gas. And like it or not, in the hospitality business cigarette smoke is a necessary evil.

[wakeme2008]

12. But what about Joins :) nt

[Texasgal]

13. I love the way you write!

This is a GREAT rant. I just hope it dosen't erupt into a full fledged flamewar. :)

I am a social smoker, every now and then. I am not bothered my cigarette smoke. I think bans are useless. Just my opinion.

[progressivebydesign]

36. Great writer?? swear words.. clever. n/t

[Texasgal]

45. I liked the way he got his

point across. So sue me. :eyes:

[Mutley]

327. Swearing in writing can be very effective and humorous if done right.

There is no need to insult someone because he/she enjoyed what the writer had to say. Mature.

[merwin]

14. Everyone here agrees that smoking causes cancer and that the tobacco

industry is evil, and there is absolutely no good reason to smoke (other than the fact that you are addicted), right? And everyone also agrees that second hand smoke is just as bad (or worse) than first hand smoking? So why should I be forced to sit in a cloud of smoke when I'm waiting outside of a restaurant for a table?

So, what's the problem with trying to get rid of smoking entirely? The tobacco industry will keep winning until more places enact full on smoking bans in public places.

[Cats Against Frist]

20. But why do YOU get to tell ME where to smoke?

Or why a business can't start up, that clearly states that it's a smoking establishment, and gives people the choice to come and come and work, or not?

There's nothing wrong with anti-smoking campaigns. There's nothing wrong with quitting, or hating or "being allergic" (bullshit) to smoke. There's nothing wrong with having the choice to go or not go somewhere, where someone is doing something you don't like.

I'd willingly go with the 25 ft. rule, to protect your safe-lungs, but you can stay the fuck out of my Irish bar? Is that a fair deal?

[shockingelk]

24. Or why a business can't start up

that clearly states that it's built on a toxic waste dump, and gives people the choice to come and come and work, or not?

Please also see my post "if it's about the "workers".

Thanks.

[merwin]

43. You're missing my point entirely

Unless you're an avid fan of the cigarette industry, there is no reason to allow ANY smoking in public places.

I understand that some people are addicted, but that isn't an excuse to keep perpetuating the problem. As long as there are places to smoke, more people will get addicted to it.

Don't you find it odd that the people running the anti-smoking campaigns are the same ones that are selling the cigarettes? It's because the anti-smoking campaigns don't do jack and they know it.

I would have a different opinion if smoking had some positive effects, like some other drugs do. However, there are ZERO positive effects to smoking.

[Cats Against Frist]

53. Actually, no. People ENJOY smoking.

People enjoy sitting at a table, in that enclosed heat, and the dim lights, and pontificating on utter bullshit, and catching a buzz, while they smoke cigarettes. I would dare say some people LOVE it.

And you don't have to love it. I don't care if you do or you don't love it, or like it, or give a shit about smoking. My problems start where rational compromises fall on deaf Nazi ears.

[merwin]

58. Some people also enjoy killing cats.

[JVS]

206. Yeah and if they own the cats, I have no problem with it.

:hide:

[Verve]

227. Have a problem with them killing people that don't have a problem with

them killing their cats?

That's what is going to happen to non-smokers who hang around with smokers who "don't have a problem with it".

[JVS]

241. Somehow I am blessed with a marvelous coping technique, where...

if someone smoking at a bar or restaurant is bothering me I go to the non-smoking section or leave. It really works wonders.

[Verve]

245. Why should you have to leave? Your breath isn't killing them? n/t

[JVS]

250. I go to the section where I am comfortable. Usually the smoking...

section of the bar I go to isn't that smokey when I'm there anyway. And when a friend wants to smoke while we drink beer, we sit there. If the smoking section is uncomfortable, I go to the non-smoking section and I'm fine.

[400Years]

425. smoking and killing cats are not similar in any way

[Verve]

434. You're right. Smoking kills people. Killing cats does not.

Just another lame ass defense against smoking.

[400Years]

439. no one is forcing you to smoke and nobody is forcing you to patronize

a smoking establishment.

Talk about lame ass.

How bout letting people make their own decisions for once.

[Verve]

444. Hurting Public Health trumps Personal Freedom Issues.

Is that what you tell a friend who is about to drink and drive? It's their own decision?

[dcfirefighter]

448. "National Security trumps Personal Freedom Issues."

Drinking and driving puts anyone on PUBLIC roads at risk. If he owned his own racetrack and felt the need to get drunk and drive around it, it's his own stupidity. I don't want teh government protecting me from my own stupidity.

"But what about the poor bar workers?!?" - I'll concede this point. But theres no reason to treat tobacco smoke any different than the 1000's of other toxic chemicals workers deal with every day. Put up a fume hood. Separate the smokers into their own airlocked room. Whatever, offer a compromise.

[400Years]

450. drinking and driving kills others, nobody forces you into a smoking bar

try something else, that last one was a failure

[LincolnMcGrath]

452. Nobody forces you onto the public roads either.

[400Years]

481. that's just beyond rediculous

there are tons of smoke free bars so its not like you don't have options

that is the whole point, there can be both, bars for crybabies and bars for people who don't whine all the time.

[Verve]

457. We're not just talking about bars. We're talking about restaurants,

coffee houses, places of employment, homes with children in it. All public areas(and private homes if children are involved)should have clean air. I bet many on this site are for laws controlling car and factory exhausts. Many support limiting the destruction of the rain forest, and other laws that affect our air. Yet, ironically, lighting burning chemicals to your mouth and blowing it at others is exempt. What hypocrites.

[dcfirefighter]

468. Protect the workers, don't ban the patrons

for the record, I think that polluters - including automobile operators - should pay the rest of us for the right to dump chemicals into our atmosphere. A portion of the tobacco tax could pay that fee. I'd allow those who maintain healthy forests to offset the fee for polluters - iow, polluters could pay the forest-keepers.

But, I think freedom trumphs just about everything, and generally prefer accommodating different viewpoints and different solutions to problems.

[Verve]

470. Exactly! Protect the Workers.

Why do you think there is no smoking on planes? Could it be that a multi million dollar lawsuit, brought on by the umpteen airline attendants with cancer, helped smoking to become banned on airlines?

[dcfirefighter]

477. Banning is but one method of protecting workers

There are others that would make patronizing bars and taverns more enjoyable for a subset of the population, thus increasing the employment at and revenue of those establishments.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that most bars will 'survive' a smoking ban - they almost always have a very very serious competitive advantage (they hold a liquor license). What happens is that they drop staff, and the staff that does remain gets fewer tips.

[400Years]

483. and what about bars where the workers want to smoke

[dcfirefighter]

488. They have to go into the bubble when they're on breaks

Stupid, yes, but what the heck.

[400Years]

497. I say just let them run their bar and people can go if they want

noboby says bar patronage is mandatory.

[youthere]

520. Unless the cats are smokers.

[Verve]

288. Some people enjoy smoking, some people enjoy beating their wives.

It doesn't make it right.

[fishwax]

419. some enjoy torturing animals, some enjoy making absurd comparisons

between beating on a spouse and smoking a cigarette

[400Years]

426. what a stupid ass comparison

[Verve]

What stupid ass excuses smokers are making on this thread. n/t

[400Years]

438. how bout saying something of substance instead

[Verve]

451. how bout saying your an addict.

No matter what anyone says, people addicted to smoking are not going to see how ludicrous their ideas are about smoking unless they stop. It's a common issue with addiction. Whether you're addicted to heroine, alcohol, domestic abuse, prescription drugs, or smoking, the ludicrous excuses are all the same. An addict fights to normalize their addiction.

(also see 441)

[400Years]

484. I'm not a smoker, sheesh talk about making assumptions

I'm just not an anti smoke jihadist.

[Verve]

493. So you're an Enabler? Hmmmm...

I thought of you as a stronger personality than that. Sorry I was wrong.

[400Years]

496. I respect people's right to self determination

You don't. What does that make you?
There is a big long list of people who share that trait.
Let's See....
Hitler
Stalin
Mao
Bush
Mussolini
Pinochet

It's the whole "I know what's best for you" psychosis.

[Verve]

505. Hitler used gases to kill people as well. (Bush likely has as also)

Self determination while not harming others is a good thing.

However, SMOKING HARMS OTHERS! If it didn't I wouldn't care the least about smoking. To each his own.

BTW, I don't have a clue what's best for you, nor am I about to waste time thinking about it. Smokers can smoke themselves into an oblivion. Just don't do it in public airspace.

[400Years]

But they are trying to outlaw all smoking establishments

Why not have a bar of, by, and for smokers?

[Verve]

508. Why don't you just have a smoking party and invite all your smoking

buddies over?

Why not have smokers refrain from smoking while in public areas? Are they so controlled by their addiction that they can't go a few hours without thinking about it?

[dcfirefighter]

514. Because I live in a small apartment in an urban area

so that i can walk everywhere and not be much of a burden on the world.

I supposed if I lived in a suburban McMansion, I could clear out my 1500 s.f. finished basement and have a jolly old time.

Or, on the other hand, perhaps a bunch of like minded people could gather up some money, and start a business for people to visit. We could serve them peanuts, and drinks, and they could smoke to their heart's content.

Oh wait. We already have those. And you want them outlawed.

[Dorian Gray]

503. Oh, please.

Just because you don't like smoke doesn't mean that you have to accuse other people of being "enablers." I quit myself. But, I don't go around on my high horse, waving smoke away from me, and bitching people out for lighting up everytime someone does. If that makes me an enabler, then so be it. ::)

[400Years]

507. yeah, pretty pathetic huh? kinda funny too, I guess

[Verve]

512. After calling a fellow DUer a jihadist, you're now above all this.

LOL!:rofl:

[Verve]

511. Congrats on quitting smoking.

Why you feel you have to put up with other people smoking around you, especially being an ex smoker, is beyond me. The State of Washington is saying they don't have to take it. Why should you?

[Dorian Gray]

526. Hey, I live in NYC.

We don't have to take it. Smoking was banned in restaurants and bars here a long time ago. I just don't feel vigilant about this topic. My in-laws are smokers, and I'm used to it. Sometimes it makes it difficult for me NOT to smoke when I'm around them, but I've overcome the impulses. :)

I do feel healthier and happier now that I don't smoke, and I encourage everyone I know to try to give it up. But, I just feel that legally limiting the rights of bar owners to allow a perfectly legal activity in their bars is wrong.

I also think the government is doing these measures to please the people while avoiding angering the tobacco companies by proposing a ban of the carcinogenic product.

I also believe that people need to take personal responsibility for their behavior. So many eat too much, drink too much, smoke too much, etc. I don't think it's our place, however, to legislate those activities. People do things that are bad for themselves and which may cause great harm to other people. But, we also live in a "free" society, which allows for people to make bad decisions.

[marions ghost]

338. I agree that

there should be bars where smokers can congregate that non-smokers can avoid.

My problem is more with coffee houses that allow smoking since I'm not a big frequenter of bars. You could have a separate room in a coffee bar that is ventilated separately and doesn't share air with the non-smoking area. The 'smoking establishment' regulation needs to address the necessity for extra ventilation--a high extraction exhaust system should be mandatory. This will add some expense, but would be worth it in the long run. Smoking establishments need such systems to protect their employees.

Since my mother died a very painful death from emphysema at an early age, I understand very well the addiction of smoking. It is clearly a life-threatening addiction but so is sugar addiction. I have nothing but contempt for the manufacturers of tobacco products. But I also think that if you are going to allow legal addictions that you have to make compromises. Limiting smoking to certain bars that have greater ventilation capacity seems reasonable to me.

[Puglover]

412. Totally agree here

I'm a non smoker and some of these posts by so called progressives amaze me. If a business starts up and states that is is a smoking establishment they probably won't get my business. That is my choice. However when people start advocating total smoking bans they simply sound hyperbolic and juvenile.

[texastoast]

153. I beg your pardon

There are a lot of positives to nic. When I stopped smoking, some of the materials I received told me just how difficult it was going to be and set out a long list of positives of nicotine--from better quality sleep to appetite suppression to increased concentration and focus ability.

There is mounting evidence (I recall seeing some articles authored by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine) that nicotine users have a lower incidence of ADHD, Parkinson's, and some other physical conditions (can't recall).

BUT--SMOKING to get your nic likely will shorten your life and is even more terrible for those around you.

The people running the anti-smoking campaigns (Phillip Morris, for example) are required to do it under the tobacco settlement. They wouldn't be saying anything. Joe Camel would still rule.

[FredStembottom]

249. I have a theory that road rage.....

is a result of reduced % of the population smoking.

Nicotine has a sedative or calming effect (among other things, of course). Those most prone to extreme irritability were also quite intuitive of their own anti-social tendencies and tobacco's positive effect on them - especially while driving. Get in. Turn the key. Light up and RELAAAAAAAaaaxxxxx.................

Now the world is full of healthy, buff, raging lunatics behind the wheel who have no self-medication available.

:smoke:

[Verve]

254. Could road rage also be reduced due to all the deaths related to smoking?

Less people on the road, less traffic!

[FredStembottom]

272. This is a trick question, isn't it!

:D

[FredStembottom]

264. Self Delete

[marions ghost]

343. maybe we could come up with

better relaxation techniques?
Having lived with smokers, I don't see the benefits--tobacco gives you a temporary endorphin high, but on the latter side of that curve it causes anxiety about getting another fix, not to mention oxygen starvation when the lungs are more compromised.

I do believe that smoking is a drug of choice for those managing their own ADD tendencies--a definite correlation. That has not been seriously addressed in medical research.

[Wheezy]

290. Well, that's debatable...

The 'ZERO positive effects' part of your post is what I'm referring to.

FTR: I don't (nor does anyone on the links below) suggest these effects even come close to outweighing the negatives to cigarette smoke. Nor do I suggest a non-smoker should START smoking based on this. I just wanted to provide the information I've found, which could be helpful to some folks here.


(from a site I'd consider pro-smoking)
http://www.forces.org/evidence/evid/therap.htm


(and from a site very much anti-smoking, I was surprised they included/acknowledged this)
http://www.reutershealth.com/wellconnected/doc41.html
Parkinson's Disease. Nicotine has some positive effects on the brain, including improving concentration and short-term memory. Studies suggest that cigarette smoke blocks the activity of a protein called monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B), which may play a role in Parkinson's disease. In fact, evidence is now fairly strong that smokers have a lower risk for Parkinson's disease. (This is, of course, no reason to smoke.)

Alzheimer's Disease. Some evidence also suggests that nicotine may have short-term protective actions against disease mechanisms that cause Alzheimer's. In fact nicotine is being tested in Alzheimer's patients. It should be strongly noted, however, that such effects, if protective, are short term and are most likely not applicable to smokers. In fact, the best current research suggesting that smoking makes little difference in the risk for Alzheimer's, and if it does, the risk for dementia is slightly higher in smokers. (Certainly, smoking can affect blood vessels in the brain as it does in the heart, increasing the risk for dementia from small or major strokes.)

[Verve]

218. WHY do I have to breathe your smoke?

I like to go to bars, yet WHY do non-smokers have to smell and breathe Your nasty addiction? Why do we have to walk out of some eating and drinking establishments running to the shower to wash the smoke out of our hair and having to fumigate all our clothes just so we don't have to smell nasty like you?

I apologize for flaming, but people for smoker's rights are some of the most selfish people on earth.

[Cats Against Frist]

276. You just don't get it

I'm not selfish, because I'm asking for both smoking and non-smoking establishments.

It's not like I'm saying that you have to attend somewhere that's smoking and that all places be places to smoke.

Answer this simple question: why does your "right" to like to go to bars, necessitate the prohibition of my smoking in ANY bar?

No one can come up with any answer.

[FogerRox]

375. Cats-- your point is very good

When laws are passed to Exclude a group I consider this a bad thing.

You folks who want to pass laws to enjoin others rights ought to consider the same arguments are used to discriminate against GAYS, BLACKS, WOMEN--- ETC, ETC,

I smoke, yet some BOZO thinks I dont know its bad for me-- and they think they have an obligation to present the facts to me--

Its like abortion-- instead of banning abortion- why dont you all work to reduce the need for abortion?

---instead of banning smoking- why dont you all work to reduce the need for smoking?

Forgive me the hyperbole-- Take your smoking bans and fold them 5 times and put them where the moon doesnt shine.

[Verve]

435. There is a big difference against discriminating against color of skin and

smoking.

The color of your skin does not hurt public health. Smoking does.

C'mon people! These defenses against smoking are really pitiful!

[FogerRox]

543. its about tactics, there is no difference between the tactics

using the tactics of Facsism and the KKK is wrong

If you hoid BUSH up to a set of standards, you have to be able to hold yourself up to the same standards

[pointblank]

356. SELFISH?

Mosty of us are willing to concede that there should be non-smoking establishments, and I even stated earlier I would be OK if they banned it on the streets near restaraunts and bars...so why cant you concede that there should be a few places in these non-smopking cities that we, as free Americans, can go pollute ourselves if we choose?

Why aren't you against alcohol then? It is harmful to the body and the second hand effects, if you will, can be just as devastating if not more so than the second hand effects of smoking (violence, drunk driving, puking on people etc. etc.)...Think before you call us selfish...we just want to keep our right to choose...we are OK with you having most of the bars and restaurants, but we just want a couple for ourselves.

I am very, very passionate about this subject and I am not even a full-time smoker! I cant imagine how bad it is for those who are.

Where does it end people?

THINK, MAN, THINK!!!!!


edited for spelling

[Verve]

441. Yes, SELFISH!

I feel like I'm on a free republic thread listening to all these lame excuses in defense of smoking.

Again, this is not a personal freedom problem, this is a public health problem. When a private person's behavior affects public health, your individual rights usually get trumped for the good of ALL.

Look around, our country limits behavior that hurts the public. I don't see anyone complaining that we can't beat our wives, we can't carry around bombs and machine guns, we can't drink and drive, we can't have typhoid if we're a restaurant worker, or even worse forget to wash our hands. The list obviously goes on and on. Our society has to limit some personal rights that harm others. It's called CIVILIZATION!

It amazes me that the majority of people on this thread are against the war,poverty, etc. Many would likely give the shirt off their back to help others, all while blowing noxious gases into the air of the same people they are trying to help. What Irony.

Addicts will go to any extreme to try to normalize their addiction. This thread is a case in point.

[Name removed]

460. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[grace0418]

465. "telling me what I can and cant do to my body"

What you're doing to your body is not the problem, it's how what you're doing to your body is affecting others that's the issue. Just because someone has a different opinion than you doesn't make them bitter, unreasonable or illogical. Your accusations actually sound more like that.

[pointblank]

473. Why do you keep missing the point here?

Is it purposeful? Or are you not reading the full post?

Address what we as smoker's rights advocates are proposing here please. (the fact that there can be concessions made for some bars to be smoking and others non smoking)

Until then, we all know that smoking harms people. That is not up for debate.

I think it is illogical for someone to say that this is a problem that requires and "all or nothing" solution.

[grace0418]

518. Oh I got the point loud and clear. I just completely disagree.

Sorry if that seems illogical.

[pointblank]

523. You disagree that there should be separate venues for those who choose to

smoke and dont mind being around it and one for those who dont want to?

In any resonable person's book that is illogical not to mention opressive and asinine. I hope you dont claim to be a liberal, look up the definition and read it again if you do please. Maybe there is a reason this place reminds you of Free Republic...

[grace0418]

529. Yeah, because it's really liberal and open-minded to call me

asinine for not agreeing with you. I also never said this place reminds me of Free Republic, so maybe it's you who isn't reading the posts very thoroughly. But feel free to keep calling me names and making false accusations, you're really winning me over.

[Verve]

467. WA State Doesn't Think It's Illogical.

This is not just about bars, this is about public areas.

Just because the tobacco lobbyists have managed to keep smoking legal, does not make it right. Smoking harms more than just the smoker. If it only harmed the smoker, this issue would be mute. Condoning people to harm innocent bystanders with noxious gases is ILLOGICAL.

Someone knowingly harming others is more bitter and unreasonable than I could ever be.

[Dorian Gray]

510. The issue...

If they are making a private club for smokers provided for by smokers, what's the problem? Also, the issue isn't mute. It's moot.

[rman]

445. If there are so many non-smoking bar goers,

then why doesn't the market pick up on that demand?

Answer: there aren't that many.

Imagine what this ban will do for the business. Not that this should be the only consideration, but also non-smokers' desires should be the only consideration.

Which doesn't mean non-smokers' wishes should be discarded entirely, but it does mean smokers' wishes also should not be discarded entirely.

A reasonable compromise could have been reached, such as smoking- and non-smoking areas in bars.
As things stand now, a non-reasonable non-compromise has been implemented.

[Verve]

476. Hmmmm.....A state of 10+ million people bans smoking, yet their aren't

a lot of non smoking bar goers?

HUH?

[radwriter0555]

280. Because it's not for the "good" of one, it's for the benefit of ALL. That

is how laws work. Laws are designed to benefit more than one person, their purpose is to be an asset to the entire community. Your elected officials weighed the evidence and found that the majority of the community supports this new law.

I should be able to enter your irish pub and enjoy the company of my friends without choking and now you can too!
Every pack of cigarettes you smoke puts $5 in the pockets of republicans. I can't imagine paying republicans to kill myself. I can't imagine paying them over $3000 a year to kill me, one cigarette at a time... (That's the justification I used to quit, after watching the most handsome, charming and delectible man on the planet die at age 45 of throat cancer. He wasn't so pretty the day he died.)

[pointblank]

354. "Stay the fuck out of my Irish bar"

I love it...Im with you all the way.

I would even go as far as to say I am fine with banning smoking OUTSIDE on public streets if these nazi fucks would stay out of my watering holes and allow the BUSINESS OWNERS to make the decision as to whether or no they want smoking in their place or not.

I just dont see how even the most vehement anti-smoking individual can argue that it should be up to the business owner and not the "state" to tell them if they can allow an other wise legal activity to occur in their establishment. If the worker doesn't like it, then go somehwere else and work...It just isnt logical

[Democrat 4 Ever]

414. Exactly when did you get your medical degree? I love the way

people can excuse any position they have by claiming the harm to others is nothing more than bullshit. You have no idea. Period.

There are several severe consequences for many people who are exposed to cigarette smoke and just because you don't want to acknowledge that your habit is harming others doesn't make it any less real. And trying to justify cigarette smoke by using spurious arguments about bus fumes, etc. is a typical repug technique of changing the argument to shore up a weak position. Everyone knows there are plenty of things that are unhealthy but equating a city bus with a room full of smokers is disingenuous and not worthy of discussion in a thread about cigarette smoke.

[progressivebydesign]

39. Remember the writer was proud of "puking" in the street..

so you're not really responding to a person with a rational mind.

[Cats Against Frist]

48. Oh, give me a break -- it was once

and I got out of there as fast as I could, took a nap under the table caddy at the Fremont Sunday Market trailer. Then, I woke up and ate a bagel sandwich.

How's that curio cabinet workin' out for ya? The puffy paint sweatshirt? The beany baby collection?

[satireV]

54. I hope you didn't

Wake up looking at the troll.... ;)

[Cats Against Frist]

56. Are you kidding -- I can't make it up that hill -- I smoke too much.

:eyes:

:sarcasm:

[Arugula Latte]

66. Wow -- You just painted a picture of Suburban Hell in my mind.

"How's that curio cabinet workin' out for ya? The puffy paint sweatshirt? The beany baby collection?"

Even though it's quite possible it doesn't apply to the poster you were replying to, that's a pretty damn funny characterization captured in a few phrases. :rofl:

[dionysus]

248. thats the such an insulting and elitist post

it makes me puke.

I'm a smoker and I hate it in places such as stores or restaurants, malls, ect.

but in a BAR?!?!!? here most bar goers smoke. Bars aren't health clubs. So here's an idea for your utterly intollerant ass; allocate a % of smoking and non-smoking liquor licenses for the bars. Each side can live in peace. Huh?

[Dorian Gray]

513. Smoking Healthclubs!

That's a great idea. I'd love to have a smoking night at my gym! ;) Doing the stairmaster with smokes in my mouth.

Seriously, though. I had a friend who used to smoke in the shower. True story. There's no point to it, other than to share and amuse. (Or not. Depending on the personality.)

Anyhow, Dean Martin would be rolling over in his grave if he could see the state of affairs in the US regarding smoking!

[rinsd]

509. Have you see the reponses comparing smokers to wife beaters?

Or cat killers?

There's plenty of irrational behavior all around with a healthy dash of self righteousness.

[sinkingfeeling]

113. I'm not going to argue, but to answer your questions, "no, no, and no.'

[jbnow]

117. Not everyone agrees

there is no good reason to smoke. Google neuroprotective + nicotine. Smokers have about 70% lower risk of Parkinson's and a lower risk of many other neurodegenerative diseases. The more they smoke and the longer they smoke the more reduced the risk is.
It helps with the positive symptoms of schizophrenia, reduces symptoms of Tourettes and can reduce neuropathic pain.
Non-smokers or ex-smokers have a much higher rate of ulcerative colitis.

Or look at the studies on cancer in women with a mutated gene (BRCA-1 or BRCA-2) They found they have about an 80% chance of developing breast cancer so were looking at potential triggers. Heavy smokers had a 54% lower chance and again the more they smoked the better their odds. They think that has to do with nicotines effect on estrogen but they are certainly looking at this seriously.

Obviously for current rather than epidemiological studies they use the patch, they don't start kids with Tourettes or old folks with Alzheimer's smoking, but it has to be low dose constant like the patch or high dose intermittent like smoking.
Drug companies have been working to find something to bind to the brain's nicotine and nicotinic receptors that might have the same benefits. It does seem there are other beneficial compounds in smoke then just the nicotine though.

There isn't doubt about the benefits of smoking, nor the drawbacks. The reason for the benefits are being investigated. For the neuroprotection it appears the benefits come through an anti-inflammatory mechanism in the brain which may protect against nerve cell death.(Per Journal of Neurochemistry) though there are many factors that are suspected to provide protection in other ways.

You might think smokers are just weak foolish addicts. Some surely are. But I'm willing to be slow to judge, perhaps it is a wiser part of the person drawn to smoke.

[Canadian Socialist]

192. It's not the nicotine that is bad

although it is addictive. It's the delivery system that is bad for you. i.e. smoking or chew. Nicotine actually has many good effects on the system, e.g. better memory, appetite suppression. I am a smoker and sometimes even I can't stand being in a really smoky bar. However, it's a bar, not a health club.

[skids]

265. Umm. No.

I don't believe the tobacco industry is evil.

The American big-business tobacco industry certainly is, but they do not represent all tobaccanists.

I do not believe there is no good reason to smoke. It improves memory retention, and it calms the nerves.

I certainly do not agree that secondhand smoke is just as bad or worse than first-hand smoke. Unless you're in a basement full of Radon. The studies on both sides of this issue are cooked up to the point where they are almost meaningless. Both sides. Not just one.

[MojoXN]

314. "agrees that second hand smoke is just as bad (or worse) than first hand..

Huh? :rofl:

OK, SO, you contend that second hand smoke is just as bad (if not worse) than actively smoking? What the hell kind of junk science have YOU been perusing, merwin? Common sense argues against your conclusion, my friend.

Why should you be forced to sit in a cloud of smoke when blah-blah-blah? No one is forcing you, or anyone else to do ANYTHING. Simple as that. You are free to avoid cigarette smoke, just walk away from the smoker.

MojoXN

[rinsd]

504. "So, what's the problem with trying to get rid of smoking entirely? "

Because banning alcohol worked out brilliantly as well as the effectiveness our current war on drugs?

[MuseRider]

15. As an ex smoker who can't stand

to be around smokers anymore I can tell you that I still go where I want and just suck it up. If I want to go to a bar I know they will be smoking so I make up my mind if I want to go or not. That is my choice and it can be made without telling anyone else how to behave. If I go and it is too much I leave, again that is my choice without telling anyone else how to behave. I hate this kind of stuff.

I think you are right.

[iconoclastNYC]

17. I'm so sick of this bitching about smoking bans.

Quit smoking, stay home, or move to another state and quit your bitching.

The 65% of us who don't smoke shoudln't be force to breathe the air you pollute because you aren't strong enuf to leave the cigarettes at home for a few hours.

[Cats Against Frist]

21. You aren't forced to go to a place where smoking is permitted.

[K8-EEE]

105. So Move To Some Polluted Freeperville Hellhole

...where you can smoke yourself into an early grave. Who's forcing you to live in a clean city?

[Cats Against Frist]

107. I said "rational" arguments

It's obviously a stretch to suggest someone move out of a city or state, rather than suggest that we cater to both.

Hmmm -- I've heard that sentiment before, though -- something like "love it or leave it?"

[K8-EEE]

112. You Can't Have Clean Air And Smoker Air In The Same Place

That's the problem, remember the "smoking sections" of the plane, the whole damn plane was the smoking section, it even bugged me when I smoked myself!

[Cats Against Frist]

116. Hey, baby, I'm cool with non-smoking airplanes

And I even, slowly got over non-smoking trains (though still, not completely). I don't care about businesses or restaurants or entrances to. I want a place where I can go and hang out with my friends, and smoke a cigarette, and drink a 20 oz. glass of African Amber, and play some darts, and take a pub quiz and shoot the breeze. In addition, I want bars, where everyone can do the same thing, but not have to be around cigarette smoke. That's where we differ. You are an ab-sol-u-tist. I am a com-pro-mis-er.

[readmoreoften]

146. And what are you doing to fight air pollution again? n/t

[K8-EEE]

190. LOTS!! PS: When You Buy Cigs, Chimpy Smiles.

Do you really want a big long list of stuff I've done to rally against polluters, petition for mass transit? I'm sure there are thousands of environmental activists here on DU, actually just voting against BushCo is a vote against pollution in many ways.

Hey smokers, go to opensecrets.org and look up how much money your addiction hands over to BushCo Inc.

When you quit smoking, Chimpy Cries.

[MadHound]

367. While you're there, check out how much tobbaco companies donated

To both Kerry and Gore.

You'll find it is roughly the same amount. For instance, Phillip Morris donated aprox the same amount, a bit over 2 million, to both Gore and Bush in '00. I'll let you find the Kerry/Bush figures for yourself.

All part of the two party/same corporate master system of government.

[AntiCoup2K4]

499. Another reason for getting rid of the DLC

There's no reason for Democrats to be obligated to those death merchants.

[skids]

275. Poorly designed.

It's completely possible with appropriate air flow management to completely section an establishment so there is no secondhand smoke in the nonsmoking area.

Oh but wait, I thought this was "all about the workers." Guess not.

Well, anyway, it's also perfectly possible with appropriate air flow management to draft the air upwards and scrub it so the employees do not suffer any ill effects. Such a system would also help with other pollutants, like offgassing from the chemicals used to clean the floors, any untreated mold problems, and construction materials themselves.

But somehow smoking ban people never seem to include a clause allowing a properly designed HVAC system for establishments with a smoking section.

Because it's not about the workers.

And it's not even about their own sensitive noses.

It's because these folks think it's their job to "save the world from tobacco" even if it means infringing on freedoms. Hey, what's the cancer rate for a person who smokes 1/4 pack a week? The same as a normal person you say? But that person is annoyed as crap at all these bans, too.

[marions ghost]

344. right

why are the air flow management issues never addressed? Extra ventilation requirements would help employees significantly.

[nonconformist]

353. You can't have clean air and CARS in the same place either. nt

[last_texas_dem]

222. But doesn't your original post

suggest that you would partly base your decision on whether or not to move to a place based on its smoking restrictions?

[William Bloode]

416. Clean city??????????

That is an oxymoron for sure. Due to motor vehicle concentration in urban areas the whole "clean city" crap is just that, crap.

[Dorian Gray]

516. You're telling me!

I live in NYC, and this ain't no clean city! But, alas, I know many bars who relax the smoking ban after 11 pm. They allow their patrons to smoke, and nobody dares complain about it. My father in law, a cop, happily lights up at the bars, too. He and his wife frequent those places so that they can smoke.

[iconoclastNYC]

475. You aren't forced to SMOKE

And you are the one with the problem. Not me? So why should my rights to go to any bar or restaurant been infringed by your inablity to practice personal responsibility (like not polluting indoor air)

Give me a break. This cuts both ways and more people choose not to smoke then TO SMOKE.

Go outside and give yourself cancer or stay home or DON'T SMOKE. Quit being a fucking baby over this and quit coaching your childish refusal to face reality in libertian ideology. Its really pathetic.

[dcfirefighter]

486. Good Argument

Love it or Leave it Baby!

No one was infringing on your rights to enter a privately owned and privately run bar or restaraunt. You just have to live with the rules the proprietor set. You might have to deal with other people smoking, if that is what the business owner decided to allow in his place of business.

Should we quit being a baby about the war in Iraq, loss of personal privacy, the likelyhood of an ultraconservative SC appointee? Should we just face reality?

I find your totalitarian ideology not pathetic, but frightening.

[iconoclastNYC]

500. Oh I'm a tolatarian now huh?

You want to leave it up to a properitor to set the rules as he see fit without any regard for public health.

Give it up. Nobodies buying it. Bitch and cry all you want. Call us fascists but smoking bans are happening because people want them, support them, and they are popular because they are healthier and bars are better for being smoke free.

Call me a fascist all you want but it's not going to change the fact that these laws are the future and smokers are going to have to be bothered to step outside to smoke or god forbit quit thier disgusting harmful habit.

Call me Hilter, go ahead. I can take it.

[dcfirefighter]

506. Tyranny of the majority

people want them, support them, and they are popular:
Gay marriage bans;
ID taught in public schools;
coming soon:
abortion bans;
internet porn bans;

if we're lucky:
bans on fatty food;
bans on public assemblies;
bans on 'seditious' literature.

[satireV]

50. Please stop using

your interanl combustion engine, your charcoal or gas grill and your wood burning fireplace.

Those of us who don't use them should not be forced to breathe the air you pollute with your toxic lethal fumes.

BTW advocating prohibitions went out in the 19th century and is no longer consider iconoclastic. It is downright extreme blue nosed right wing conservatism. It sure isn't liberal.

[giant_robot]

69. I'm so sick of this silly argument.

Yes, car exhaust is nasty. So is cigarette smoke. However, if you promise not to smoke inside the bar, tavern, or pub, I'll promise not to drive in it.

[Greyhound]

131. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! You must stop driving! Scientific studies have

linked a plethora of terrible and fatal diseases to exhaust from internal combustion engines!
You are killing all of us and the whole planet with your selfish addiction!
You poison our air, our water, and the land with your vile machines!
You don't have to drive into the building for your nasty, air-borne, poisons to seep into my pristine pink lungs! And what about the children?!? Won't somebody please think of the children?!?
You have NO RIGHT to poison me with your addiction!

[merwin]

147. Prohibitions are EVERYWHERE.

You're not allowed to kill someone, you're not allowed to hit someone, you're not allowed to play music loudly in a public area without a permit, you're not allowed to own a nuclear weapon, the government is prohibited from setting up a state religion, etc.

Also, just because it is legal doesn't mean that it should be. The same goes the other way. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean that it should be.

Do you think that smoking should be allowed on airplanes? In workplaces?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

271. Wow. look up *democracy * sometime.

"Quit smoking, stay home, or move to another state and quit your bitching."

We can bitch, this is America. Isn't that why we're on DU?

[Mutley]

331. Boy, that sure sounds a lot like...

"If you don't like what Bush is doing to stop the terrorists, then move to FRANCE! Or better yet, move to IRAQ!"

[Mend]

18. I believe the idea is to encourage people to quit by

making it really tough to get their nicotine fix. Why do the rest of us care? Besides the emotional cost of lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease among other smoking-related illnesses, the financial cost of treating smokers is a huge burden on all of us. We would just as soon use the money on other medical problems.....

[Cats Against Frist]

32. All it's doing is encouraging me to get pissed off.

Again, the pat response: why not ban McDonald's? I don't like McDonald's, I don't go there. I don't eat their food. It's my choice. I can understand the workplace thing, but the pub is a cultural institution, that involves approximately three things: drinking, smoking and various time-wasting activities, i.e. shooting the shit, pulling the opposite sex, playing pool or Golden Tee, or pub quiz.

Why don't they ban the drinking, then? If it's about healthcare costs -- I'm sure that alcohol wreaks its fair share of societal grief: broken families, car crashes, treatment programs, disease. Where are all the non-smokers who think it'd be O-fucking-K to ban the drinking?

[satireV]

61. That worked real well with drug prohibtion didn't it...

NOT!

In fact the cost of drug prohibition is HUGE.. 10s of BILLIONS a year enforcing the prohibition laws.

But go ahead. make more criminals... build more prisons.. and it still won't make a dent in the smoking rate, just like drug prohibition doesn't make a dent in drug abuse rates.

Crap I can't believe this place sometimes. the so called liberals who are FOR MORE govt control of individuals and possession of inanimate objects amazes me. They never understand that govt control of our lives is NOT liberalism but extreme right conservatism.

[pitohui]

480. what financial burden?

the financial cost of treating smokers is a huge burden on all of us. We would just as soon use the money on other medical problems.....

i thought it was proven that smoking was saving the gov't billions in social security costs alone, if too many ppl stop smoking & live longer, then the financial burden of paying for them over many years or even decades greatly overshadows the financial burden of treating the smoker's disease

after all non-smokers die of protracted illness too, such as parkinson's, alzheimer's, stomach cancer, heart disease, etc.

if you live long enough, you WILL get some miserable drawn-out disease

so non-smokers are the ones actually creating the financial burdon on society because they live longer

i am a non-smoker btw, i just thought the financial argument against smoker had been long since disproved, if others smoke, it actually helps me, less competitors for limited social safety net funds in my old age

[readmoreoften]

22. I'm so with you.

I don't smoke and I think the bans are ridiculous. Who on earth are these people with nothing better to do than worry about SMOKERS? My father is probably going to die of lung cancer some day. He is completely addicted to nicotine and has been for over 40 years. So, now he can't GO ANYWHERE either? He couldn't even visit me when I lived in Texas because it was a 3 1/2 hour flight and he wasn't sure he'd be able to smoke in the airport.

God forbid we should pollute our TOXIC air with little puffs of tobacco smoke.

[Mend]

30. a typical case of lung cancer costs $350,000 to treat....

and that is not including the eventual relapse and subsequent treatments. I hope he has some of those Texas oil wells to help defray costs or else it is coming out of our Medicare funds and that is about all of us and what money we have to treat all elderly and disabled people.

[Lerkfish]

38. you can get cancer as a nonsmoker...

I did, and I never smoked.

so...what's your point again?

[Mend]

44. my point is that the majority of lung cancer, emphysema, heart

disease, mouth and throat cancer, stomach cancer, coronary artery disease, strokes, and the list goes on are strongly related to smoking which people can choose to avoid. When they don't we pay for it. Is that clear now?

[Lerkfish]

94. sure, and there are metabolistic health problems, and STDs...

which are also related to choices made by individuals.
People also choose to hang glide, to bunji jump, to drive while on a cell phone, to drink and drive....etc.

Hey, I'm not a smoker, but I don't understand the targeting here.
I see nothing whatsoever wrong with bars and restaurants that allow smoking, and bars and restaurants that don't.

That was the original topic, right? Now it has morphed into evil smokers and how their health problems bankrupt all of us, for some reason.

[readmoreoften]

129. You know, when my father dies...

the last thing I'm going to think about is how his illness has effected YOUR WALLET. My father's done plenty for this world. How dare you insult him!

[marions ghost]

345. colon cancer

has also been strongly correlated with smoking. Most people do not realize this.

[rinsd]

515. And this is a prime rationale I am ambivalent about universal care...

...the justification that the state picks up the bill so the state is justified in banning what it has deemed an unhealthy habit.

[merwin]

49. Have you ever thought that non-smokers can get lung cancer from

second hand smoke?

[in_cog_ni_to]

59. Non-smokers being exposed to a couple of minutes of second hand smoke is

NOT going to give you lung cancer. Show me proof where a non-smoker who WAS NOT exposed to second hand smoke on a regular basis, got lung cancer. Show me someone who had a drink in a bar for 1-2 hours and got lung cancer. That's PURE BULLSHIT. Total and COMPLETE BULLSHIT.

[merwin]

72. If you go to a smokey bar for 1-2 hours a night, then there's a pretty

good chance you'll develop lung cancer.

Obviously, you can't prove 100% that the second hand smoke caused the lung cancer, but you also can't prove that eating at McDonalds every day makes you fat... but it does :-)

[Cats Against Frist]

76. Then don't go. Find somewhere else to go that serves nada-coladas

and will let you pass out Home Interiors catalogues.

Problem solved.

[last_texas_dem]

219. I don't understand your constant characterization

of non-smokers as ultra-prudish suburban zombies. I don't smoke because I think it's nasty and seems to be far more harmful than it is beneficial. It wasn't a difficult choice to make. Just because someone chooses not to waste their money and likely shorten their life span doesn't mean they collect Beanie Babies or pass around Home Interiors catalogs.

[Cats Against Frist]

277. I'm not suggesting the comparison, because they don't smoke

the comparison is because they don't want ANYONE ELSE to smoke.

[in_cog_ni_to]

82. I didn't say 1-2 hours a NIGHT. I said for 1-2 hours...period.

There's no way in hell someone is going to get lung cancer from sitting in a bar for 1-2 hours on a Saturday night. Maybe if a non-smoker was an alcoholic and lived in the bar 24/7 there could be a chance, but the booze would kill him/her first. :eyes: Most non-smokers are NEVER exposed to smoke. There's no way you're going to get cancer from an "Occasional" exposure. It's crap.

Eating at McDonald's every day does not make you fat if you eat SALAD with low-cal dressing or grilled chicken with no bun and an icetea with no sugar. Give me a break. It depends on what you eat when you go there.

[merwin]

104. I would disagree with the 'most non-smomkers are NEVER exposed to smoke'

comment.

Everyone who has ever walked out of the Seattle Intl Airport has been exposed (their baggage claim exits are littered with smokers right next to the doors). It's the same with a great many public places around Seattle and many other places in the USA.

[Cats Against Frist]

Hey, guess what.

Those aren't the only doors out of Baggage claim. There's this thing called "an elevator," which will take you up, one floor, so you can exit outside the ALREADY DECLARED NON-SMOKING EXITS, on the upper level. That's the compromise, get it? I get to smoke, downstairs, and if you don't like it, you take the elevator up, and exit on the upper level. You get a smoke-free exit, and if I don't like it, I walk my lazy ass down to baggage claim, and smoke outside.

If we happen to pass in the elevator, and you accidentally smell the smoke that's wafting from my body, seek psychological counseling.

[merwin]

119. Actually, they are the only exits :-)

At least if someone is picking you up.

[Cats Against Frist]

187. People can pick you up on the upper level.

I've been picked up on the upper level -- I know this -- and maybe it wasn't where I was "supposed" to get picked up, but I've gotten both dropped off, and picked up, there, and dropped off and picked people up, there. There's also a parking lot that you can get to, from the upper exits. If you're so concerned about your health, you can walk your bags out to your car. I've done it with an infant in a stroller, two suitcases, three coats, a purse, and a French Horn.

[NoQuarter]

298. Change the French Horn to a Cello,

nix the infant, drop the purse, add a garment bag in addtion to the suitcases, and that could be me! I hear ya!

[AntiCoup2K4]

491. Now this is hilarious....

You refer to a smoking ban passed by 3/4% of the voters of a state that you don't even live in as "Jackbooted Nazi Bullshit" and then suggest that someone bothered by smoke needs "psychological counseling"??

I think you have that backwards. Seriously. You need to really evaluate why an ADDICTIVE DESTRUCTIVE DRUG means this much to you.

[misternormal]

220. Oh Hey... an airport... That's clean air for ya...

[in_cog_ni_to]

335. NO SHIT! And we won't mention all the exhaust fumes from the freakin'

waiting cars, busses or shuttles. :eyes:

[Carni]

407. I say we just ban planes, cars, trucks and SUVS

Oh yeah and electricity while we're at it...

I say ban transport in general and force people to work within walking distance.

If they don't like it, or can't find a job, move.

I shouldn't be forced to breath their exhaust smoke just because they're addicted to that fat paycheck and don't care for camping,
or nature...that just isn't my fucking problem.

Anyone who's a good (anything religious) should be following the teachings of (insert name here) and doing without all these worldly goods.

Clearly anyone who insists on polluting my air and making me breath garbage via internal combustion engine waste is a selfish clueless scumbag of a person.

You're with me or against me and what I say goes.

[in_cog_ni_to]

334. OMG. and exactly how many hours, days, weeks or years have you spent

outside the baggage claim area at the freakin' airport. Just because you may have to be exposed to a couple of minutes /seconds of smoke outside some building does NOT mean you are going to get cancer. non-smokers have taken paranoia to a new level. I KNOW...my sister's one. Fascism is alive and well in the good old USA...perpetrated by LIBERALS. I hope you're all proud of yourselves. We'll see how happy you are when your polluting cars are taken away from you or how much you'll enjoy cooking indoors in the summer because your toxic lighter fluid from your charcoal drill is "offensive" to your neighbor. That perfume you wear makes me sick, shall we outlaw it? I'm allergic to men's cologne, I think it should be against the law for men to wear it because it makes me sick. We can go on and on and on with this list. Where does it stop? NON-SMOKERS have opened a door they are going to regret and so-called LIBERALS PUSHED IT OPEN. Be proud, be very proud of this dangerous precedent. You're going to regret it some day. Mark my word.

[merwin]

552. I spent 4 years of my life traveling on airplanes. Much of that time is

spent directly outside of the baggage claim while I'm waiting for someone to pick me up.

[Lerkfish]

96. sure. But that wasn't the poster's point I was responding to.

at least, not directly. The poster apparently wished to blame smokers for cancer in a blanket condemnation, and I was pointing out that not all cancer is the fault of smoking.

[readmoreoften]

141. What are you babbling about?

Texas Oil wells? My father worked his whole life developing job training programs for unskilled laborers. And yes, his insurance is paying for it...insurance he worked his whole life to get.

So when you die from your reckless driving, or a lifetime of eating Twinkies, or high blood pressure from the stress of having your nose in everyone's business... then I'll make sure to let your kids know that you have put a social strain on 'all of us'.

People continue to smoke because they are physically addicted and there is almost no treatment for the cessation. What's your excuse of what you're going to die from?

[JVS]

213. But think of how much Social Securtiy saves when the person dies at 62...

and not at 90!

20 years at $1200/month (which is the SS payment to a relative of mine) $403200 less in payout!

[rinsd]

517. Logan's run had the right idea I guess

:evilgrin:

[catmother]

70. my father did die of lung cancer just a year ago. n/t

[pitohui]

482. yr dad could visit you if he liked

there is nicotine gum or chewing tobacco products widely available, even a patch, so that people can still get their nicotine while traveling by air

he's just making excuses because he can't be arsed to visit you or maybe he can't really afford it & doesn't want you to know

[Little Star]

25. Many people here

don't go out much any more (including myself) because of this ban.
There should be room for both smoking and not smoking. Neither should have to suffer. Waitress for many years and I can tell you that this did hurt business.

[merwin]

55. How does smoking 'enhance' the fun you have at a bar/club?

It doesn't. People only smoke there because they are already addicted. By continuing to allow it, we are perpetuating the problem.

One could also say that outlawing Hummers and gigantic SUV's that get 10mpg would hurt the automobile industry... does that mean that we should give up on trying to improve fuel economy?

[Cats Against Frist]

101. Why do I have to pass what I enjoy, or don't enjoy, by you?

You have a fundamental block, here. At least most people are willing to just flaunt their power and disgust, without care for what the smoker feels. You have to question the enjoyment? Are you honestly suggesting that everyone may enjoy or not enjoy the same things?

[merwin]

114. Because what you enjoy directly affects ME. You can chew tobacco

all you want. I couldn't care less, honestly. But to force me to walk through clouds of smoke is definatly a violation of my freedoms. I sure as hell don't ask for people to blow smoke in my face (not necessarily on purpose, mind you) as I'm walking down a public sidewalk with my child.

[Cats Against Frist]

118. Nobody forces you to go to a bar

That's all I care about.

[merwin]

136. Would you have a problem with saftey rules at work being abolished?

Nobody forces you to work at a business that doesn't provide you with a safe workplace!

You boss sexually harassing you? Too f'in bad. Nobdoy forces you to work there!

The arguement of 'Nobody is forcing you to go there' is ridiculous. It's a public place, and there are rules in place to keep the citizens safe...

[Cats Against Frist]

139. What people do for money is obviously different than

where people go to have a good time. And it wouldn't be a problem, if people would compromise.

[merwin]

149. OK, you don't smoke in a bar and I won't piss in your beer :-)

[Greyhound]

135. Yeah well, see post 131 n/t

[Mojorabbit]

140. Actually there are medical

benefits of using nicotine,you can look it up.

[NuttyFluffers]

320. obviously you have no idea.

and your blanket statement that it doesn't enhance the fun at a bar/club is flat out wrong, by the way.

never had a smoking buzz, have you?

[Carni]

415. WTF business is it of YOURS how he enhances his time?

It is none of your business if this guy wants to enjoy himself in an Irish pub and smoke his brains out with a bunch of like minded cohorts.

No one is tying an anchor to your ass and docking you in his Irish pub.

[rman]

449. Improved fuel efficiency does not prohibit a pleasurable activity.

Even though you, presumably a non-smoker make claims that smokers don't really enjoy smoking. But then again what would you know about it - and at any rate i don't need you to tell me what i do or don't enjoy. Thanks.

[RobinA]

179. I'm One of Them

Used to love sitting in a bar, relaxing, having a couple beers and some smokes with my friends. Got to be too much trouble to smoke with the beer. It was no fun to sit there and not smoke so now I don't go out. No one's going to go bankrupt without my tiny amount of beer money, but I doubt I'm the only one who doesn't go anymore.

[Der Blaue Engel]

27. Everyone was livid when it passed in California too

Now, nobody cares. (Nobody I encounter, anyway.) It's very easy to adjust to, and most smokers I know are very respectful of the rights of others. It doesn't upset them.

[Cats Against Frist]

40. I feel like crying. I'm a goddamn POET for fuck's sake.

Part of my JOB DESCRIPTION is smoking -- living the life that too many others are afraid of...

OK, that's a bit, over the top. I'm older, now, and have a mortgage. The heyday was what it was -- but the romanticism is completely gone, now.

[Der Blaue Engel]

73. I think you're attaching too much importance to a prop

I'm sure that you are a wonderful poet and that you will continue to be one, romanticism and all, whether public smoking is a part of it or not.

Step back and take a few deep breaths. And then go buy a hookah and have decadent artists' salons in your living room. :)

I just think that you're going to see that this isn't the end of the world, and not as big a deal as you think. My poet friends like to huddle together on windy decks and smoke together, sharing their tortured angst. It's a right of passage in San Francisco. ;)

[Cats Against Frist]

78. That's the thing --

it looks like, from the legislation, that there will be no "cold, windy decks," or patios, or anything of the sort. That's why I invoked the Nazis.

[frylock]

74. everyone cried and complained that bars would go out of business..

so far, all the bars and restaurants I frequent that once allowed smoking are still around.

[opiate69]

294. Do you have bars and casinos on tribal land wher you are?

Because I can tell you, here in Washington, they will be absolutely jumping. (Saw it first hand when Pierce County passed their illegal ban last year. Taverns in the city limits were empty on friday and saturfay nights, and my favorite tribal bar was standing room only every ight of the week.)

[frylock]

421. at least 5 or 6 casinos here in sd county..

they are a little out of the way, however. I could see people migrating to those types of places because they can smoke, but for the most part, people have adapted. Mind you, we aren't subject to inclement weather here in So Cal, so ducking outside for a quick smoke isn't so bad.

[rinsd]

521. self delete double post

[rinsd]

522. Dude....we live in San Diego.

Where most restaurants and bars already had outdoor facilities to accomodate smokers.

I think the NYC ban would be a better example for proving that people adjusted.

[K8-EEE]

108. As A Jazz Lover I Thank GOD For The Smoking Ban

Those no window crowded jazz spots, man I used to have to come home wash my clothes and my hair and they would STILL smell like smoke. It's so much nicer now.

[Pooka Fey]

310. As a pro jazz musician, I'm out of work because of the smoking ban.

All those smokers in the clubs buying drinks and stinking up your clothes were creating the revenue for the bar to hire and PAY real live jazz musicians to entertain you. I live and work in Metropolitan area #5 in size in the U.S. - the smoking ban has killed live music in my community. Some musicians are happy because they hated breathing in the stink - most musicians are pissed because now they have to work a day job in order to pay the bills.

[in_cog_ni_to]

340. Too bad. Find another job

in an economy created by repukes where there are no jobs to be had. :sarcasm: non-smoking Nazis will regret this some day. When something THEY enjoy is taken away because it's offensive to other people. I think cars should be outlawed. I'm sorry you lost your job because of these people. Thank a LIBERAL.

[mondo joe]

378. People can't listen to jazz without smoking?

Sounds like the clubs were more about the smoking and less about the music.

[K8-EEE]

556. Come To L.A. -- Come To Charlie O's In Van Nuys!

Singers hate having to suck in the smoke. I know one friend who had to quit singing in bars and only was able to resume when the no-smoking thing happened.

[K8-EEE]

558. Luckily Fewer and Fewer Young People Are Starting To Smoke

This generation is smarter than mine was, IMO -- or more educated, my daughter and her friends truly seem to think that smoking is for stupid people.

As the non-smoking public continues to increase and the old smokers die off, it's only natural that the majority will win initiatives to not have to breath in the minority's stink.

[Cats Against Frist]

384. Here's a very incomplete list of businesses hurt by smoking

http://www.smokersclubinc.com/banloss3.htm

[NuttyFluffers]

322. ? i live in CA. we still bitch. where you live?

SF Bay Area here. besides, it isn't a full state ban. you can pretty much smoke while walking down the street, campus, etc. and there's plenty of places that just ignore the law outright (which i agree with -- don't like it, get the fuck out. tit for tat anti-smoking mofo nazis, i say).

it's true we are respectful of people's rights and try not to smoke in people's homes or enclosed areas where people cannot get away. that part does make sense. banning in toto doesn't.

[Lerkfish]

31. I'm a nonsmoker, my wife is allergic to smoke, and I'm bothered by smoke,

but I still do not understand banning smoking EVERYWHERE. I can appreciate having some establishments smoke-free, but I also there should be establishments where people can smoke if they wish.

now, if you could ban republicans, then you got something...

:)

[Name removed]

33. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Texasgal]

42. This is an issue of your

Personal rights. I think it is very important!

When the government starts living FOR you, we have a problem.

[Beaverhausen]

88. How about the personal rights of all the non-smokers?

If you choose to smoke then the onus is on you to do it where the smoke won't end up in someone else's lungs. What is so hard about that?

[Cats Against Frist]

90. What's so hard about you staying out of smoking establishments?

Seriously -- if all you non-smokers just took your business to non-smoking bars, I'm sure more of them would open up -- hey, there's 60 percent of you for the ban, right? Surely, since you all have such a vested interest, you could drive the smoking bars right out of business.

You just want the "illusion" of having a good time.

[Beaverhausen]

95. Get over it already. We have the ban in California and it's fine

The world is not going to come to an end because you have to step outside to smoke.

[Cats Against Frist]

98. Can't step outside.

Unless the business owner exempts him or herself from the outside smoking ban. YES, you heard it right: outside smoking ban.

And why can't you just "get over" having some bars be smoking, and some not? You're only proving what I had hoped to NOT see in this thread, the la-la-la-la "get over it" crowd -- that has no reason except for their own personal disgust.

[yewberry]

110. That's not really the problem in Seattle; we've had a smoking ban

in place for years and people have been comfortable with it, at least from what I see. This new legislation makes it illegal for people to smoke outside within 25 feet of doors, windows, and ventilation intakes.

This is a city. For someone to smoke in this city now, they'd have to find themselves in the center of a 50-foot-diameter circle that doesn't reach any windows, doors, or air intakes. That pretty much rules out smoking in all of downtown and any urban area.

Setting aside private clubs or anything like that, the legislation effectively bans outdoor smoking in many parts of the city. I think that's why people are so mad about it.

[Cats Against Frist]

121. Yeah, I'm thinking about having a "smoke-in"

in the middle of the intersection at 4th and Union. I'm going to tell the cops it's the only place that I can smoke outside, in Downtown Seattle.

[eridani]

300. Correct. Good idea, really lousy law.

The 25 foot ban is seriously stupid. Just requiring people to go outside would have been sufficient, IMO.

[in_cog_ni_to]

341. BUT you can smoke in the middle of the INTERSTATE!

Yeah, that's the ticket! Stand in the middle of the damn road. It sounds like that's the only available space. Oh, but wait...someone may get a waft of that smoke through their car window. Toxic car fumes are OK though. Never mind. :eyes:

[Rainscents]

109. This was on PROP 901 ballot... People voted for this, not the legistrator!

America Heart and Lung Association put this shit on the ballot measure, NOT the Washington State Legistrators!

[Texasgal]

125. How did this even GET on the ballot?

YOUR GOVERNMENT.

[Generic Other]

225. Washington state has an initiative process

and referendums. The backers got enough signatures to put the measure on a ballot and enough of us voted for it to get it passed. Including me.

[Mojorabbit]

145. They did the same thing here

big money and organization to it too.you should have seen the commercials.Local business was against it but it passed.

[Verve]

284. Is it O.K to Ban People from Peeing in Drinking Water?

Don't I have a personal right to pee in the city reservoir if I want to?

Come on Smokers! Listen to yourselves. This is not a personal freedom issue, it's a public health issue. Get over your denial and then you can get over your addiction.

[William Bloode]

429. Before your water is treated there are much worse things...

than a bit of urine in it. Thats a terrible argument, and has no leg to stand on. You would be perfectly fine urinating into the city reservoir, because it goes from there to be treated.

Do you not realize a large quantity of city water is reclaimed from waste "toilet" water complete with urine, and feces?

[Verve]

469. You're right!

Bad analogy!

I think I'll just swim over to the no peeing section of the pool where the water is pure. (a much better analogy)

[400Years]

432. stop driving and stop using electricity

You don't "need" to be on this discussion board anymore than someone needs to smoke. The electricity you are using is polluting my air.

[in_cog_ni_to]

47. From a non-smoker, no doubt.

:eyes:

[texastoast]

133. Are those swear words I'm reading?

I think they are!
:P

[Bluebear]

34. "It was a whirlwind of pale ale and hefeweizen, sex,...."

Awesome rant whether people agree with you or not. Reading it, I felt 20 again....

[Cats Against Frist]

63. Oh, it was good, Bluebear

When I first hit the PacNW, from a lifetime in central/southern Illinois, I knew that I was home. I was single, blonde, mini-skirt wearing and carefree as all get-out. The dark beer, the raggedy Fremont crowd.

But, even Fremont is gone, now. And the bar that I went to had to be moved up a few buildings, so they could make room for condos for Adobe. Starbucks has opened fake "independent" coffee shop fronts, and half the business are gone -- Longshoreman's Daughter, Still Life, City Peoples, the Noodle House. ALL GONE. Making way for "the clean people."

[Viva_La_Revolution]

283. North Portland is 'gentrifying' too.

so sad. :(


I had a little conversation about this ban at work today when a non-smoking repug said..."Since it passed in Washington, they're already thinking about doing it here." I declared they would have to arrest me, and I would fight it all the way.
I explained that they would see me on the news for standing in the middle of the street downtown having a smoke, because it would be the only place I could while waiting 35 minutes at the bus mall watching (and smelling) big fume belching busses pass by every 30 seconds.
I explained that I would be coming back in from my breaks soaking wet from the rain because the only sheltered place to smoke at work is beside the front door under the awning.
I explained that I used to be a bartender, but I quit because I couldn't stand working with drunk people. If you don't want to breathe in smoke at work, don't work there.
I wanted to throw in genetically modified food, and the dismantling of the clear air laws, but they wouldn't talk to me anymore.

:evilgrin:

[RJRoss]

35. Nice rant!

Well, except for the f-bombs and Nazi references (j/k).

This is really a bad piece of legislation they passed. I'm a smoker, and I like to have a cappuccino OUTSIDE the cafe I frequent. Now I won't be able to enjoy a smoke with my coffee, and neither will the owner of the cafe. This will be very bad for bars and taverns in the state.

In the Washington state forum on this site, someone suggested that establishments could buy a smoking license, like a liquor license. That seems reasonable.

I don't like forcing my second-hand smoke on others, but this law goes way beyond reasonable.

[in_cog_ni_to]

37. Man THAT SUCKS! The non-smoking Nazis got to the State of Washington, eh?

I feel for you. I really do. This country is going to hell in a hand basket and it's being helped along by so-called Liberals just because they can't go into a particular BAR. Fucking sucks man. Unfreakingbelievable.

Have a hug:hug: and a smoke :smoke: on me.

[SoCalDem]

46. The California Smoking nazis have found WA, I see.

It's because , although they dearly LOVE the money from taxes on tobacco, and it's LEGAL, THEY have determined that "it's not gopd for you " and they must save you from yourself and of course you are more dangerous than an escaped crackhead child molester with an AK47, so you must be ready to pay the consequences for your evil ways.

You will adjust, and it will end up saving you money,. We used to eat out 3-04 times a week, and now have cut back to about twice a month..to places that have outdoor patios.

and there is an "underground" of sorts here, that look the other way when customers still light up. I mean if the whole clientele and the workers are all smokers, who's gonna rat someone out. Every so often there's an "expose' on tv when some starnger wanders in and calls the cops..they pay a fine, and that's that.

I am happily awaiting the Pizza & donut nazis ..."Those" people are driving up MY insurance rates with all those transfats clogging up their arteries...and don;t get me started on the cell-phone nazis...WHERE ARE those guys.. cellphone drivers are very dangerous to my health...and sanity:)

[Rainscents]

111. Yes they did!

[Cats Against Frist]

126. You know, not to knock on Cali

and it's obvious that with a 65 percent "yea," that many Washington residents voted for it, too. But, I think if you took away Cali transplants and people who would never consider walking near a bar in their lives, there would be no smoking ban in bars.

[SoCalDem]

137. People who would NEVER go to a bar, seem to have very strong feelings

about "correct bar behavior"..:puke:

some commented here, after the law passed.."Well WE don;t go to bars, but we voted for the ban"..

[AntiCoup2K4]

306. But did they go to bars AFTER the ban was in effect?

I plan on returning to a few places I haven't been in years, once the ban goes in to effect here. Not all of them are even bars. There are some restaraunts in town that had a "non-smoking section" but there wasn't even a wall seperating the two halves of the restaraunt, let alone a decent ventilation system. The food was good there, in a greasy spoon sort of way (not health food in any case) but the extra helping of tar and nicotine ruined it. I wouldn't eat there every day regardless, but some times a Texas Red Chili burrito just sounds good. It will sound a lot better in a clean atmosphere next month.

I'm thinking of making a list - maybe even starting a thread on the subject in the Washington State forum - of businesses that I have avoided for years because of smoking. The reason for this list would be to encourage these places of business once the ban goes into effect. There's no reason why a place with good food or good drinks would suffer because of this law. In fact it's very possible they could gain a whole new customer base.

Until someone passes a law against greasy bar food or whatever.......

[SoCalDem]

307. Nope.. Lots of local bars just closed up

of course the corporate places like Chilis..I don;t know about.. we don;t go there anymore...

We didn;t go to bars before or after.. (A couple of fuddy-duddies)

[SoCalDem]

309. Unless they redecorate and replace every fabric/paper item,

you might not notice much difference:evilgrin:

[domlaw]

351. I've heard that before

Where I am a ton of non-smokers said the same thing: "now there is no smoking I'll start to go out again." Well...for the first couple of weeks that was true and they did go out and life was good. Then, guess what, these same people realised that they really didn't like going out and they stopped.

I have a ton of friends who lost their jobs because of people like you.

[AntiCoup2K4]

479. People like me, huh?

Well excuse the fuck out of me for wanting to breathe clean air, Mr. 55 posts, no profile, probably doesn't live anywhere near Washington State.

Go troll someone else's board for the tobacco industry. We have enough problems here with a handful of actual Democrats going crazy over their nicotine addiction without your help.

[in_cog_ni_to]

342. THAT pisses me off.

For people who want others out of their business, they sure as hell love sticking their non-smoking Nazi noses in smoker's business. Liberals? My ass.

[AntiCoup2K4]

494. Seems like EVERYTHING pisses you off these days.

Or at least anything you percieve as a "threat" to your self destructive addiction.

BTW, I wasn't aware you lived in Washington State. If you don't, then why are you even concerning yourself with this thread, let alone elevating your blood pressure over it. We know how smoking affects blood pressure. I wouldn't want you to seriously hurt yourself in one of these rants :(

[in_cog_ni_to]

524. I'm suppose to be concerned about the rights of Illinois citizens ONLY?

:eyes: Nice. EVERYTHING pisses me off lately? Well, we are living under a fascist regime who's hellbent on destroying this country and it does seem the supposed LIBERALS are content in helping them do so. So, hell yes I'm pissed. For non-smokers to be as uncompromising as they are makes my blood boil. It's all or nothing with non-smokers. Now, I'm gonna go have a cigarette....thank you very much and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. :smoke:

[AntiCoup2K4]

540. As long as you aren't polluting my air, knock yourself out.

It's really a lame thing to be addicted to, but we all have our crosses to bear.

[in_cog_ni_to]

541. Yes, yes we do. n/t

[Matariki]

52. The up-side of this

i live in Seattle. i don't smoke - in fact i'm a bit allergic to it. i voted AGAINST this ridiculous initiative.

what's the upside you ask? i have plenty of friends with whom i argue til i'm blue in the face about why it's important to vote. There's a fair amount of jaded, snarky, pseudo-hip cynicism here in Seattle that fosters the idea that voting makes no difference. Admittedly hard to argue with after the last two elections. I've always tried to explain how local election might be even more important to vote in however. Now i have tangible proof how not voting affects them very directly.

[Suich]

57. Well put, CAF!!! I couldn't have said it better myself!

No one knows how they are going to enforce the 25' ban...citizen's arrest??? Call 911???

BTW, which Irish bar... the one in Fremont or Murphy's on 45th?

Susan :hi:

[Cats Against Frist]

67. The Dub, is where I hung out -- but mostly before it moved

All of Fremont is going, going, gone -- and this smoking ban is the "cherry" on top.

[RJRoss]

71. The Dubliner

I used to play league darts there back in the '90's. Nice pub. Too bad they'll have to close shop.

[Suich]

123. Why are they closing shop? n/t

[Cats Against Frist]

130. The new one isn't, as far as I know.

And it now attracts a "less-smokey" crowd than it had when things used to be fun in Seattle. I don't know if this will affect business at the Dub. Pub quiz is gone, now, too -- so there's really no reason for me to go, anyway.

[Missy Vixen]

77. There's an awesome one in Ballard

Conan Byrne's, if I remember correctly. Live music and lots of Guinness.
:toast:

My SIL called yesterday to talk about the ban as well. She and her friends like to go to clubs; she's currently not smoking, but thinks the ban will really hurt the club scene.

Julie

[Cats Against Frist]

81. For Ballard, I like the OP or the 4 Bs -- they're a little rougher

But Connor Byrne is pretty cool too. See, I love reminiscing, and miss the place, terribly -- but it won't be the same, when I go back.

[Missy Vixen]

86. Cats against Frist, I'm sure glad I talked to you

We would be driving around Ballard asking where Conan Byrne's is. ;-) :blush: I must have confused it with Conan O'Brien, who makes me laugh till I cry.

Have you ever been to the Owl and the Thistle in downtown Seattle? I enjoyed visiting Tir na Nog downtown as well. :-p

Julie

[Lexingtonian]

60. enjoy the raving

It usually takes six weeks to three months, and then the craving to rave and invoke the German National Socialist Worker's Party at random opportunities diminishes to levels where your friends and nonhostile cow-orkers no longer worry about your mental health.

I've gone through the smoking bans in California and Ontario. The outcry was all the same stuff. Smokers soon discovered that they and their habit were not actually going to end up thrown to the lions. And that nonsmokers were not buying their bullshit martyrdom routine aka sandbox tantrums.

It's the nicotine talking for now. And don't worry, there's going to be enough accommodation of an inofficial kind for everyone to survive whatever the rules are. If you do insist on waging a fight for your rights as a true blue American et cetera, just don't get totally blitzed at a bar first and then decide it's time to light up and get some provocative political discussion going. Drunk & disorderly conduct and assault of an officer of the law charges are not real fun stuff when the buzz wears off.

I remember when my dad quit smoking after a cardiac problem at age 37. He remembers actually being able to smell food and perfumes and mold again after a week or two, and now intense that was.

[Cats Against Frist]

75. You have always seemed like a rational and well-adjusted poster

So, if I may ask: do you have any idea why "rational compromise," falls on deaf ears, or why there cannot even BE a compromise? I'm willing to compromise -- the non-smokers are not. Where I come from, that's called bullying, and it doesn't stink any less when the "good for you" crowd is doing the bullying.

[Lexingtonian]

103. sorry, that was somewhat on the harsh side

In my opinion nonsmokers generally have a lot more resentment pent up on the matter than smokers thought. So there's fuel there for an overshoot of what is reasonable that is retaliatory, even if nonsmokers won't admit it at the time. It's hard for smokers to see just how much nonsmokers feel their quality of life has been affected and to what extent they feel smokers have been obnoxious and the bullies and abused the privilege involved- to some extent unconsciously, just presumptively or devil-may-care lighting up in a beer garden or staircase of a place where the rules were ambiguous. There's also the offense taken at the set of smokers who violate reasonable rules on a theory of entitlement.

I think you're going to have to accept a very unreasonable appearing rule passing and maybe even some enforcement of it for a short period of time. When the militant nonsmokers feel there's been a qualitative change the enforcement will fall to what business owners and cops consider reasonable- the driving force is complaining customers/workers and the pressure exerted on the politicians, after all. After a while there's a quiet rollback to whatever the de facto compromise in the streets and restaurants and malls is.

So you'll get the rational compromise and live-and-let-live approach you like once the pent up rages have found their outlet. But the issue doesn't begin in a rational place and doesn't play out rationally most of the way, so demanding a rational solution as a first resort is outside the logic of the process. The rational solution comes last, imposed when all the irrational ones are exhausted.

So I'd say, don't resist the overshoot- get the emotion behind it to exhaust itself as quickly and efficiently as possible, which putting up loud righteous resistance doesn't do. There will be the grief phases (bitterness, bargaining, depression, acceptance) (of which the first two are evident in your OP) for the 'right'/entitlement to smoke wherever smokers wish to. Smokers then have to argue from a humble place, from conceding that smoking is a privilege rather than a right, to be dealt with fairly given the ability for everyone involved to accommodate a certain amount of smoking and there being a need for it.

Sadly it's a lot like our national politics.

[slaveplanet]

62. Ahh the good ole days...

[LSdemocrat]

65. Yeah, restricting smoking is Nazism

:eyes:

[lumberjack_jeff]

120. Over the top rope hyperbole gets me too.

I voted against it because, although I'm a nonsmoker and my father died from a combination of smoking and asbestosis, I have had my fill of well-intentioned intrusions into our personal lives.

Reading my email may hypothetically prevent a terror attack someday. Preventing people from smoking in public places may indeed prevent some cases cancer among second-hand smokers. Maybe.

It's a little too hypothetical to me. The intrusion is not merited by the potential for harm.

I avoid smoky bars. It ain't that tough.

[lakemonster11]

68. I would agree with you except

that, for waiters and bartenders, bars are the "workplace." It's not fair to put their health at jeopardy just so people can "have fun."

And sure, there are more non-smoking bars in Seattle than in many other places, but not everyone can work there. It's naive to think that most people in the service industry have the financial freedom to make that kind of choice. Patrons who want non-smoking bars can go somewhere else (assuming you live in Seattle and not a small town with no non-smoking bars) or they can stay at home. Waiters and bartenders? They have to work, even if they don't like the smoke.

I know a couple that runs a restaurant/bar who were really hoping for this ban to pass because they hate having to work in smoke every day, but they feared losing their regular customers if they banned smoking voluntarily. Now they can just shrug their shoulders and say, "What can you do?" when their customers complain.

Businesses/residences have the option, by the way, of exempting themselves from the 25-foot ban. The only purpose of this part of the law is to prevent people from smoking "outside" but right next to a door, window, or air vent, where their smoke is going to be just as bad inside as if they hadn't gone out to smoke in the first place. This happens a lot, in my experience.

Now I do think that there should be an exemption for hookah bars, because I feel like that's a small enough niche that the workers are self-selecting. An option could be to create private "smoking clubs," which, I believe, is how public drinking bans have been circumvented in other states.

You can make fun of my "lily white lungs," but I'm happy about this ban. I like going out to bars, but I don't like breathing in second-hand smoke and neither do a lot of other people. It causes immediate physical harm to some people (asthma attacks, eye and throat irritation, headaches) and has been shown to cause long-term physical harm to people in general. In fact, I believe it's been shown to be worse in some ways than first-hand smoke.

I'm not a "NAZI"---I just think that one person's right to fun ends with another person's right to health. If people want to smoke in their own homes, that's fine. If they want to smoke outside, where the smoke can dissipate readily, then sure, that's fine, too. But if they want to smoke in a public building, where it adversely affects everyone else in the room...well, I guess we just disagree there.

[Cats Against Frist]

87. I think that's a fine argument, however,

it seems to me, that, once again, next to regular or sometimes patrons who don't smoke, people who will never go to the bar, and people who already work in a bar, that people who MIGHT WANT TO SOMEDAY WORK IN A BAR, that there's no one left whose rights matter.

Oh, that's right -- there's that nasty smoker, and the pro-smoking owner. I would think that the smokers' and owners' rights are as equal to "someone who might want to work in a bar, someday."

But, no -- phantoms are given more protection than smokers. People who will never want to go to a bar, and people who will never want to work in a bar are protected more than the person who goes there, regularly, and wants to enjoy a cigarette.

I just don't understand why there can't be a compromise.

And thanks for the 25-foot ban, info -- if there can be a smoking porch, I'm all good.

See -- that's called COMPROMISE.

[lakemonster11]

148. The difference is that the smoker's right is just about "fun."

The worker's right is about health.

Sorry, but a right to health trumps a right to fun every time.

My right to drink myself stupid ends when I get into the driver's seat, because that's when my right to fun starts to endanger the health of others.

[Cats Against Frist]

151. Right. Which is why I proposed a compromise --

let all new startup bars choose to be a smoking or non-smoking establishment. Sure, it'll piss of the owners that are forced, but nobody fucking cares about them, anyway. Then, people can choose or not choose to come or work.

That's called a compromise. I'm not buying the argument about people who "might" want to work in a bar.

[lakemonster11]

157. I'm not talking about hypothetical workers any more than

you're talking about hypothetical smokers.

[merwin]

159. Why not let business owners choose between segregated and mixed

establishments as well? That's a comprimise too!

[Just Me]

79. Well, I can handle the consideration aspect, AS A SMOKER,...

,...but, the demoralizing is ridiculous, relatively speaking (cause there is a helluva more damaging poison in the air than tobacco smoke).

Why can't there be smoking and non-smoking bars? :shrug:

[AntiCoup2K4]

80. Are there paid Phillip Morris shills at DU now?

As if the Freep lurkers and DLC operatives weren't bad enough, in the last month or so there have been about 2 dozen threads on this boarad that read as though they were posted by official propagandists of the tobacco industry.

The people of this state have spoken. We don't want to breathe the foul shit in our bars, our restaraunts, our public spaces. Please keep your addictions to yourselves.

End of story.

I've seen ridiculous comparisons to everything from car exahaust to abortions in the last 48 hours. Nobody drives a car into a building, unless it's a parking garage designed for such a purpose, and even parking garages are well ventilated buildings. The abortion comparison was so ludicrous I won't bother going there.

I sympathize with anyone who struggles with an addiction to a deadly drug. Especially one so manuipulated by its manufacturers. And not coincidentally major funders of the Republican party. But that doesn't mean I'm willing to suffer my own very adverse effects to second hand smoke. Nor should I, or anyone else have to do so. Especially those who have to work in these establishments in order to survive.

Hell, I might actually go out for New Years Eve for once. Because the voters of this state did the right thing for once.

They also told the insurance whores and Tim Eyman to fuck off, so a pretty good night overall.

[Cats Against Frist]

83. The reason I say "Nazi" is not because people don't like smoke

or because smoking is deadly, or big tobacco, or people want to go to places with no smoking, but because it has to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Everyone is a protected class, except for the smoker -- even the person who isn't going to go anywhere near a bar, in a hundred years. That seems OVERBROAD, which would engender some sort of compromise. But no -- no compromise. No compromise, at all.

You have the option to stay out of places that you don't want to go to. People have the option not to work there (see above post about balancing smokers' v. workers' rights). I no longer have the option to participate in a VOLUNTARY cultural institution that has a long, and gorgeously hazy heritage.

[nonconformist]

359. Cripes, is anyone actually READING? They banned OUTDOOR smoking

Your "driving a car in a building" argument is ridiculous.

[AntiCoup2K4]

498. Nobody banned outdoor smoking.

The "25 foot rule" is to keep smoke from entering doorways and air intake vents for HVAC systems. While this might present a minor inconvenience for some who might have otherwise stood in a doorway, it certainly isn't going to apply to someone walking down the sidewalk.

I would even encourage bars who have the room to do so to build an outdoor patio of some kind for smokers, as long as the air intakes for the building isn't facing that area, or the filtration is good enough to prevent the smoke from entering the bar. This idea might involve some legal clarification, but it seems reasonable to me.

In any event, claiming that "outdoor smoking" was banned is completely false.

[Cats Against Frist]

538. You're right, they didn't outright ban outdoor smoking

What they did was pass a smoking restriction that, in some locales, makes it impossible to smoke. What if I'm waiting at 4th and Pike, for the bus, and I want to have a cigarette? Do I have to hope that the door to Wendy's and the door to the jewelry store are 50 feet from each other, and hope to criminy that no one stuck an air vent anywhere between that space? That's outrageous.

**by the way, it's a very clever tactic. Abortion opponents use it to shut down clinics, too.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

84. Nice Rant

I think anti smoking laws are bullshit, and I'm a nonsmoker with smoke induced asthma. The way I see it is that there should be, as you say, both smoking and non-smoking bars. That way both groups would be served and one wouldn't be trampling on the other's rights.

[catmother]

85. i understand your anger. back in my smoking days i probably

would have reacted the same way.

[Cats Against Frist]

89. Well, that's like 90 posts, and no one has yet explained

why there can't be both smoking & non-smoking bars.

The argument about "potential workers" came close -- but I still think it's not quite there. Besides that, there's been ad hominem attacks, ridiculous comparisons, love for authoritarianism and seething condescension. Still no reason, though.

Thanks. :hi:

[Lerkfish]

92. you apparently missed my post #31.

I suggested there should be both types of establishments.

:shrug:

what are you fishing for, exactly?

[Cats Against Frist]

97. Oh dear, I'm sorry

I meant that no one had made a pro-ban 100 percent ban argument that stood up. I'm arguing for the compromise. You and I are aguing for the same thing. Thank you for being tolerant.

That's the part that bugs me -- and, of course, I'm grandstanding a bit, in this thread, for fun, since I really am pissed, and this is helping me cope -- why we can't just all sit down and discuss it? Why can't there be a compromise? I wanted the noncompromise people to give me a reason why there cannot be compromise.

I am happy to see that there are people who agree, and that there are people who are nonsmokers, who think a compromise would be great.

[Lerkfish]

100. thanks! I'd misread your complaint at first...

I thought you were saying no one agreed with your idea of compromise.

I reread it and now see what you were saying, sorry for the confusion.

Before there were bans, my wife and I just voted with our pocketbooks...if a place was too smokey, we didn't return. If they had a good smoking/nonsmoking system that allowed us to eat without smelling the smoke, we were fine with that.

I have a friend who is a vegetarian. She was attending a work picnic and there was a coworker, also a vegetarian. My friend starting loudly lamenting the lack of a meatless entree. Her coworker said, "Do be a vegetarian. Don't be an asshole".
Her point being, so just bypass the entrees.

I'm a pretty tolerant person.

Now, MY rant is not against smokers, but against badly implemented workplace smoking policies. Used to be, some places provided indoor smoking rooms. That was great. Smokers comfortably took breaks, and nonsmokers avoided the room.
But then, companies abandoned them, and as a result, smokers take smoke breaks around the entrances and exits to buildings. So now, nonsmokers have no choice but to brave a smoke guantlet to enter the building. That's not the smoker's fault, its the employer not accomodating them properly. To boot, this exposes smokers to MORE health risks, as they have to do this during the dead of winter as well.

[Cats Against Frist]

106. See, we can sit down at the table and talk

I, as a smoker, am willing to respect your discomfort with "entrance smoking." I can propose a no-smoking zone that still allows smokers a possibility of smoking, on break. You can see if it works, we can talk.

In return, I propose you choose to come to a compromise on bars (which you already have). We work it out like people, not like THE GESTAPO. ;)

[Lerkfish]

122. exactly. now why isn't everyone like us? (smile)

seriously, though, I think if you took out the word "smoker" , and replaced it with "gay", maybe people would understand your point.

Straight people saying a ban on gay people in all public places, even eliminating gay bars, because gay people should not be allowed to congregate with each other.

maybe that would make the point.

Now, here's the deal: an all out smoking ban benefits me in a backhanded way, but ONLY ME. Since I don't smoke, banning smoking does not affect me in any negative way (at least not on the surface). However, it obviously negatively affects smokers. Who am I to say my comfort supercedes theirs in exclusivity? That's just plain wrong.

[merwin]

181. A note about the gay arguement. Being near gay people does not

contribute to cancer, or any other deadly illnesses (as much as the right wing would love to believe). My problem isn't being in a bar with someone who smokes. It's being in a bar with someone who is smoking (and thus giving me second hand smoke).

The 'go to a bar that doesn't allow smoking' arguement isn't a very good arguement in Seattle, as there really aren't many bars, bowling alleys, dance clubs that don't allow smoking. If there was a good split of ones that do and ones that don't, I would be much more willing to allow smoking bars, clubs etc. But the fact is, there isn't much of a choice.

[Lerkfish]

184. so the solution is to outlaw any choice but yours?

If there isn't much of a choice for you now, is the solution to swing the pendulum completely in the other direction?

[merwin]

191. I don't see any other solution in Seattle.

As of now, with no rules on it, there are a miniscule amount of bars that don't allow smoking.

How else do you propose evening out the number of smoking vs non-smoking bars?

It's the same concept as the automobile business. If they have their way, cars will get 10mpg and no alternative fuels will ever be researched. It's cheaper that way, and doesn't limit freedoms. Does that mean that it's the right thing to do?

[Lerkfish]

198. heck, I can see immediately how to do it.

liquor licenses in a community are limited, and granted by commissions or officials.
very simply bifurcated liquore licenses: 5 smoking and 5 nonsmoking.

voila! compromise achieved.

now, was that so hard?

[Cats Against Frist]

200. good idea, thanks! :)

[Lerkfish]

201. your'e more than welcome...see what an open mind can achieve?

a mind is like a parachute, it must be open to function properly.

btw, check you PMs

[merwin]

205. I thought about that, but that would cause bitching and moaning by

the bars for a completely different reason.

"My rights to open a non-smoking/smoking bar are being infringed on".

You just can't win... heh :-P

[Lerkfish]

211. You said it couldn't be done equitably, and I told you one way,

and you try to shoot that way full of holes...

:)

it would appear your interests lie in the opposite direction of compromise.

[merwin]

212. Nah, I personally like your idea.

I'm just pointing out that it will piss off a completely different group of people.

[Lerkfish]

214. hey, then its a success!

:)

if we keep rotating the people we piss off, then our job is done!

[merwin]

223. Sounds good!

:toast:

[Cats Against Frist]

199. First of all, I don't think that it's "even"

and that if you simply polled people who would even go to a bar, that it would come out higher on the pro-smoking side. Second, are you proposing, now that the government has the duty to "make sure there are as many non-smoking as smoking bars?" What the hell is this? You get a non-smoking bar, like this: someone who wants to run a non-smoking bar gets a loan, and they open a non-smoking place, and all the busy-bodies that were against smoking in bars, haul their butts out to the non-smoking bar. Some other non-smoker sees that that bar is successful, and wants a piece of the action. So he/she opens a non-smoking bar.

If that program doesn't work, maybe it's because a)non-smoking bars SUCK, and b)most people who go to bars, regularly, smoke, or c)there's a subset of people who can't stand that a bunch of people are having fun, but they're too (insert problem) to join them, without making them conform to their puritain standards.

[AntiCoup2K4]

559. There's no such thing as "second hand homosexuality"

...so comparing gays to smokers isn't going to work.

[Verve]

258. Smoking and non-smoking bars?

How about Democratic and Republican bars? Female and Male bars? Black and White bars? What country do we live in?:shrug:

[rinsd]

525. From the same poster that compared smoking to wife beating...

...that is freaking hilarious.

[Verve]

568. Hurting someone is hurting someone. Whether you puff poisonous gas

into their face or beat someone up. Both selfish acts. Both inconsiderate of others. Both are trivialized by the offender as "It's No BiG Deal". Both deny they are doing anything wrong.

I don't quite see the hilarity in this manner.

[mongo]

91. I couldn't agree more

and living on the edge of Appalachia where they sure as hell aren't going to pass a smoking ban -- and more people smoke, you know what?

We have NON-SMOKING BARS! That's right, people realized that there was a market for them, and opened some. I hear they are doing really well.

We have totally non-smoking restaurants too. Fancy that, the market responding to the desires of the consumer.

Hefeweizen? Reminds me of my old days in Chicago.

[SmokingJacket]

93. I think diesel fumes are worse.

Please, ban diesel fuel first, oh wise ones.

Hey, I don't smoke, don't like the stench, but I kind of liked that world -- long gone here in NY state, too.

All the bloated alcoholics in bars are so vivid and scary without that gentle fog!

[Greyhound]

99. Because liberals love to tell others how to live their lives as much

as the re:puke:s do, just about different things. Some people are just never satisfied until they can dictate to others.

[K8-EEE]

115. Hey You Guys Can Smoke 1000 Cigs A Day, Just Not In My Airspace

Why should I have to suck up your habit? Shit, tobacco is unhealthy, keep it away from me is all I ask, I don't even really mind paying the med bills for lung diseases and stuff, I just don't want to have stinky carcinagens blown my way because of YOUR addiction.

Can't you have clubs and stuff where you all just sit around and smoke? I've heard of those.

[Greyhound]

138. Yeah we tried that in SoCal and Rob Reiner & Co. killed that. n/t

[K8-EEE]

102. The Cigs Will Break Your Heart LITERALLY -- And Fund BushCo

The problem is that you are an addict and your particular addiction has a pervasive nature to it, it pollutes the atmosphere of non-addicted bystanders.

So I will turn everything you said around: If you have to smoke at work, don't fucking work here, etc., etc., etc.

I'm an ex-nic addict myself so I know how it is -- but I'm glad they banned smoking at my office before the city smoking bans went into effect. I just got sick of standing out in the urine-soaked alley at my every break trying to get a fix.

Every cig you smoke directly funds BushCo Evil Inc. And it kills you a little bit too, and it stinks, and it's annoying.

So my advice to you is give up the whining, AND the smoking.

[Cats Against Frist]

143. And I feel like you have free reign to give that advice, all day

THAT's your right. However, I don't think that non-smokers have a right to demand that ALL public places be non-smoking. Work, airplanes, trains, public buildings, restaurants -- hey, I've given you more than a mile. I just want people who want to be able to go out and have some beers and some smokes a CHOICE. Which is what you would STILL have, even if there were smoking places.

[Rainscents]

124. I love your RANT! I think, ALCOHOL should be ban also!!!

They cause lot of health problems, damage live, heart, kidney, and domestic violence, and kills millions people! More people die from Alcohol related than they do with Smoking! I don't smoke, however, I don't believe in anyone tell me what I can do or not with my life.

Oh and btw, it's NOT the tobacco itself is deadly, it's the fucking chemicals (over 450 chemicals is in the tobacco) they put in the tobacco that kills people!

[merwin]

152. You can do whatever you want with your life... just don't poison me while

doing it.

[Verve]

287. Exactly! Comparing alcohol to cigarettes is like apples and oranges.

Alcohol fumes don't kill nondrinkers.

[NightOwwl]

127. Sorry - you'll get no sympathy from me.

I was finally able to quit, thanks in part to California's ban on all indoor smoking. Being treated like a pariah can really motivate a person to give up the habit.

It's a stinky, filthy, disgusting, expensive habit. And California's smoking ban gets some of the credit for giving me the courage to finally stop killing myself.

[Cats Against Frist]

144. I'm not looking for sympathy

I'm looking for one rational argument about why there can't be a choice.

[RobinA]

189. You Won't Find One.

The rationale is that people want to be able to ban any behavior they, themselves don't like.

Personally, I would ban alcohol in bars. Smoking in a bar never caused a person to stagger out of the bar, fire up the pick-up, and drove off down the wrong side of the road, killing a mother and two children who just happened to be driving by. Smoking never caused a lot of the bad, criminal and downright murderous behavior that alcohol does. Ban it, I say. I don't want to be anywhere near some drinker's filthy vomit.

[oregonindy]

128. cant wait till I can sue smokers for assault with a deadly weapon

[davepc]

132. Smoking kills. Coal fired power plants....ehhhh

Got to fight to real villains.

tons of mercury being pumped into the air every day....well shit happens.

Want to have a smoke...GET YOUR VILE LUNG DESTROYER AWAY FROM ME CRETIN!


I find the clean air argument laughable. Sort of losing sight of the forest through the trees.

In the interest of full disclosure I quit about 4 years ago.

[donheld]

142. Nice rant

:nopity:

[YouthInAsia]

150. What about those of us who DONT smoke. Should we be

forced to inhale that shit because YOU want to smoke?? Doesnt sound fair that one group, who doesnt WANNA be poisoned, is forced to be poisoned by those who poison themselves.

[Cats Against Frist]

154. My head is literally exploding

No, unlike the non-smokers, I'm not proposing an absolutist policy, and suggesting that you be forced to attend a bar where there is smoking, while prohibiting those who would like to allow non-smoking.

That's the equivalent of what the anti-smoking brigade is doing.

[merwin]

156. Allow non-smoking? LOL.

Personally, I like our laws advocating things like non-killing.

[mongo]

208. LOL!

Tie a scarf around your head and keep swinging!

Welcome to my world.

[Cats Against Frist]

209. ;)

[Verve]

266. Unlike smokers, I'm not proposing a policy that suggests you be

forced to breathe in noxious gases in hotel rooms, rental cars, entrances to malls, eating establishments, sports events, etc. , while prohibiting the rights of the public to breathe healthy air.

Really, you smokers are all in denial. These excuses are ridiculous on this thread. You can make excuses come out of your butt faster than you can puff smoke out of your mouth.


Smoking is not a personal freedom issue, it is a health issue.

[Lerkfish]

167. and how does that happen if there are separate establishments?

If Bruno's bar and grill allows smoking, and Ohoulian's Pub does not, as a nonsmoker, would you be forced to go to Bruno's against your will? when you entered Ohoulian's would they say "oh no, you gotta go to Bruno's and suck up smoke, pal"?

As I see it, the only group trying to unilaterally enforce their ways on others are the nonsmokers. Now, I myself am a nonsmoker, and my wife is allergic to cigarette smoke. We're both over forty. Believe it or not, we got along fine with smokers before there were bans, a relatively recent development.

[merwin]

155. Why not just allow smoking EVERYWHERE (theaters, airplanes, etc)

Is that any different? Nobdoy is forcing you to go to a theater or travel on an airplane.

[Lerkfish]

160. yes, that would be very different.

you can leave a restaurant or bar and go to another one.
You can't walk off a flight, and smoke in a theatre dimishes the ability of the projector to function.

your argument is not making much sense to me, frankly.

how is allowing establishments to allow smoking harmful to establishments who choose not to allow smoking? how is that anywhere near flying on an airplane or going to a theatre?

[merwin]

164. If you don't like smoking on an airplane, don't fly on that airline!

Fly on a non-smoking airline. It's not like you weren't warned ahead of time!

It's funny that it's OK to make choices between a non-smoking bar and a smoking bar, but when it comes to other things like choosing an airline to fly on, it's suddenly OK to ban smoking.

[Lerkfish]

168. wow. did you even read what I posted?

I said they were different situations, and they are.
you continue to try to force the round peg into a square hole in spite of that.

You said "how are they different?"
I very calmly and logically explained how they were, indeed, different.
Then you castigate me for not accepting your notion they are not different.

maybe you should examine why this is an apparently emotional issue for you?

I'm a nonsmoker, but I can see a workable compromise. Is this issue only black and white for you? Why?

[merwin]

173. It's not emotional for me. I'm just trying to figure out the

rationalization.

The pro arguement:
Nobody's forcing you to go to a bar that allows smoking. Go to an establishment that doesn't allow smoking

The con arguement:
Everyone has the right to go to a public location without fear of personal harm.

---

That being said, what's the difference between allowing airlines to choose between smoking and non-smoking, and allowing bars to choose between smoking and non-smoking? You have a choice of whether or not to go to either one, and both of them fill up with smoke when smoked in, and cause everyone in them to participate in the smoking, whether they want to or not.

I'm perfectly willing to compromise. You don't restrict my ability to go to a public place without being filled with smoke, and I'll let you smoke in private places.

[Lerkfish]

177. *knockknock* I'm not a smoker, as I've said, and back to your arguments...

again, you ask, what's the difference between a restaurant and an airplane, which I've already explained in short form, but here's the long answer:

An airplane is a closed environment, in fact a closed pressurized sealed environment in which the same air is recycled continuously. Smoke has no way to be shunted out of the environment. Over time, the aggregate pollutants only increase in concentration. Longer flights, higher exposure. You with me so far? ok. Further, there is no convenient way, barring a parachute, from exiting that environment if you feel your health is adversely affected. You are, in effect, literally a captive audience to whatever happens.

A bar is not 30,000 ft in the air, is not a closed pressurized sealed environment. There are doors, there are windows. Air is circulated in and out of the system at all times. Air conditioners can indeed shunt pollutants out of the system continuously. If properly arranged and ventilated, smokers and nonsmokers can coexist. But beyond that, they can certainly coexist at separate locations. But, even if the restaurant or bar is too smokey for you, you are NOT a captive audience, you can leave. They lose "your" business. but they probably gain business from smokers who leave the nonsmoking establishments.

Believe it or not, a bar is not public location. It is privately owned. you are not forced to go into a bar. A public location would be like a train terminal, a city bus, etc. places you have to go to for transportation and the like.

I'm interested what your definition of "private places" is?

If there are nine restaurants that are nonsmoking, and one that allows smoking, I fail to understand the need to convert that tenth restaurant.

[merwin]

186. If 9 of 10 bars were non-smoking, I wouldn't care.

The fact is, in Seattle there's not many non-snoking bars. Flip that number around and you get a more accurate number.

My point with the airplane arguement was that you have a choice before you enter the airplane. Nobody forces you to fly that particular airline, and there would probably be plenty of airlines that don't allow smoking.

I'm not sure that many bars have 'proper ventilation'... especially when you're walking through and sitting in a cloud of smoke and end up reeking of cigarettes when you exit.

What I meant by a public place is a place that the public is free to enter and eat, drink, etc. I'm perfectly fine with smoking in private clubs and other places where the general public is not allowed.

[Lerkfish]

193. But there are a few nonsmoking bars?

seems to be what you're saying. I'm not in seattle, so I don't know. If there are then 9 smoking bars and one nonsmoking bar, would it be right to eliminate the nonsmoking bar because the smoking patrons want there to be all smoking bars, and no nonsmoking bars at all?
wouldn't it be better to have 5 smoking bars and 5 non-smoking bars? Why is it all or nothing?

I don't understand how your argument on airplanes:

--My point with the airplane arguement was that you have a choice before you enter the airplane. Nobody forces you to fly that particular airline, and there would probably be plenty of airlines that don't allow smoking.---

is not better suited for bars than airplanes. Do you not have a choice before entering a bar? does anyone force you to enter that particular bar?


and your following argument:
---What I meant by a public place is a place that the public is free to enter and eat, drink, etc. I'm perfectly fine with smoking in private clubs and other places where the general public is not allowed.---

sounds a great deal like forced segregration, and unequal segregation to boot.
not sure why you would consider that a progressive solution to the problem. Sounds a lot more like "don't ask, don't tell". Its ok to be a smoker, as long as you stick to private clubs and no one sees you. Further, its odd that you say "where the general public is not allowed"..do you mean, that you not only wish to hide smokers in private holes, but also bar anyone else from going in those holes?
maybe I misunderstood you.

[merwin]

196. What I mean is that I'm fine with people doing what they want in the

privacy of their own home or private establishments where the general public is not allowed. Invitation only / private clubs exist, where people do god knows what behind closed doors, and is basically equivalent to going into someone else's house and having a party. Bars are public places where anyone is allowed to enter and have a drink.

In any case, as I noted in an above post, I'm leaving it at 'agree to disagree'

[flamingyouth]

161. We used to when I was a kid.

Yes, I remember (with humor) the "good old" days with the smoking section on airplanes.

When my grandmother was in the hospital dying of cancer, most of the patients on her floor were smoking (this was in the '70s).

[merwin]

166. Now that's just sick irony... smoking in the cancer ward of a hospital.

[Name removed]

158. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Cats Against Frist]

162. Strawman

I didn't say that I want to smoke wherever I want. I've clearly laid out my position:

1. No smoking in workplaces, public buildings, transportation, movie theaters, hospitals -- whatever you fucking want -- even bars.

2. Grandfather old bars into the ban, and let new ones choose to open as smoking establishments, and clearly state that anyone who chooses to work there, or go there will be subject to cigarette smoke.

3. Let any bar open a seating area outside for smoking. You can even stipulate that there be no wait service, out there.

Now, under the ban, three may be possible -- and, if it is, I'd even settle for that -- but I still think two is reasonable.

You're the one who's whining. I'm compromising.

[Lerkfish]

163. there is a compromise...see post #31

why is there a problem with separate restaurants that allow/don't allow smoking?

You can't get second hand smoke if you go to the ones that don't allow smoking, right?

why is second hand smoke a reason to ban smoking EVERYWHERE?
why do some equate smokers not wanting it banned everywhere as demanding it be allowed everywhere? You're not using logic.

If I say I don't want a blanket ban on gay rights, does that mean I also want all people forced into homosexuality? Of course not. Why do some apply that faulty logic to this issue, then?

[merwin]

169. There's no such thing as second hand homosexuality.

Being gay does not harm other people around you.

[Lerkfish]

172. you're missing the point of the analogy.

but that's ok, I'll explain it differently.

If I am allergic to peanuts, if even touching it sends me into anaphalactic shock, then I have a valid reason to avoid stores that sell peanuts. I may even have an arguable point that people should not eat peanuts in my vicinity, out of respect for my allergy.

But I would not be reasonable to declare that no one else, whether in my vicinity or not, may consume peanuts because I am allergic to them.

[merwin]

174. If 75% of the population were allergic to peanuts, then I would say that

it would be perfectly fine to ban peanuts in public places, as it's a serious risk to the health and safety of the vast majority of people.

[Lerkfish]

180. Then we disagree.

I believe that "majority rule" has no sway in rights issues.

Personally, I wish everyone would quit smoking. But that is my personal wish. I do not feel the need to legislate that wish on others.

I am not muslim. And, I daresay my community is 90% non-muslim. However, that does not make it ok to outlaw Islam.

Is a little tolerance an impossible position for you? you say you are willing to compromise, but I'm not really seeing any compromise at all in anything you've posted.

maybe I'm misunderstanding you, or maybe we disagree on the meaning of "compromise".

[merwin]

194. Religion is a completely different story.

Being Muslim does not harm anyone else. Being gay does not harm anyone else. Smoking, however, does harm other people.

As I've said earlier, I couldn't care less about what you do with your own body if it affects you alone. However, your personal freedom stops at the point that it harms or infringes on the rights of others.

I'm fine with alcohol. I love alcohol. However, there's a reason that it's illegal to drive drunk... By driving drunk, the person is putting strangers in a dangerous situation. By smoking in a bar that I happen to be drinking in, the smoker is infringing on my rights.

The "If you don't like smoking, don't go to a bar that allows smoking" arguement is a flimsy one. There are a TON of health and safety regulations on restaurants and bars. They are there for one reason... to make sure that the patrons of the restaurant or bar are not exposed to elements that are harmful to them.

However, this is my opinion, and you have yours. I respect that. I'm just going to leave it at 'we respectfully agree to disagree'.

[Lerkfish]

197. fair enough. Just remember, I'm the nonsmoker who argued for reasonable

compromise. I am not a smoker. I enjoy non-smoking restaurants as a matter of fact.
Where we disagree is who gets to decide whose rights are less important.
That is the point where we disagree, not at the point that I am a smoker. I am on the same side of the fence as you, I just prefer to see the fence as a gate rather than a wall.

[seabeyond]

165. i love this state. really been looking for a vacation to seattle

i want to settle in spokanne. and i wont live anywhere that feels they have the right to be nazinannies.

[KoKo]

170. Nazi's...Fascists...Mind Conrol "Jack Booters." And they are on the Left

Yes...we have those folks "amongst us."

[HEyHEY]

175. "Nazi shit" Get a fucking grip they're trying to SAVE lives

[Lerkfish]

182. on their terms.

:shrug:

I'm obese. Will you outlaw food, to save my life? Do I have no say if you do?

[HEyHEY]

183. No one has ever died from second hand eating

[Lerkfish]

185. analogies are imperfect. Do you not understand the point of mine?

instead of listening the salient point of the analogy, you use incidental nature of the analogy, as if that refutes the salient point.


what about the salient point? If am choosing bad behavior, do you have the right to legislated against me, and then do I have no say in that discussion? Are you only allowed to discuss what happens to me, yet I am not? Is the only solution complete abstinence, or is there a rational compromise?

are you willing to discuss a compromise, or have you prejudicially decided your judgement is superior to that of others and they don't merit discussion or negotiation?

[HEyHEY]

188. It's you who is missing the point.

The point is your little hobby has a habit of making other sick. That's it, plain and simple. No matter how you would like to attempt to justify it and try this "give peace a chance shit" when it comes to a "compromise" the fact is I'm not willing to "compromise" my health and the health of others because you like to puff on smokes. As far as I'm concerned it has nothing to do with your health... smoke away, I don't care. It's the health of those of us who don't smoke.

And by the by the way, that analogy sucked ass.

[Lerkfish]

195. For the record, I'm a nonsmoker, always have been. I've stated that often

in this thread.

now...where does that leave you, then? Do you still hate me? Do you still think my analogy "sucked ass"? Is there a reason why you have to hate me for suggesting a compromise? Is there a reason why only your way is the acceptable one?

:shrug:

how is my suggested compromise: separate bars, those for smokers and those for nonsmokers, endangering nonsmokers?

[HEyHEY]

259. woof! woof! woof!

[Lerkfish]

472. I don't speak canine. What are you saying?

[JVS]

237. I bet there is a case where eating something weird caused 2nd...

hand death from a ghastly fart!

[HEyHEY]

260. Maybe in the Middle East somewhere

[JVS]

279. Hummus kills.

[JVS]

236. They are Nazis HEyHEY! Hitler forbade any smoking in his presence.

If he had been able to just get along with smokers, a lot of suffering could have been avoided.

[NuttyFluffers]

328. therefore by law you gotta wear those masks you see in asia when sick

you're spreading deadly microbes, which will kill far more, far faster than second hand smoke could ever hope to. and if you are a day off... you should be fined. should be mandated by law to wear face masks -- it saves lives!

:crazy:

y'know, there's common courtesy, which people can understand (smoke outside a property when someone asks), and stupidity in the form of prohibition (no smoke anywhere inside or 25 ft outside from building -- which translates to the middle of the street, aka. bloody stupid).

[SupplyConcerns]

176. As a non-smoking Seattlite, I agree.

I have never smoked a cigarette. I have also never had a problem being aroun my friends who smoke. People are so precious about their health while they sit on the freeway all day, sit on their couch all night, and snack on crap from vending machines all day. I disapprove of parents smoking inside a houshold where they're raising kids, and I think the tobacco industry itself is immoral, but I don't support these bans. Why is it that people automatically ASSUME that any behavior they don't approve of should be outlawed? Have some respect for civil liberties, people.

[sysoprock]

178. You want to smoke? Go outside.

The 25 feet rule is so people don't have to walk through a cloud of cancer just to get into where they are going.

From a non-smokers perspective, being in a bar that allows smoking is absolutely disgusting. If you want to smoke that is your right, but do it outside where other people don't have to put up with it.

Also, there are SMOKING ESTABLISHMENTS, generally they operate as a private club and charge some sort of entrance fee so that they can get around the smoking rule, I would suggest finding one.

[johnnie]

202. I'm with you on this

Smoking threads always turn nasty.

What cracks me up about the people who support this shit actually think that they are breathing in 100% pure oxygen without someone smoking 50 feet away. They also think they are eating food that is not affected by any chemicals at all.

If all the anti-smokers knew all the shit that really causes cancers and other diseases they would freak out. After the tobacco fad is over there will be bans on other things that will be shown to cause cancer.

So all the people who like to bash smokers, just keep at it. If the stress from the anger you have against smokers doesn't kill you the food you eat, the air you breath, the beverages (water included) you drink and many other things will do ya in.

I have bad news... we will all die of something.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

216. 100% pure oxygen will kill you.

It's 20% oxygen and 79% nitrogen, plus trace.

[johnnie]

217. You missed my point n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

221. No, I didn't.

I was playing Johnny AppleFact. Liquid oxygen is my business. Plus, I smoke. Plus, I live in Seattle.

I hear you loud and clear.

[johnnie]

224. .

:thumbsup:

[Cats Against Frist]

226. Johnny AppleFact

:rofl:

[Zynx]

203. If someone can smoke in my face, I should be able to spit in theirs.

I have an allergic reaction to cigarette smoke. It gives me a ferocious headache when I'm around it. Therefore, when someone lights up RIGHT IN MY FACE like they do here in Madison some times, I should be able to spit a big, fat, messy wad of saliva in their face.

[Lerkfish]

204. Or, tell them you're allergic. Most smokers will respect your condition

and if they don't, THEN spit in their face.

:)

My wife is allergic, and we've never had someone not put out their cigarette when politely asked.

[Gelliebeans]

253. You have made some

great points. I agree with you 100%. Amazing how those civil liberties are up for discussion when the mob rules.

[Lerkfish]

268. thanks.

I just firmly believe there is always a diplomatic solution. Always. We just have to be willing to find it.

[NuttyFluffers]

329. basically it comes down to appeal to courtesy opposed to authority

far too often people like to jump the gun straight to the 'military' option when a whole hell of a lot more could be achieved through 'diplomacy.'

prohibition or mandatory use just pisses people off and sets everything underground and makes things ugly in general. asking nicely and giving everyone their space makes things work out well. :D

[erinlough]

207. Great Rant! but nobody gets that it isn't about smoking

it's about controlling others to conform to your idea about what is right. Sad that it seems to be as prevalent here as everywhere else. And, yes I am a smoker, but a very considerate one. No one has ever had to put up with my smoke if they were uncomfortable with it, but it has been MY choice, not theirs.

[merwin]

210. Everything is about getting others to conform to your idea about what

is right.

We want a Democrat/Progressive elected into all offices, who will enact laws that favor the Democratic/Progressive ideas, thus forcing those ideas on everyone who is not a Democrat/Progressive.

Pretty much the only ones who are completely against forcing things upon others are libertarians.

[erinlough]

215. I scored pretty high in the Libertarian section of a quiz I took

I just don't buy the gun thing they talk about all the time. This issue however has grown on me. When they put us smokers out at first I was OK with it as I never smoked around people much, but something bothered me. Where would it stop? I can see that it won't.

Not just with smoking, but with other things like overeating, weight will be a big deal (see recent WalMart memos). Where do I start and you end? I really don't want many of the things that are popular in this country, will I have the right to reject them?

Will my way of life be judged by the Government as wrong because it doesn't fit their criteria of "right". A friend of mine lives in an exclusive area by a lake. They pay an association fee that is more than my house payment each month. This year the association has sent them a letter telling them that the association has decided that some of the Christmas decorations outside the houses were tacky and residents were advised to remember good taste when decorating. The association will be reviewing each household to review the taste of their display and if it is found wanting they will be sent a letter to change it.

Now, I wouldn't want to live there for many reasons, but how long until this idea catches on. What if you don't like the car I drive? What if you don't like my dog? What if you don't like that I'm not religious?

When we vote for progressive issues and we are beat we can complain, but I would never overturn a fair election to get my way. So the idea that everything is control is somewhat overstated.

[AntiCoup2K4]

234. Why do people continue to raise irrelevant comparisons?

Someone overeating doesn't hurt you, unless they're stealing food from your refrigerator. I couldn't care less what kind of dog you have, as long as he doesn't shit on my lawn. And since I rarely darken the doors of a church myself, I wouldn't concern myself with how you spend your Sunday morning. Or Saturday, where appropriate.

As far as the Christmas decorations go, there you do have a point. Not that it's a health hazard, but it CAN be an annoyance. My next door neighbor goes crazy with his "Christmas spirit". The lights themselves don't bother me nearly as much as the cars driving by slow and honking, which gets a little old after a month or so of it. The good news is that he turns the lights off at a respectable hour (probably around 11:00) so he's not interfering with anybody's ability to sleep.

Now the church choir standing in front of his house singing disco karoake to the same 6 songs over and over again for 4 hours, that was another story. I hope he never does that again. But at least if he does, I'll be able to escape to a smoke free bar :)

[erinlough]

238. I don't consider my comparisons irrelevant

but I understand that you do. The difference may be that It's ok with me if you don't agree with me.

[Carni]

430. Oh I see--so all these years that I have been voting for the Dems

And contributing and volunteering I have (according to you) really been a Libertarian and I should shape up or ship out?

Do you get a check from Rove every week, or how exactly does that work?

[AuntiBush]

228. I Agree 100 Percent Here.

I wholeheartedly support a private business owner for the freedom to not allow smoking in her/his place of business, but in a bar?

It wouldn't fly in Maryland. All bars in this state are smoke-filled by nature. Where is the smokers freedom? Both sides of this issue deserve their freedom to do as they wish.

It's the Insurance companies, the richest of them all next to Oil Pigs.

[Verve]

230. I like bars, I don't like smoke!

Why should I have to breathe dirty air and smell nasty while I'm taking in the benefits of healthy alcohol?

[AuntiBush]

240. LOL!

Good one, Verve!

[Verve]

255. Cheers!

:toast:

[GrumpyGreg]

282. I like smoke but don't like bars. Let's ban bars.

[Verve]

285. Is that why you're Grumpy, Grumpy?

Maybe you need to raise a glass or two?

Cheers to Grumpy!:toast:

[HillDem]

229. As an asthmatic

I don't feel any pity

[misternormal]

231. This is really the dilemma isn't it??

No one cares about an issue until it directly affects them. And to use pseudo-sophisticated psycho-babble to try and get a point across is ludicrous. Yes... smoking is addictive... yes... it offends some people... but...

If smoking establishments opened, and catered to smokers, with a sign outside saying "Smoking allowed", who would it hurt except those that wish to enter and partake of what goes on inside??

No one is inviting non-smokers inside... No one is taking non-smokers hostage and forcing them to inhale smoke... (there is enough car, truck and airplane exhaust to do that trick) If smokers want to take their lives in their own hands, "out of the breathable air of non-smokers"... Let them be.

[Verve]

233. No, that is not fair. There are many eating /drinking establishments

I'd like to frequent but can't because I choke when I walk in the front door. Why should I, a non smoker, not be able to frequent these establishments? I'm not killing anyone with my breath!

[misternormal]

235. Missed my point entirely...

Maybe I should have said that the sign read, "Smokers Only"

[Verve]

244. I don't think so.

This is the whole issue. Smokers feel it's their right to smoke. Non-smokers feel it's their right to breathe clean air. However, unless smokers are smoking into a gas mask, they are infringing on others' health. Even if they are doing it in private, the smoke lingers in the carpet, the car, hair, clothing, etc. You are endangering others when you smoke, period.

(There was a study awhile back where children, and babies who were around people (who smoked only in private) had high incidences of ailments. Likely due to the smoke from their caregiver's hair and clothing. )

This is not a freedom issue, this is a health issue.

[johnnie]

242. There are a lot of places I would like to go

But they allow young children and they stress me out when they are running around screaming. Stress is also one of the leading causes of illness and can even cause death. I just don't go to those places.

[Verve]

247. I'm sorry you can't frequent Chuck E Cheese.

You're really missing out.:nopity:

[NuttyFluffers]

330. how foolish... children are only present at that restaurant, are they?

:crazy:

[Verve]

348. You're right! Every time I'm out frequenting the bar scene, little kids

keep circling my bar stool and it keeps stressing me out! :sarcasm:

[Cats Against Frist]

270. This is the argument that irks me, the most

"What about my right to go someplace where there's no smoking?"

You're not asking for "someplace," you're asking for EVERYFUCKINGPLACE, and I'm sorry, but I think that's a little BROAD. If you're balsy enough to say that you need to have EVERYFUCKINGPLACE sanitized for your comfort, then why is it so bad for me to say I should be able to smoke EVERYFUCKINGPLACE?

But, hey, guess what -- I'm not saying that I should be able to smoke EVERYFUCKINGPLACE. I'm saying that statewide smoking bans make it so you have EVERYFUCKINGPLACE and I have NOFUCKINGPLACE.

Why in the good gravy do you have to have EVERYFUCKINGPLACE? Where do you get off, having a "right" to go EVERYFUCKINGPLACE?

Why can't there be "some places" where there's smoking and "some places" where there's not.

I'LL TELL YOU WHY -- because non-smoking bars are lame. And you want to go to the "cool" places. Well I've got news, there's no "cool" bar that naturally springs up that doesn't allow cigarette smoke. Maybe alterna-land, but not on this planet. Banning smoking is a "race to the lamest," as far as scenes go, and people who are "allergic to smoke," are just pissed off because they can't go someplace cool, and deal with it. So they team up with Aunt Doily, people who will never go to a bar, in their lives, and every non-smoker, who just automatically votes "yes," because it's not going to affect them, either way, and suddenly everyone is wearing pocket protectors, white cotton underwear and alphabetizing their "Ice Castles," trading cards.

I just want some place -- why do you wish to forbid me that?

[Verve]

286. This is a public health issue, not a freedom issue.

If you develop a gas mask where all your fumes are contained in your own area, I'd let you smoke wherever you want.

[Pooka Fey]

302. Good rant.

Wow, I can't believe Washington turned fascist like that. No smoking within 25 feet of a building??? WTF ??? So I can't enjoy one of the 4 ciggies I smoke per MONTH with my beer while I'm playing pool? I bet the Washington Police are just in hog heaven thinking about how they are going to enforce that gemstone. Ain't that America? Home of the Free!!!

On edit - BTW, the 'no smoking in bars' laws from a couple of years ago completely KILLED a very happening live music scene in the downtown where I live. Glad all those people can be healthy while isolated and learning to fear their neighbors by sitting home watching TV instead of being out in the community interacting with their neighbors, maybe discussing community issues in a positive way (instead of listening to crazy hatemongers on the radio), and supporting the Arts, creativity and culture- which we have very little to spare here in MacDonalds Land.

Everything comes with a price, non-smoking Nazis. Your lungs are healthier, your communities and towns are sicker.

[grace0418]

232. I still have a hard time believing that sucking on a burning wad

of paper and dried plants counts as fun (unless it's weed). I personally find a lot more things to be heartbroken and outraged about than a smoking ban.

[NuttyFluffers]

332. it's about the mild controlled buzz

do you always drink alcohol until you are blitzed? no, sometimes you just like a bit of a buzz.

same with tobacco, it covers the desire for a light buzz.

and marijuana is often too strong to smoke a whole joint and come off with "just a buzz."

fyi for the non-drug users out there. i myself tried a little bit of everything and believe pretty much that every drug has its place in the public sphere.

[grace0418]

442. Well you could just not smoke a whole joint.

A hit or two works just fine for me. Seems to me most cigarette smokers I encounter in bars are lighting one cigarette after another all night.

[NuttyFluffers]

564. the buzz is different. like i said different drugs have their place.

tobacco is a weird drug. a little is a nice stimulant, great for getting ready for the dance floor. but a bit more and it's a depressant, calming one down for chill time.

and one of the nice things is you don't too much dosage per cigarette, whereas a hit or two of marijuana nowadays is pretty damn strong still. a few marijuana hits can be worked well into a party but tobacco is an excellent leveraging drug to mitigate highs, lows, figityness, ennui... the strength is in its flexibility.

[Jack_Dawson]

239. DEAL WITH IT - GO OUTSIDE

Smokers are gross. I used to be one. :scared:

[misternormal]

243. It has been said...

There is no more a militant non-smoker than a reformed one :smoke:

[NuttyFluffers]

333. my fave version, "no one more irritating than the recently converted" n/t

[yewberry]

301. The point of the legislation-->YOU CAN'T SMOKE OUTSIDE.

Smoking bans have been in place for years here; everyone's been fine with that. The new legislation forbids smoking within 25 feet of doorways, windows & ventilation intakes.

Picture yourself in an urban area: draw a circle around yourself 50' in diameter...now, try to picture that circle in an urban area that doesn't include any doors, windows, or air intakes.

You can't do it.

They just criminalized outdoor smoking, gross or not.

(This from the "oh-so-progressive" city that criminalized sitting on sidewalks several years ago. Guess who that legislation went after.)

[Daphne08]

304. It's frickin' ridiculous! Sorry, but it is. n/t

[misternormal]

246. This was a good rant...

But it is pointless... No one is going to change another's point of view, so I'll move on.

Be well all.

[wildflowergardener]

263. what I would like

Hi. While I, personally would prefer if restaurants were smoke free, I wish that if they are not, they would properly separate the smoker areas from the non smoking areas. I never understand when they put the smoking area one table away from the non smoking area. I realize this is not really in response to the original post - as that's a ban everywhere, but that's what bothers me the most. I want to be able to eat in a restaurant and get away from the smoke. I don't have a problem with other people smoking in the same restaurant as long as it doesn't come near me.

Surely there are ways to control the smoke and keep it out of the non smoking area, that business owners probably don't want to do because of the expense - aren't there?

Personally, as a nonsmoker, who does not know what it feels like to be addicted to cigarettes, it's hard for me to understand how people can't go the time length it takes to eat a meal without smoking. I know this is probably a stupid question - but for any smokers out there who feel like answering, do you really feel the urge so much to smoke that you just absolutely can not go without smoking for an hour or two? Is the addiction that bad? I told you probably stupid question.

Meg

[bbgrunt]

252. nice f** rant and I agree. Smokers, it's time to start blowing

smoke on the streets!!!! This is truely Nazi crazy. It's amazing how close some "liberals" who push this kind of s**t are to nazis.

[gen_x_libertarian]

261. this is the problem with these types of irritating little rules

eventually some group out there decides something is 'harmful' and sets out with their torches and pitchforks to (effectively) ban it. eventually it is the thing you like which gets banned. we all have vices.

a generation ago, liberals and democrats had the monopoly on 'cool' and 'personal freedom'. right wing 'family values' types were seen to be controlling, fuddy-duddy types.

unfortunately, this is no longer the case. when it comes to culture, both modern liberals and conservatives are highly controlling and authoritarian, imo.

the next thing that will be banned is porn.

some people just can't stand to see other people have fun.

we need a libertarian movement in this country which pushes back the other way. when grown adults are asking the government for permission to wipe their asses, maybe it'll happen.

[Verve]

262. Porn doesn't kill you. Smoking does. n/t

[gen_x_libertarian]

269. some people argue that porn causes rape/incest/violence against women,

therefore it should be banned.

there's a reason to ban anything, look hard enough.

living is dangerous to your health.

[Cats Against Frist]

278. I, in fact, suggest that porn has a negative impact on all people

but that doesn't mean I'm fascist enough to say that it should be banned. On the contrary -- I believe in that right and freedom.

[NuttyFluffers]

336. worth quoting,"there's a reason to ban anything, look hard enough."

any lawyer, politician, police officer, or religious leader (basically anyone with authority) worth their salt can do just that. it's the act of using excuses to rationalize expansion of authority, and there's nothing more addicting than more power.

[FrankBooth]

267. Do you smoke inside your own house?

All of the smokers I know who live in Seattle smoke outside. If it's not good enough for your house or apartment, I don't want to have to fucking breathe it either. You don't like it, please, whatever you do, don't move back to Seattle.

[Cats Against Frist]

274. Why does it fucking matter? You won.

Why do you care if I move back to Seattle, or not -- just because I'm a smoker? That's what I'm talking about. It's irrational hatred of smokers. You won't be breathing my smoke, because fascism won.

No, I don't smoke in my house -- because I have a child. I don't smoke in my car, for the same reason. My child doesn't have a choice whether to go in his house or his car. You do, however, have the choice to go to a non-smoking bar, or one of the many, many restaurants that didn't allow smoking, even before the ban.

[FrankBooth]

547. Fascism ...???

Looks like democracy to me. I think you need to bone up on your definitions.

I go to bars to drink alcohol, not breath your smoke. I have no irrational hatred against smokers, I have a rational hatred about breathing other peoples disgusting, nauseating smoke.

[NuttyFluffers]

337. *sigh* by law they'd have to smoke in the middle of the street...

and that's if they are lucky enough to live in the suburbs. y'know, it's a hazard to have people standing in the street. they could get hurt, and also bodies flying through your windshield can kill you.

if you used good reading comprehension on the original post you'd realize that the washington state law is nothing like the far weaker laws that are currently in california. you did catch the '25ft away' part, right? they've crossed the line in a huge leap into draconian.

[FrankBooth]

549. Draconian??

What is with all the histrionics here? And yes, I did know about the 25 foot rule, since I happen to live in Seattle and voted on this.

The 25 foot rule may be unworkable, but it hardly qualifies as draconian. Get a fucking grip. And breath in the nice, smoke-free fresh air.

[NuttyFluffers]

565. can i ban your use of coffee then? :D the smell affects my air.

and your crankyness in the morning is a health hazard.

:evilgrin:

seriously, what does someone smoking a cigarette on a porch or a sidewalk affect you? you can't possibly tell me you are being hot-boxed by someone smoking outside in the open air.

and it is draconian. just like temperance was draconian. and just as marijuana ban is draconian. did you not get the part *again* about 25ft rule? people either have to quit cold turkey (which is pretty damn cruel), or stand in the middle of your road, or move out of the state. duh, draconian. and don't give me the crap about gums and patches -- it's still against their will and an unnecessary hardship when you can be perfectly fine by having someone smoke outside. it's being a butt-inski just to be a butt-inski.

[FredStembottom]

273. I miss the reasonableness......

I have suspected for years that the "tobacco jihad" is powered by more than health concerns.

In a world that became increasingly good at shutting down disparagement of groups of people by other groups of people (as it should), I think a huge boat-load of the pent-up urge to discriminate against someone/ANYONE found vent in smokers (and maybe people with mullet haircuts ). It's the one group left that is still a free-fire zone. Blast away! Hate them! Call them names! Legislate against them!

It's all OK! You can't overdo it!

I really, really miss the reasonable solutions that could be worked out. Instead, a self-selected Holy Order works to crush their feeble, addicted, REASONABLE enemy into the ground.

There is some heavy psychology going on in these skirmishes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Full disclosure: Fred never smokes EXCEPT 4 or 5 times a year when he meets with friends to enjoy a couple really expensive cigars while cruising blissfully through the scenic Minnesota/Wisconsin countryside in a fast car. This has been his scheme for 28 years now. Fred might smoke more than that but that is so unhealthy. 4 or 5 times a year is cost-effective and thoroughly enjoyable and REASONABLE. A totally antiseptic life is just too depressing!

[nini]

289. when they make a cigarette won't harm others around you

you can smoke up a freaking storm.

Until then we'll have to separate the masses.


I don't think smoking should be banned, but common sense needs to be used to accomodate both sides.


It doesn't have to be a war if both sides use a bit of tolerance.

[Kurovski]

291. I wish they had separate perfume sections.

Or that companies didn't make the stuff out of so many toxic ingredients.

Asthma, migraines, and possibly cancer from the nasty cheap crap most scents are made from.

Banning smoking in bars is stupid. It should have been the owners choice.

The other establishment bans I can understand.

[marions ghost]

370. seriously...

I find heavy body products and those scented laundry detergents and additives JUST as offensive as tobacco smoke. It's hard for me to be close to friends who use them. In fact I told one male friend he smelled like a putrid flower and he did take my advice and lost those products. It's so much nicer being around him now. Recently I stayed in a rental apartment which had those scented "plug-ins" in every room. There was no ventilation and windows were nailed shut. My sister had headaches from breathing it all night and we had to "escape" the place at every opportunity. Studies have shown these chemical-laced products can pollute the air at toxic levels.
However body products are a lot easier to curtail than smoking is to quit.

I'm not taking up for smoking...just agreeing that the bigger picture is air pollution from being in close range with a number of commonly used products including tobacco. Tobacco use I see as an ADDICTION (not a matter of choice for many people) which is why I feel places should be provided where people can satisfy their addiction away from others (kind of like clean needle programs). Draconian measures will never solve addictions.

[Kurovski]

495. Believe me, I know how serious it can be.

When folks use dryer sheets, even the outside air becomes polluted for a surrounding block.

That stuff is not made from benign ingredients.

A lot of the chemicals are hormone-mimickers and find their way into our systems. They can affect animal reproduction in eco-systems.

[femrap]

292. You move to Cincinnati and I will move to Washington!!!!

What part of lung cancer don't you understand???

I have no social life...why? I go to a bar and the next day I have a sore throat and swollen sinuses. It's not worth going out. Hurts the economy.

If you want to smoke, open up PRIVATE CLUBS and smoke.

Only 25% of the US population smokes...get real.

Hey...move to China...lots of smokers there! Have fun!

And to above poster who made the analogy between gay acceptance and smoking acceptance....I don't remember getting a sore throat from YOUR sexual activities...come on...let's use our brains here.

[Nite Owl]

293. We have had a smoking ban in NY

for some time now and it is something you get used to. You learn to smoke less and there is nothing wrong with that. There is no redeeming value to smoking and others shouldn't have to pay for my addiction.

[grace0418]

297. Thank you!

And I want to say it was AWESOME to go to NYC and enjoy music, restaurants and the like without having to leave after an hour due to my lungs being charred. Not to mention I didn't have to do laundry every day!

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

295. I don't know.......

...maybe because you shouldn't light shit on fire indoors? I mean, that's what children and idiots who get their hands on matches do, right?

[NuttyFluffers]

339. ... and with that the entire restaurant industry dies...

:eyes:

"the secret ingredient is actually a lack of ingredient! gotta cook in the kitchen without using fire. are you up to the challege iron chefs?! Allez Cuisine!" -Chairman Kaga

:rofl:

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

485. You mean there's a restaurant that cooks with matches and paper?

Cool, I gotta try that place!

[NuttyFluffers]

566. yes dear, it's called gas stoves or charcoal stoves...

and other several various types of stoves. not all of them use electrical starters. and besides there's several advance culinary techniques that utilize matches and paper for specific searing, warming, and presentation.

why my goodness... and you didn't know that? ;)

i'm gonna share this with my friend and his friends at the culinary academy, they'll get a kick out of this. :D

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

569. Uh huh, and I'm sure they have to learn proper safety too.....

.....I doubt there's any smoker's academy that teaches proper safety techniques.......

(We can play the sarcasm game alllllll night if you want) ;)

[grace0418]

296. It's not that easy.

It's not just restaurants where smoking is a problem. What, so every time a band comes to town they're going to play in a smoking club and a non-smoking club? Do know how many times I've paid good money and stood in long lines for hours to get into a show I was really excited about only to have a chain-smoker park himself right in front of me? So my choices are to move and get shoved to the back of the room (fuck no, I waited in line just as long) or smoke half his cigarettes with him.

I reminisce a lot about how fun it was to go out to clubs and concerts but all the fun was taken out of it for me when my allergies made it impossible for me to handle the cigarette smoke.

You can move to Chicago, it's still a fucking stinking cesspool of carcinogens here. I hardly get to go out anymore because of it. When I did a few weeks ago because I love Jonathan Richman too much to miss another show, I was sick the whole next day. Not to mention Jonathan played a shorter show due to laryngitis that was no doubt made worse by all the people blowing smoke in the front row.

God it was nice the last time I was in Manhattan and I could see a concert without hacking to death.

[anitar1]

299. Seem to recall that Wa state has a huge toxic dump that

has never been cleaned up. Cannot recall the name of it but it is an utter disgrace.Talk about health. I know there is harm from smoking, but seems as if this subject inflames folks who scream about how smoking bans save lives. What about all of the radioactive sites across the cuntry that have contaminated water and huge areas around the site. I think people do not want to look at the health damage that is done to everyone from all of the nuclear waste sites. So let's all scream about smoking and how it is the ONE thing in our world that is harmful. Typical Americans.A country of loonie tunes.Smog, madcow,chemical sprays used on the food we consume,ect.ect. And we go ballistic about amoking every time the subject arises. Just don't go to places that allow smoking! Simple. As for those in Wa state who hate smokers, think what fun you will have patrolling with your tape measures and calling 911 on your cell phones.

[Diane R]

303. I live in Washington and I am thrilled!

I can't wait 'til it takes effect on Dec. 8th. I am so proud of our state.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

316. hooray for one less freedom!

hooray America!

[Spock_is_Skeptical]

305. I feel the same way, actually.

That is pretty severe - and I thought it was bad when they passed the ban here in Minneapolis.

[adwon]

311. Prohibition all over again

When will the goddamn neo-Puritans get a life?

I find it terribly ironic that some people who advocate choice in sexuality and reproduction find choice in economic matters to be horrific. It's a two-way street folks.

[MojoXN]

312. AMEN!!!

EXCELLENT post! Nominated!

MojoXN

[SlavesandBulldozers]

315. i'm with you

I don't smoke anymore, but I really miss going to smokey clubs and bars. There's just something about a smokey bar that I like. I agree with you that business owners should have the choice, but apparently there are so many pussies out there who would rather complain and make it illegal than to just turn around and leave. Goddammit I love this country!

[baron j]

317. Fremont is all gentrified, and crawling with yuppies, by the way.

You probably wouldn't have the same fun.

I agree that there should be some places that allow smoking, and the 25 foot ban is extreme, but, for the most part, I'm happy, because I can go to those tiny dance clubs again (which are only partially a bar), and not have my eyes running with tears from the billowing clouds. I imagine the ban will be amended somewhat, in the future.

[mondo joe]

376. Everything changes. My childhood neighborhood is filled with crack dens.

Every neighborhood changes.

Clinging to the past for purely personal reasons is unbecoming.

[Cats Against Frist]

382. Wha? First you attack smoking, then nostalgia?

Of course, things change. That doesn't mean you can't love things "the way they were." Fremont is a near-joke, now. Lenin only stands to remind us of the irony. (And I'm not advocating Lenin, BTW -- instead of seeing him, in this context, as the authoritarian symbol that he is, I simply see him as a symbol of quirkiness). Most of the Fremont quirkiness is gone -- replaced by utter crap.

[mondo joe]

386. I didn't attack nostalgia.

But I do find it unbecoming when people can't move on. Nostalgia is a fondness for what was - not a pathological need to preserve it.

Yup, most Fremont quirkiness is gone, as freely as it came.

[dcfirefighter]

318. Bullshit about worker's health

I used to work as a health & safety consultant (Industrial Hygiene). In just about every manufacturing industry, there are respiratory hazards. In every industry, there are Occupational Safety and Health laws that ensure that workers are protected from these hazards. Typically, ventilation, fume hoods, or in the worst case, filter masks or supplied air masks.

There is no such option for compliance with these bans. There is no option to build an airlocked back room from which the smokers can periodically emerge to retrieve their drinks from the bartenter. Hence, these bans are not REALLY about worker's health.

These laws are about 1) telling people who are different than you what they can do 2) thinly justifying this jack-booted authoritarianism with appeals to the health of workers, 3) using social engineering to end something you don't like.

[Mutley]

321. I hear you.

Here in Maryland, they banned smoking in all Montgomery bars and restaurants (Montgomery County is right next door to DC) and now all those bars are hurting. Everyone just goes to DC now where there is no ban. Despite that, several other counties are considering doing the same. I'll just drink at home where I can smoke all I want. That is much less of my money being turned back around into the local economy just because of a smoking ban.

[LWolf]

346. You have the right to smoke.

You have the right to destroy your lungs and shorten your life, and I wouldn't take that right from you.

I think "no more than 25 feet away from a residence" is extreme; I'm not really sure what the point is. I think any establishment that invites the general public in should be non-smoking, but I don't have a problem with an outdoor "smoking area" for any such place.

I'm glad that my kids grew up in California, where smoking was not the "norm" that they saw everywhere they went. I'm glad that they are non-smokers, and healthier for it. I'm glad that the tobacco companies were not able to convince them that smoking was a "norm" in their communities that they should adopt, and thus hook more life-long customers. I'm glad that I can take care of business in my community without having to suck in second-hand smoke. I'm even glad that I can go to a bar, have a beer, and lose badly at pool without having to take other people's vices home in my lungs.

I honestly don't understand why smokers would want others to suffer their second-hand smoke; friends, family, or strangers, at home, at work, or at the bar.

[pointblank]

347. Amen

I was just in NYC last week for the first time since 2002 and hwta a pain in the ass that is.

I am one of the smokers that only partakes when he is drinking, whichc is aabout once a week, but when I drink I fucking smoke...a lot.

All of the memories I have of being in a pub in NYC or at the almighty comedy Cellar, sipping on a frosty beer and having a good smoke will never be revived. It just isnt the same. Having to step outside is a pain in the ass because then you have to leave your drink vulnerable and you may lose your spot at the bar...not to mention you feel like a fool having to get up every 15 minutes if you are anything like me.

On the other hand, WOW...Not being able to smoke even right OUTSIDE of a pub is a fucked up thing...It IS some jackboot nazi shit and I hope that this stupid trend goes the way of prohibition of alcohol in the 20's, but I am not optimistic.

[Moosepoop]

350. I work in a cigarette/tobacco store.

We also sell beer, wine, soda pop, party items and general convenience store items, but the big draw and the primary purpose of the establishment is the sale of tobacco products.

We allow the customers to sample different cigarettes when they're thinking of switching brands, and most of the employees smoke (we usually start out as customers and eventually become employees).
We have a separate, back-room area for employee smoking, but sometimes it does waft out to the selling area of the store. Or the smoke from the occasional cigarette-sampling customer may be in the air.

What cracks me up are the (very infrequent) non-smoking customers who come in and are shocked -- shocked, I tell ya!! -- that they actually encounter cigarette smoke IN A CIGARETTE STORE. They make a big deal out of coughing and rubbing their eyes, etc., and carry on as though they had no reason to expect this. Maybe they came in to buy a Pepsi or a Slim Jim, but come on -- they could purchase those items in many places other than a cigarette/tobacco shop! Good grief.

As for the "worker's health" argument, if you're afraid of second-hand smoke, then don't work somewhere that smoking takes place. Just like if you are afraid of heights (reasonably so, as falling from a high place could very well cause serious injury or death), you should not become a firefighter who may have to climb a tall ladder.
Or don't become a flight attendant if you are adamant about airplanes being dangerous vehicles. Should all airplanes be grounded so that flight attendants who don't like flying due to the risk have equal opportunity to that particular job? Well then, people who wait tables should choose which establishments to apply at based on what they feel is an acceptable risk to them. It's not like there aren't non-smoking establishments to work at.

Yes, as a smoker I'm biased. But common sense seems to go out the window when non-smokers get self-righteous.

[ArkDem]

536. Sounds kind of like a reverse Mensa club....

[dcfirefighter]

551. Yeah, no Mensans have ever smoked.

Difference is, high IQ doesn't always lead to wise choices.

[pitohui]

546. oh jeez i've done this

but when i stumbled into the store in question (it was abt 20 yrs ago) it was because i really didn't realize what kind of store it was until too late

no intent to make you feel bad

not all non-smokers are trying to guilt you, some of us just don't read the signs and are wandering around in our own private fog

[nonconformist]

355. Amen to that.

It is some jackbooted Nazi shit when they're banning people from smoking OUTSIDE.

[mattclearing]

357. Just wanted to throw in my late thanks for this post.

I smoked for ten years, and despite the fact that it made me feel like shit sometimes and was lonely at others, a lot of the time I really enjoyed it.

This smoking ban is going to result in a good deal of mayhem, as withdrawing smokers lose their cool for no apparent reason.

[kwassa]

358. Smoking should basically be outlawed, in my opinion

A substance that in its normal use causes disease and death, and also has powerful addictive qualities.

Why allow it? It is a great public health menace, and hundreds of thousands die yearly from the effects.

As a non-smoker, it is incredibly unpleasant to be around smokers who literally stink, and whose smoke smell gets on everything around them.
I had to give up many bars a long time ago because I couldn't stand the smoke. Aside the dubious pleasure of ingesting someone else's smoke there, the smell would linger in my hair and clothes long after it. I could smell my clothes from across the room the next day, like a stale ash tray. Smoking destroys the experience in many restaurants, too, when I am trying to eat and somebody lights up close by, completely ruining the purpose for being in the restaurant in the first place. It is like stealing my money, the money I paid for the meal.

There are no benefits to smoking, to the individual, or to society.

[dcfirefighter]

360. I'm glad you've judged the benefits to society

Because you are exactly the kind of person who supports outlawing other's pleasures. Smoking's benefit to society is teh pleasure that smokers derive from it.

[kwassa]

363. The other great societal benefit: skyrocketing health costs.

I forgot to put that in my original note.

I only am into outlawing pleasures that have fatal consequences, or obnoxious effects on others who don't wish to share.

[dcfirefighter]

364. In the spirit of the other great authoritarians

Do you feel also compelled to outlaw pleasure with fatal consequences like unprotected sex, motorcycle riding, hangliding, and mountain climbing?

What if I can smoke indoors at a bar and not cause any barworkers to inhale smoke?

How about giving me a smoking room with an airlock, and a little window through which to pass me my bourbon & cokes? Me and the rest of the scumbags will be in there.

[mondo joe]

373. As soon as you figure out a way to smoke that limits the toxins to

your body, I'll fully support your smoking anywhere, same as I support mountain climbers.

[Cats Against Frist]

380. Thing is, I don't think that most smokers are arguing that they

should be able to "smoke anywhere." I, myself have only asked to be able to smoke at "some" bars, and on bar patios, and in establishments that wish to take on the burden of installing a sophisticated HVAC system, to keep non-smokers from having to breathe smoke. That's a far cry from insisting that I can put my cigarette butt out on your forehead.

I read your post in the other thread -- about how, now, you're offended at the pro-smokers, and I haven't seen too many arguments, in these threads, where the smokers have said they have a right to smoke everywhere. On the other hand, I've seen ad hominem attacks, irrationality, outright lies and total bullshit (i.e. "I'm allergic to smoke," (sorry Lerkfish, I feel for your wife, but she's either allergic to tobacco or is simply sensitive to smoke -- I'm willing to friendly debate, on this point)).

Smokers just want some places to go, while non-smokers are insisting that every place cater to them. Even if I was a non-smoker, that kind of sentiment just pisses me off.

[mondo joe]

385. I don't see any difference between bars, movie theaters, offices or

restaurants with regard to smoking regulations as a matter of logic or law.

Mind you, smokers are not prohibited from any of these accommodations, they are only prevented from smoking while using them. The same way we are prevented from having sex in those places, talking loudly (typically) in those places.

I don't have a particular issue with smoking in bars, and in fact I voted no on the smoking ban in WA, mostly because of issues with the enforceability.

But I've seen plenty of posts that really make me inclined to support smoking bans because they're so ridiculously unreasonable.

[Cats Against Frist]

397. There is a difference

It's arbitrary, of course, but an argument can be made that a bar, more than any other place, has a "mythos," as an adult haven, and, traditionally that "mythos" involves drinking, smoking, pool, shooting the shit, pub quiz and other kinds of traditional activities. No one is insisting that all bars be smoking, however -- only that there be some places that will let people smoke, while participating in this time-tested ritual.

I believe, last time I checked, that it involves diversity and choice, which I THOUGHT were liberal values.

The bottom line is that smokers are not insisting that ALL places be smoking, and people in favor of smoking bans ARE insisting that ALL places be non-smoking. To me, that's overbroad, and takes one set of brash motherfucking cojones. And, it's grossly authoritarian.

[mondo joe]

403. Since the difference is, as you agree, arbitrary, I see no more difference

than saying Blue is a better color than Red, so we should have greater benefits for those who wear Blue.

There is no logical or lawful difference between bars and other businesses with regard to smoking.

It's not that I don't appreciate the "mythos" - but there are many like it that, in the face of health and safety and other rights, fall by the wayside.

Liberal values include plenty of things - diversity and choice as well as democratic values, the people regulating commerce, public safety and more.

And I don't see it as any more authoritarian than the Kyoto Protocols or any worker safety regulations.

PERSONALLY, I would support your right to do anything you want to your own body, from prostitution to heroin to suicide. My only problem is when your choices float over into the bodies of those nearby.

[Cats Against Frist]

405. Seriously. Just address these two questions:

What about the free will of those who choose to put their bodies in a smoking place?

Two -- how can you not see that a smoking ban definitely gives greater benefits to one group, where a world in which there were two choices, would give the equal benefit?

[mondo joe]

409. Seriously, my answers:

1. I respect the free will of people who want to put ANYTHING in their own body. The only point, IMO, at which it should be limited is what they put into the bodies of those nearby.

2. I don't see smokers and non smokers as two "groups". Anyone can go to a library, even though no one can smoke in any. I don't see any unequal treatment there.

As you know, the difference with bars is purely arbitrary.

[Cats Against Frist]

417. I'm a post-modernist, and I think that everything is arbitrary...

:)

1. People who don't want to smoke or smell smoke or work in smoke can go and not smoke, not smell smoke, or not work in smoke in any number of non-smoking establishments that non-smokers wish to support with their patronage.

2. They can be two groups, or not. A library is a public building, owned by the people. Banning smoking is perfectly reasonable, there.

[mondo joe]

420. I don't. And since this is a matter of law, I'd suggest in your own

interest in getting what you want, you find a more practical solution - and I mean that in all friendly sincerity.

Libraries are public buildings, but restaurants, bars and theatters are public accommodations.

[dcfirefighter]

433. public accommodations

I don't have a problem with the owners of libraries, theatres, officebuildings, etc. being able to decide the smoking / non-smoking status of their privately-owned property. I agree that workers in any of these places deserve a safe & healthy workplace. I also agree that there are tacit limits to how safe & healthy a workplace can be (show me a safe firefighting job, or any job without unhealthy stress). In the absense of full employment and adequate unionization, employees are relatively tied to their job - they cannot just leave a job that is unhealthy or unsafe. However, we have existing laws, methods, and engineering controls to protect workers in all industries. Why not apply these to other workplaces?

Why can't a bar have a separately ventilated, negative pressure, airlocked entranced sitting area with a pass through to the bartender / serving area?

Why not? Because these laws are only HIDING behind worker protection, not actually providing it.

[mondo joe]

456. I think you have blurred necessary and unnecessary risks.

One can't be a firefighter without risking injury and loss of life due to fire - that's a necessary risk to the job.

But the employer (the city?) is obliged to make it as safe as possible while ensuring the essential delivery of service.

Likewise, in handling toxic materials there is some built in necessary risk. But the employer is not free to be reckless with the health of employees as affected by that toxic material.

Existing laws and methods might work fine if practical to the particular situation. But most often they are not.

And please note, theater owners do not have the choice to designate smoking or non smoking theaters, just as airline owners do not have the choice to designate smoking airplanes. These are public accommodations and are already subject to smoking regulations.

[dcfirefighter]

502. Just because it's done elsewhere doesn't make it right

As for limiting risk, we can stand outside and spray water in through the window, and hope anyone inside got out; or as we do it here, we can go in through the front door, crawl around, find the fire, look for people, and put water directly on the fire.

The former is definitely safer than the latter.

Being a taxi driver is more deadly than being a firefighter. How should we make their job safer? Better cars? I don't know, but obviously legislators have made a trade off by not doing so.

[mondo joe]

528. Again, the point of workplace safety is to provide as much protection

as can that still permits the delivery of the necessary function.

There is nothing about bars, restaurants or theaters that makes enduring smoke necessary. A smoking club, yes. A bar, no.

[dcfirefighter]

530. Most around here would assume that a bar served as a smoking club

It's function is to allow patrons to entertain themselves and each other while ingesting toxic, but legal, substances.

Limiting bars function to merely serving alcoholic beverages show a sever misunderstanding of the function that bars & taverns have served throughout history.

Appropros of the date, 230 years and a day ago, the USMC was born in a Philadelphia tavern.

[mondo joe]

531. Assumptions are implicit, and what is legal is subject to change.

And ofcourse if cigarettes are legally banned from bars, they would be added to a long list of things that may be perfectly legal in other settings but are not legal in this setting.

This is why I suggest simply creating smoking clubs in which the purpose of the establishment is explicit, and the greater leeway of clubs is gained.

[kwassa]

379. Rights of individuals vs. rights of the community

There always must be a balance between the two sets of rights, which are sometimes in conflict with each other.

I would probably ban motorcycles too. They are inherently dangerous and also cause society unsupported medial costs.

"How about giving me a smoking room with an airlock, and a little window through which to pass me my bourbon & cokes? Me and the rest of the scumbags will be in there"

I actually worked for a company that used to do this. It was pretty disgusting, but I had no problem with it.

[Cats Against Frist]

383. Uh... smokers are the ones asking for a balance

Smoking-ban proponents, are the ones who are insisting that EVERY GOD DAMN PLACE be sanitized for their happiness.

[mondo joe]

388. Of course smoking bans don't exclude smokers, only temporarily prohibit

a particular behavior. Just as you are prohibited from having sex in bars and restaurants, or going barefoot, or having your dog with you.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

487. an airlock

great post.
:spray:

[Bill McBlueState]

372. nice

There are no benefits to smoking, to the individual, or to society.

That's the crux of the argument. People who say otherwise are letting their addiction do the talking for them.

[Cats Against Frist]

374. Smoking has the same kind of benefit as non-procreational sex

You do it because it's fun, and it feels good, and it satisfies a narrative. Look in the above posts for the benefits of smoking, which I'm sure would equal the side-effects of having sex.

Orgasms do not benefit society. The benefit to the individual is the same as smoking: people like to do it. Period. You don't get to say what I like.

[Bill McBlueState]

377. heh

You're right; I don't get to say what you like. But I've smoked before, and I've had sex before, and it makes me laugh to consider that the benefits of each could be thought of as equal.

But hey, whatever does it for you.

[mondo joe]

389. But you're not permitted to do that in the bar either. :-)

[kwassa]

390. Satisfies a narrative? Write a book, and satisfy more.

There are no benefits to smoking that are not vastly outweighed by the health damage and costs.

Orgasms do benefit society, assuming safe sexual practices are happening, by making individuals happier. Orgasms can be completely safe, while safe smoking doesn't exist.

[Cats Against Frist]

393. There are risks involved in both practices

Not everyone who smokes gets cancer. And certainly not everyone who smokes during their partying days, and wises up, and quits later, get cancer. There are risks involved in recreational sex, as well. And whether or not you can POSSIBLY COMPREHEND THIS, smoking makes some smokers happy.

[mondo joe]

395. Of course the risks in sex are limited to those who directly partake in it

and STDs don't float over into the person simply sitting nearby.

[Cats Against Frist]

400. And I can hold an orgy

and ask you if you want to come over, and you can decide whether to come or not. You can have people to come over and play Fishing Derby on the Atari, at your party, and if you invite me, I can decide whether to come, or not. A third party can have the choice to come to my orgy or your Atari party. That's the beauty of life. I don't understand how non-smokers can proclaim that they have the "RIGHT" to go to every bar, and have it be non-smoking. It seems just as ludicrous as me saying that all bars should have to be smoking.

There's a simple solution to you not getting STDs: don't come to my party. (I don't have, and have never had any STDs, by the way).

[mondo joe]

404. Sure - you can hold an orgy. In your home. Not in a bar.

Bars are public accommodations. Your home is not.

Want to have a smoking orgy in your home? Be my guest.

[Cats Against Frist]

408. I think that calling bars "public accomodations" is wrong

I believe they are private enterprises, that invite the public to come and participate, IF they wish to. The "public," THANK GOD, is free to choose whether or not they wish to come. The smoker, under a smoking ban, has no such freedom of choice.

[mondo joe]

410. It's a matter of law. Like restaurants, stores etc they are public

accommodations. That doesn't mean they're not private businesses also.

[fishnfla]

361. Heartbroken and irate over a filthy disgusting habit

and you want us to explain to you why your habit sucks? I'm sorry but I think that is fucking hilarious:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I'm sorry but I just cant :rofl: its :rofl: Oh god I love DU :rofl:

do you, :rofl: know what the term "self indulgent" means? :rofl:

oh man I am falling all over the place here :rofl:

thanks man

[Bridget Burke]

362. Yet another reason to visit Seattle...

I've got a few friends in the Great Northwest. Although I might wait until next Summer. Houston's weather is just now getting reasonable.

[ismnotwasm]

365. Damn, what a difference a day makes

I didn't figure I'd find this thread alive and kicking the next day. My 2 cents? Don't smoke, and I don't care to breath second hand smoke-- but I don't see how the 25 foot rule is enforceable. I expect it to be challenged and maybe the whole thing will get knocked down. I heard on the news, for example you can smoke and walk down the street, and nobody is going to care.
I had friends tell me the 25 feet came from studies of a "chimney effect" of opening doors from smoking areas into hospitals.

All the Fremont references-- To me, The soul of Fremont died when they closed the Fremont tavern and turned it into a goddam ALE house. (The best biker bar in the Seattle) Just my opinion

[Dorian Gray]

366. Good rant.

Now, I will sit patiently and watch the chaos that ensues. ;)

[Strong Atheist]

369. .

:nopity:

[AngryAmish]

391. A boot stepping on a human face forever.

People who support smoking bans are totalitarian. They cannot stand that their neighbors are different and must bend them to their will.

These are the same people who support eugenics because it offends them to see handicapped people. Beside, those damn handicapped folks costs us all more in taxes for special ed, adult care, etc. Just like their arguments that smoking raises health insurance costs. They just don't like people different than them.

[mondo joe]

394. LOL! Like those totalitarian Kyoto protocols!

Who are we to tell others to limit their emissions?

[mondo joe]

398. Why don't people just open Smoking Clubs in which the explicit

purpose of the business is smoking, and perhaps even include a membership fee.

It seems to me part of the dispute is that some smokers see smoking as ESSENTIAL to the bar experience, and others don't. But if you make it the explicit point of the business, there's no disppute.

[Cats Against Frist]

402. What does the fact that there is a "fee," matter?

Why can't a new bar owner just open up a pub, and say, "Okey dokey, boys and girls -- this bar is a smoking bar, and you can come if you want, and work if you want, and if you don't, have fun at your non-smoking bar." ?

Why do I have to pay a "fee" to smoke? Why can't nonsmokers open up private, non-smoking clubs?

Or better, yet -- why can't there just be a reasonable compromise? You have not yet addressed that, after NUMEROUS posts.

[mondo joe]

406. A fee would make explicit the private nature of the business, rather than

a public accommodation, which is what a bar is.

And there can be a reasonable compromise - the problem is that everyone has a different idea of what that is.

Can the public agree to YOUR notion of reasonable? Sure - it COULD. But it's not. So I'm suggesting another option that still pretty much gets you what you want, while respecting the nature of public accommodations.

[Cats Against Frist]

411. Why is my compromise unreasonable?

My compromise is this:

That bars be allowed to create non-serviced smoking porches, with seating, where people can smoke.

That bars who wish to install HVAC systems, or separate rooms for smokers, be able to do so.

And I'm willing to budge on the following, but I'd like to see:

Bars be able to apply for a limited number of smoking liscenses and/or new, start-up bars, be excluded from the initiative, as long as they provide a full disclosure to their patrons and potential employees that this will be a SMOKING ESTABLISHMENT.


How is that unreasonable? Particularly, in the face of "I INSIST THAT ALL PLACES BE NON-SMOKING, IN CASE I WANT TO GO THERE."

[mondo joe]

413. Everyone has their own idea of what's reasonable.

There are a whole range of ideas of what's reasonable.

What do you want me to, mind control people to make them agree with you?

[Cats Against Frist]

418. No, I want people to be reasonable

What I've proposed is a decent compromise, in a range of possible compromises. When someone supports an all-out smoking ban, that's NOT reasonable, and it's not a COMPROMISE. I know you can't mind-control people. I can't, either. All I can do is propose a compromise, and hope that people can talk it out.

[mondo joe]

422. And in their opinion, they, like you in yours, are. The people

have spoken.

They might say "the compromise is you can smoke in YOUR space but not in public accommodations where the air is shared". That is a compromise - just not the one you want.

Now you can try to figure out a more practical way to get what you want - which I suggested - or you can have philosophical disagreements and still not get what you want.

[Cats Against Frist]

431. That's NOT a compromise

It's a fancy way of saying that "people shouldn't be able to smoke ANYWHERE I might want to go," and you know it. Your suggestion is not a compromise, because tobacco is a LEGAL substance -- no one can tell me (yet) that I can't smoke in my space. "You can't smoke where the air is shared," is an extreme position -- much more extreme than my compromise.

And "the tyrannical majority," has spoken, and there are plenty of people who didn't vote for the ban.

I don't think that "smoking clubs" is a bad idea, but, I think that the nannies would probably attempt to limit liquor licenses to smoking clubs, the same way they do with strip clubs. I'm more than happy to pay to go somewhere where I can find a bunch of people who don't have corncobs rammed so far up their asses that they can't recognize a good time. The problem is, it's still very unbalanced, and discriminatory to smokers. No one said that, when there wasn't a smoking ban, that all non-smoking bars had to charge a fee. But hey, if that's part of the compromise, fine. I'm not budging on outside seating, though -- that's just fucked up. And I'm not sure, but someone suggested that the owners can exempt themselves, meaning that they can have a smoking porch.

That, however, does not solve the problem of being OUTSIDE, in downtown Seattle, and having to trek out into the middle of Westlake Plaza, or to the piers, or under the viaduct -- just about the only places you could smoke a cigarette without being within 25 feet of a door, window or vent.

[mondo joe]

453. Sure it is. Don't mistake what you'd settle for to be the only

real compromise.

And there are MANY legal substances and acts which are prohibited in MANY spaces.

With regard to what might happen with smoking clubs, who knows, but let me offer an opinion: There are people like me whose ONLY issue with smoking in public is that it directly negatively impacts the health of people nearby. While I might consider voting for a smoking ban, I know I'd vote for smoking clubs if they were a ballot issue.

[Bake]

447. And then the smoking club could serve alcohol and ...

BINGO! You've got the OP's idea!!

But the Smoke Nazis, of course, would want to be free to come into the Smoker's Club and force their holier-than-thou-ness on the sorry lepers who continue to feed their addiction.

Bake

[mondo joe]

458. I don't believe that is a legitimate argument. The entire point of

the smoker's club is that the explicit purpose is a smoking area (something not true of bars), and we know private membership organizations have greater leeway than do general public accommodations.

[montana500]

424. You are addicted. You are "romanticizing" smoking.

You aren't speaking from a rational viewpoint. Trust me, I know. I smoked a pack and a half a day, and the most painful, hard part about quitting was the "romanticizing" your brain does to try and stop you from quitting.


No-smoking concerts are a great thing.

[mondo joe]

428. I'm not a smoker, but I admit there is a romance about it, like many

other things. I loved when Fran Lebowitz wrote "A cigarette and a cup of coffee are a real woman's breakfast" in a childhood recollection.

However, I agree with you 100% that there is nothing about this romantic notion that has any bearing against legal and public health issues.

[ArkDem]

427. This thread is a very interesting example of how an addiction

can alter one's thought process.:smoke:

[dcfirefighter]

436. Change the subject

I haven't seen a single logical argument for banning smoking.

The best one is the argument for worker protection. I agree with worker protection laws. We already have worker protection laws. We already have methods to protect workers from workplace respiratory hazards. What makes cigarrette smoke worse than the 1000's of other carcinogens used in industry every day. (By the way, burned animal fat is a carcinogen - guess we can't have any grilled steak in any of these restaraunts). I make this point because there is a tacit balancing point in workplace health and safety - hazards have to be reduced to a reasonable level, not always eliminated. The only way to eliminate workplace hazards is to stay at home.

But, claiming that the pro-smoking argument is irrelevant because the debaters are addicted is ridiculous.

Claiming that it will help the restaraunt & bar industry is fallacious - thankfully we still have many freedoms in this country, and the proprietors of such establishments can and do make decisions on their own to maximise their profits. Many, if not most, restaraunts banned smoking long before they were required to do so by law.

Claiming that it's a PUBLIC health issue makes me wonder why we don't ban tobacco sales as we currently do with marijuana and other drugs.

I hate authoritarianism.

[kwassa]

461. I've seen nothing but logical argument for banning smoking ...

including yours:

dcfirefighter:
"Claiming that it's a PUBLIC health issue makes me wonder why we don't ban tobacco sales as we currently do with marijuana and other drugs."

Me, too. I think all tobacco sales should be banned, in the name of public health.

Are you really a firefighter in DC? You should be aware of impending smoking bans in the District. Prince Georges County has just passed a ban, and Montgomery County has had one for several years.

[mondo joe]

462. Why not banned like marijuana and other drugs?

Obviously, because it's harder to ban something already legally available, and because legislators are in the pocket of big tobacco.

That said. I would never support banning cigs, just as I do not support banning marijuana or any other drug. If it were up to me they'd all be legal for individual use.

[loyalsister]

542. disability rights

People who have asthma, emphysema, CF, or any other respiratory illnesses, are often not supposed to be around smoke.
YET, they should have an opportunity to live an ordinary life and do ordinary things like eat out, see live music, and especially WORK.

So, do we pit this against an addiction?

Is it reasonable to claim that voluntary behavior is a right to be respected above the rights of people who have respiratory disabilities to participate in community life?

[dcfirefighter]

548. Reasonable Accomodations

More people in the general population smoke than don't.

A higher proportion of bar-workers smoke than in the general population.

Ergo, bar workers who don't smoke have a more than equitable proportion of potential patrons to serve.

Market choice can and does provide accomodations for all IF you'll supply enough liquor licenses.

[loyalsister]

550. Seperate but equal?

Or maybe all those defectives should just stay in?

[dcfirefighter]

553. They would be self excluded, not absolutely excluded

Like me going into a hip-hop bar.

[loyalsister]

555. right

that choice is exactly the same.
Or is it? Are there actually health repercussions for you to visit a Hip Hop bar as with a person who has Asthma or Emphysema visiting a smoke filled bar?
You may not be fond of the music or necessarily fit in, but you are physically able to be there. Just as you are able to go to a country bar, alternative dance club, vampire den, or any other place whether you are a redneck, goth, or whatever floats your boat.
My argument is that we should be physically welcome to go anywhere that is open to the public that nondisabled people can go.
We did away with the idea of separate but equal a long time ago.

[dcfirefighter]

557. That point is absurd

as in taken to the absurd limit
If i'm an epileptic, does that mean I can't go to the light show?
Do they have perfume-free sections of places? No. And believe it or not, there are more allergens in perfume.
How about peanut-free baseball games?
Or shellfish-free seafood restaraunts?
I know that in DC, people get knifed & shot at hip hop bars. AFAIK, no one has had a fatal asthma attack from smoke in a bar.
Pulling the 'separate-but-equal' card is disrespectful of the historical plight of african-americans in the US.
Under the old separate but equal laws, african-americans were prohibited from entering by the owner and the laws of the time. Choosing not to patronize a place that allows smoking is no where near the same as being refused entry because of the color of your skin.

[loyalsister]

560. Bull

Light shows are not common every day occurances. If a person with epilepsy decides to take the risk it's their business.
Many meetings and events now are held scent free.
Peanut free baseball games\shellfish free seafood restaurants-
Now who's being absurd? I said attend not do everything there is to do there. Or do you presume that people with disabilities are so stupid that when they are let loose they think they have to mimic what everyone around them is doing?
If you go into an externally dangerous environment dangerous you assume a risk.
Do ya think that maybe you haven't heard of an incident of a person having severe problems possibly because they are inherently excluded BY the environment?
If the environment itself imposes a significant risk to a person's body and you go, you would be just plain stupid.

I was walking by a restaurant the other day and the accessible door was blocked by cars. When I went in pointed it out to the manager he asked "Is someone in a wheelchair trying to get in?"
I told him no and asked him if anyone else would have to ask to enter his place of business.
There are a lot of businesses where the accessible doors are in back and have buzzers.
Do you get it yet?

[dcfirefighter]

561. Yeah, I get it

You like telling people how they should run their business. You think someone with asthma who chooses not to enter a bar is 'excluded'. What about alcoholics? They have a disease, and can't hang around people who drink. What about adults under the age of 21?

You have asthma, and don't want to come into the bar I hang out in. Fine, I'll get over it. You will too, most likely. You are not excluded. You could come in and risk it. Most likely, you'd survive - unless you have such a bad case that you can't walk outside next to a busy street, or anywhere during the spring pollen season. But a whiff of nicotina, whoa, too much for you.

You may feel free to take your business elsewhere.

You are in the majority - most people don't smoke. You can hang out with your nonsmoking friends anywhere.

Peanuts & Shellfish: some people are so allergic that the do not have to actually eat these to have a reaction, but merely be near them & come into contact with aerosolized particles.

[loyalsister]

562. No, you most definitely don't

A person with a respiratory disability who limits their activities in order to avoid smoke in order to preserve their health is excluded. Such a job is an immediate non-starter.
A large persentage of people with developmental disabilities have asthma. It so happens that some restaurant work could be ideal for them.
So, you think it's okay so limit opportunities for employment and socializing to start because this is the defective minority population because you are a persecuted minority? Well, I have one question, do you have a job?
I know some alcoholics who socialize with people who drink. It's an individualized thing.

[dcfirefighter]

567. Smoking ban = fewer hours of employment

seems pretty universal. Sure studies have shown otherwise - usually funded by 'smokefreeusa' or some such outfit. But, if it were not true, why then do such bans need to be statewide to be successful? Because when people can choose to do so, they take their business elsewhere. This is an evidence for a preference - if this preference is outlawed, consumers will spend less time & money at bars. Certainly they might choose to continue to patronize bars, however, they will patronize less.

So, overall, you wind up with less money being spent in bars. With less money being spent in bars, you have fewer people employed in bars. So, your smoking ban choice may give 100% opportunities to fewer people. Those who are only marginally employable will wind up on the wrong side of the margin.

Yes, I have a job. My job often requires me to deal with respiratory hazards. I deal with them just like every other employee who has to deal with respiratory hazards. We have a body of existing employment law dealing with respiratory hazards. We have an even more effective set of industry best practices dealing with respiratory hazards. These bans do not give an opportunity for employers to comply with existing employment health laws, they simply ban the pleasurable and voluntary activities of individuals in a private establishment. As far as I can tell, they do this merely because they can. Failing to use or recommend existing methods, or to try new methods, shows that this sort of regulation isn't for employee health - it is for other reasons.

If it is for public health, I fear the precedent it sets allows for the prohibition of other self-determined activities. There is already a buzz about suing fast-food vendors and the like.

If it is personal preference, aka non-smokers should be able to go to any bar they want, this also sets another precedent, where by the unpopular will always be overruled by the majority. This is the Tyranny of the Majority.

[loyalsister]

573. "Tyranny of the Majority."

Really? I have been discussing a percentage of 20% of the population, and
Your right to enjoy yourself stops (drive fast, target shoot, whatever dangerous thing you might be interested in) where my "nose begins"

People who have respiratory illnesses obviously have an extreme existing lowered tolerance for the negative effects of second hand smoke. This is a simple involuntary individual difference. It should not exclude them from the restaurant\bar culture of America for employment or social participation.

According to you, the economic value contribution\disruption of giving such rights and deciding we no longer discriminate against "these" people based on bodily differences is not worth shaking up economic models. People with disabilities value is determined by how much they can keep up.

Where is the Democratic Civil Rights model that justifies the "right" of people to carry on unhealthy voluntary behaviors publicly over the rights of people to participate in our society regardless of individual physical differences?

Of course, they don't have as much money to spend, so screw them- right?
Self determined activities? such as living on your own? buying your own food, clothes, having a family, pay for your own health insurance, NOT BEING DEPENDENT ON THE GOVERNMENT, etc?

These are the things people with disabilities don't get to do because of the 70%+ unemployment rate.
As far as sueing fast food restaurant- red herring. No sensible person goes along with that and you know it.

[rman]

440. "prohebition", it's what you get when the fringe-RW is in power.

Happens every time, doesn't last forever.
Though nobody knows in advance how long it will last.

[Cats Against Frist]

466. Damn right it is.

[Bake]

443. "I get ill just walking past a building ...

where people are smoking outside..."

That is utter bullshit. The same person who says that can sit in traffic smelling exhaust fumes without "getting ill." Sounds like a lot of hypochondria to me. If you really and truly get sick just walking past a building where people are smoking outdoors, you need to get yourself one of those plastic bubbles and just stay inside it.

Yes, I smoke. And I am CONSIDERATE about it. I don't smoke in my own car when non-smokers are riding with me. I don't smoke in my own HOUSE when I have non-smoking guests. And I don't appreciate being treated like a frickin' LEPER for my "nasty habit."

The OP offered a common-sense solution, one that for the life of me I cannot imagine why anyone would oppose!

Smokers don't get behind the wheel of a car and kill people because of their habit (although there was that one time I dropped a lit ciggie between my legs and almost had a wreck ...).

Bake

[grace0418]

454. If this is what breaks your heart and consumes you with outrage...

count your blessings. Did you hear about the 80,000+ people dead in Pakistan or the 2000 troops sent to their deaths for no reason? What about the people who still have no homes, money, or possessions after Katrina?

Seriously, this is what you're going to rant about like it's the fucking end of the world?

If you're a poet, then use your angst over not being able to smoke to create art. Pain almost always makes the best art.

[Verve]

459. Exactly. See my post 441. n/t

[Cats Against Frist]

463. "pain" and any other emotion is often responsible for making the worst art

I've had my fair share of "carrying the world on my shoulders," you know -- I've been outraged about many things, both "big" and "small." Personal freedom, however, if you can understand, is NOT a trivial thing. The whole world is in "creeping authoritarian" mode, and I am in the position with no one left to speak for me -- no matter how "trivial" smoking may be to you, or not. The only difference is, I spoke out the whole time, and didn't engender the authoritarianism. Others have placed it upon ME.

I'm not interested in indulging out-of-control authoritarianism, in any form, be it a crony war or a simple cigarette. The biggest problem this world has is idealists and control freaks trying to out-destroy each other.

[mondo joe]

464. How do you feel about the control freaks who want to limit car

emissions? How about those Kyoto Protocols?

[Cats Against Frist]

471. OK, I'm going to try to answer this point for you

I haven't seen the statistics on whether or not outdoor smoking, or smoke that wafts outside of private residences or businesses where smoking is taking place, is an environmental health threat. If aggregate smokers can be shown to be a preeminent cause of such things as the greenhouse effect, global warming, or are blowing a giant hole in the ozone layer, then, yes, I think that they should be subject to the Kyoto Protocols.

;)

Other than that, I think, possibly, the Kyoto protocol is a voluntary treaty-type thing.. If it's not voluntary, on this type of scale, it would take a military-type takeover, sanctions, etc., to make a country compliant, if it were shown, by some authoritarian force, that all countries should comply.

So, then, would you be in favor of Europe invading us, and smashing all the SUVs? If so, then why not support all military adventures that put various kinds of "freedoms" and "good policies," "on the march?" Foreign intervention is, after all, a LIBERAL idea, and only crosses over into conservative territory when it's a wealth-suckage enterprise, or is waged to steal natural resources. Why, military intervention for "the common good," is a a part of the "just society." Isn't that what the neocons want????

Or, I could answer it just as "outrageously," by suggesting that there's simply no comparison, and that Kyoto is filled with compromises of the non-fascist sort that don't totally stomp out an individual's, corporation's or nation's right to voluntarily help, and to work together to reduce emissions, without putting a blanket ban on fossil fuels, cars, or anything else. I think adults probably put Kyoto together, where irrational paranoia, hypochondria and hatred are the reasons for an absolutist smoking ban.

***edited for really shitty spelling

[Verve]

490. irrational paranoia, hypochondria and hatred are the reasons for an

absolutist smoking ban?:rofl:

Have you not read your own thread?

Most people on DU, don't give a crap what others do as long as it doesn't cause harm to others.

SMOKING CAUSES HARM TO OTHERS!

That is the one and only reason smoking will continue to be banned in more states, cities and counties across the country.

Take your conspiracy hat off. No one is out to get you or other smokers. Do what you damn well please, just don't do it in public airspace.

[mondo joe]

527. I don't know why anyone would fail to see a direct comparison

between those who choose to polluting the air with toxins at the corporate or personal level.

[dcfirefighter]

474. I don't much like them

I'd prefer that polluters paid for their damages, rather than be given a minimum specification that they will almost certainly not exceed.

e.g. if Company X is allowed to emit 10 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, then Company X will almost certainly emit 10 million tons of CO2.

if Company X were charged 25 cents (and increasing thereafter) a ton for CO2 emissions, they'd keep figuring out how to reduce them.

It's all about diversity and compromise.

[VolcanoJen]

489. This is one of the best rants I have ever, ever seen at DU.

Can I get in your racecar, Cats?

:thumbsup: from a bar worker. :-)

[Name removed]

492. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TahitiNut]

501. Haven't you noticed the MILLIONS of us people who're ...

... so hugely concerned about the diminishing air quality that we wear face masks or oxygen tanks? Sales of HEPA filters, CO detectors, radon test kits, and air cleaners have sky-rocketed, completely burying the production capacity of the entire industry. We've stepped forward to completely exhaust (no pun intended) absolutely everything we can do ourselves to defend against vehicle exhaust, radon, carbon dioxide, industrial pollution, backyard barbecuing, and the plethora of other airborne pollutants that threaten our vital juices! You'll NEVER find us walking alongside a road or highway, or jogging in the street where the air quality might jeopardize our health. We're so obsessed with the clean air and exercise in the foothills and parks far away from any air pollution that the trails and parks are filled to overflowing every day. It's soo frustrating! Absolutely none of us eat at McDonald's or Wendy's and have such great concern with our health that we make every effort to follow a healthy diet, avoid alcohol, and keep fit. It's only as a last resort that we've apologetically and respectfully requested smokers to limit their activities.

After all, we ARE liberals, you know. :eyes:

[ArkDem]

519. Smoking is harmful to children and other living things.

[jseankil]

532. Why Should Workers Be Forced to Breath in the 2nd Hand Smoke?

And if you say that workers aren't forces to work in smokey bars they why not roll back workers rights? No one is forced to work anywhere afterall.

Let employers's create work envirorments with no standards and when a worker complains tell them "you don't have to work here"? Big business would love that.

[dcfirefighter]

533. Get a damn ventilation system.

Its that simple. If it were an industrial process, you'd slap a fume hood on it, and go on.

[jseankil]

534. I've been it bars with those at they still reek of smoke

Now an industrial type might work but I have never seen them in bars before.

[suffragette]

537. strolling smokers

One of the few exemptions to 901 is for people "passing by" a public place.
An interesting side effect of this might be to create bands of strolling smokers. We won't be able to stand outside a place or to relax at the outdoor patios that resulted in places like California as a workable compromise.
Instead, we'll need to go a roamin' and a puffin' around and around the block.

[Leopolds Ghost]

539. Two words: Formaldehyde Outgassing

Furans, Masonite, Treated Lumber, Particle Board.

That New Carpet Smell.

Look it up.

I use this same argument with people who think "those flooded
buildings" in New Orleans (made of old barge timbers) must be
torn down and replaced to protect the (former? not likely,
they can't afford it) residents from carcinogens.

New construction is hazardous for your health.

Not to mention other uses for petroleum by-products, like diesel fuel, etc.

"Socially liberal" yuppies can be so hypocritical sometimes.

They need to do some research on what their mantelpiece is made of in their palatial new McMansion in North Portland (hint, it ain't wood and it's alot more harmful than secondhand smoke)

I've cut this stuff and gotten week-long migraine headaches every time I didn't wear a mask. I'm pretty sensitive to petroleum byproducts -- same thing just happened to me after a day of roofing with that silver compound that you have to mix up first. If you can't touch it or injest it without dyin' (I don't mean over a lifetime of use, I mean once), it's a sure bet the fumes are alot worse for ya than tobacco.

So... let's have some perspective (we could start with diesel fumes since the government controls buses and us liberals tend to be the only folks who want them to continue running, so its our responsibility that those fumes are there, really.)

[JJackFlash]

544. Agree completely - the anti-smoking crusade is crap

A local Democratic official here wants to ban smoking in apartments!

The Dems have got to stop being so nannyish. They should differentiate themselves from the repugs by being clearly better on civil liberties.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

545. Well, it's time to pack up and move to Washington.

This is EXCITING news. :evilgrin:
Duckie

[MrSlayer]

554. Who's going to stop you from smoking in the street?

Just do it anyway. Fuck em. I hate the nazi-like, holier than thou people on this issue. I usually blow smoke at them and tell them to fuck off.

[vanboggie]

563. Father-in-Law's prediction

He was a WWII vet and also very wise about politics. I left my corporate life after 23 years because of a total smoking ban. You couldn't even smoke in your own vehicle in the parking lot. He told me at the time that nations moving to facism begin by taking away the little freedoms one at a time to condition the populace. Turns out he was right.

BTW, the head of that corporation was a patriarchal Repuke-supporting wingnut who also sent each employee Guidepost and stocked the company library with Dobson materials. He also continued to smoke cigars.

I left because that company had the intolerant attitude that much of this country has now that it is under the control of the BFEE.

[LisaL]

570. What is more important? Right of smokers to smoke as they

please, or right of non-smokers to not be exposed to smoke?
Decisions, decisions...

[Cats Against Frist]

574. Why does one have to be "more important?"

That's my question. This whole thread was to ask the question "why can't there be accomodations for both," and as far as I'm concerned, pro-smokingban people still haven't offered one rational argument, as to why there can't be both types of places. In fact, I think it's safe to say that most of them ignore the possibility, that there could be two kinds of places.

I just feel like if I were to announce that a certain group of people -- say, an entire state -- had to conform to my wishes, I'd feel like primadonna bitch.

Again and again, in this thread, smokers have put forth compromises -- not suggesting that all bars have to be smoking -- and mostly, they've fallen on deaf ears.

I'm totally convinced that, in the case of bars, what it comes down to, is this: those who don't wish to be around smoke are not happy going to non-smoking bars, because they're lame. In Seattle, there are numerous non-smoking bars, and there are myriad non-smoking restaurants and activities that people can also do and go to. No one is forcing anyone to participate in the bar scene, and no one is forced to work there. Even if it were flipped, and the MAJORITY of bars were non-smoking, but there were several bars that permitted smoking, I'd be happy. Even if smokers were permitted to huddle outside on a smoking porch, I'd be semi-happy. But that doesn't make the anti-smoking zealots happy. And I consider that WRONG, not only in terms of rational, adult compromise, but in terms of the very concept of freedom and autonomy. I think it's authoritarian, I think it's bitchy, and, in the case of bars, an adult haven that has historically been a sanctuary for "vices," I think it's a sad, cultural loss.

And I think that what people are actually arguing for, in the case of bars, is that bars be non-smoking, so there's not a difference in "scene" for the poor babies who can't have a good time in their non-smoking bars, with a smoking bar, across the street. Otherwise, I don't think there would be a problem for exemptions for bars and clubs. There are many rights to be balanced, here and many compromises, but I'm sorry, when it comes down to pitting someone's "right" to go to a "cool scene," vs. the right of the majority of the people who make the scene to carry out a legal and fun activity, that has historical roots in "the scene," I'm not so sympathetic. I'm fine with protecting workers, and children, and providing separate venues. When it comes to completely stamping out diversity and choice, though, I'm not on board.

So there are considerations -- and people who reduce this to black-and-white thinking, aren't helping, and are of the same uneducated, knee-jerking ilk that got us up to our necks in Iraq and are responsible for the gay marriage initiatives.

[not systems]

571. I love the CA smoking ban in bars...

I can go out to see bands and my favorite
musicians will not die early from breathing
second hand smoke.

Thanks for all the freedom CA voters.

The freedom to enjoy music without an asthma attack.

Smoking sucks and people should get over it.

[LaBanty]

572. The Smoking Police? WHat's Next?

Screw it. As a Washingtonian, I already stopped going to a lot of places that banned smoking. Now, I can't smoke outside in a public place?

I'm tired of every individual choice being taken away. It equates to fucking communism. I don't plan to smoke less because of this - hell - I may smoke more. And I'll buy illegal cigarettes from Indian reservations because my state pisses away money left and right, anyway.

And will I feel guilty? No. Whoever dreamed you'd be living on the edge simply by smoking. It's bullshit.

Oh, and by the way, this *IS* a Democratic state. I'm inclined to include some of the do-gooders with the Bush bashing, Democrat or no.

[Cats Against Frist]

575. I was under the impression that you could buy cigarettes legally

from Indian reservations, and none of the tax would go to Washington State. I think all smokers should send a message by purchasing their cigarettes on Indian Reservations -- when people aren't getting their services, because they're missing tens of millions in tax revenue, that should send a message to them, that they shouldn't be such fascists.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

577. If you go a no smoking town and want a cigarette,

drive over to the nearest hospital and go to the back door where all the nurses and doctors go out for a cigarette break.

I was a nurse for thirty years and that is how it was when they banned smoking in the hospital. My daughter is an ER nurse now, and according to her, that's still how it is.

[proud patriot]

578. I'm locking this thread

Due to length ,it's becoming difficult to read and
follow .

proud patriot Moderator
Democratic Underground