Here’s a picture of a place in Dayton named Kelly’s Corner Cafe which has now shut down because of Ohio’s insanely stupid smoking ban.
Thanks to Weird Dayton for the picture.
From the article linked at the beginning of this post:
According to Krueger, the store lost business after the smoking ban. “There was a significant difference since we had to enforce it,” she said.
“Ninety percent of my customers smoke, and when the cash flow is cut in half, basically overnight, it doesn’t take long before I can’t afford the supplies and manpower it takes to run a business.”
It’s OK Ms. Krueger, there are other people in this world who know what’s better for you and your customers than you do, and they’re willing to use the police power of government and turn ordinary citizens into criminals to save you from yourself.
“The saddest part to me is about our personal and property rights being taken away.”
Exactly right. The only business the anti-smoking kooks in this state and country care about is the business they’ve built spreading falsehoods about smoking and second-hand smoke.
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July 24th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
You know, I want to feel bad for smokers.
But then I think about how many times I see them using the world as their ashtray.
Throwing butts out the window, sometimes fully extinguished, often not
At the constant roadside collection of butts I see while waiting for the bus
The number of times I’ve had dodge flying butts from cars, because evidently pedestrians don’t exist in Smoker World 2000
At my friends with asthma who, prior to various smoking bans had given up on going out pretty much anywhere they might encounter smoking, because they couldn’t breathe, and how many times, when they’d politely ask someone if they could stop smoking *right next to them*, because they were so stupid as to want to see a concert or stop at the local pub for a few drinks, would regularly get rude responses, or better yet a faceful of smoke.
I know not all smokers are rude, thoughtless pigs. But there’s a shitload of them, and they are the ones that have ruined it.
After the second time I had someone’s butt fly into my convertible, I stopped feeling bad. They want to act that way, fine, fuck ‘em, let them smoke in the house. Tax them into the poorhouse. It’s pretty obvious that there’s such a huge number of them that think the rest of the world doesn’t mind a landscape littered with their detrius that any pity I had for them died long ago.
The entire “right to smoke” thing was always inane anyway. There’s a difference between “legal” and “a right”.
The smoking crowd had a fine run crapping all over everything, well, that’s biting them in the ass now.
July 24th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Completely inexcusable. I agree with you 100% that some part of smoking is being considerate and respectful of others and our surroundings.
My argument has never been about a right to smoke, but rather a right for someone who owns property, such as a restaurant, where entry by others is completely optional, to decide for themselves whether smoking is allowed in their establishment.
As demonstrated in your post, there is a contingent of persons who prefer non-smoking facilities, and it should be up to the free market to provide those. When you and enough others tell the manager of the local Big Boy that you prefer a non-smoking restaurant, and his receipts reflect the seriousness of your request, Big Boy becomes non-smoking. I’m totally ok with individuals deciding that smoking is not allowed on their property.
I oppose government mandating that private property become non-smoking. I oppose the idea that smoking is considered something awful enough to warrant fines or up to a year in jail, when no demonstrable harm has been caused to the life, liberty, and property of others. I oppose the fact that it is becoming simpler and simpler for ordinary citizens doing ordinary things to run afoul of the law, with serious consequences.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I am a non-smoker… and a pretty virulent one at that. I have also witnessed what John complains about above too, and agree that since the demise of the pull-tab on aluminum cans, the cigarette butt has become the most ubiquitous bit of litter on the planet. So John is right that the minority of morons has ruined it for everyone else.
BUT… I draw the line just short of these absurd bans on smoking. Every time one has come up on the ballots in my area I have voted against. It is Government intrusion into lives that has gone way too far. If a business wants to have smoking clientele, they should be allowed to exist. There are plenty of OTHER businesses that can exclude smokers as well.
–chuck
July 25th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
The problem with smoking is that they keep insisting that somehow, magically, you can have a non-smoking section. Short of a separate building, or airflow that equals that of a windtunnel, that’s fantasy and bullshit.
There’s no way you can say “this group of tables is non-smoking”, and have the only difference be a 10′ gap, and have it truly be unaffected by the smoke. That’s leaving off the fact that smoking affects *everyone* in the room. You aren’t smoking? May as well, lord knows you’ll reek like you were in the morning, and have the handy nicotine headache.
Yet, were I to indulge in a military habit of years past, and commence to whipping out the Levi Garret smokeless every time someone lit up, and spitting anywhere I pleased, ala smoke propagation, I have no doubt, that EVERY smoker in the room would *immediately* be horrified, and insist that me getting tobacco spit on their clothes is COMPLETELY different than them getting smoke all over mine.
Now, were smokers to start wearing plastic bubbles on their heads so their smoking *truly* only affected them, I’d have no problem with it.
I’m not holding my breath. But I may start chewing again. Because I AM that much of a dick.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Here in CT you can have a smoking establishment if you categorize yourself as a private club, if your a public building its no smoking for you. I totally forget how great this law is until I travel outside of CT or to the casinos here in CT (however they have banned all smoking in casino restaurants, which is nice) and I walk into a restaurant and cough and get a headache and then walk out smelling like an “ass” tray. Its totally disgusting. Bowling allies, Bars, clubs, etc in CT have all become much better places since.
John - The only smoking section I ever saw that I liked was at I think a IHOP where it was its own sealed off glass room. It was great to look at; the vents in the ceiling where literally black and the air had this great haze. It was like going to the zoo in the future “and next on our tour, 21st century humans sucking on cancer sticks!”
As I like to say, the no smoking section of the room is just as effective as the no peeing section of the pool.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:48 am
I don’t have a problem with the fact that some people don’t like smoking. I do have a problem with the idea that those people want to use the police power of government to force their preference on the rest of us instead of letting adults decide for themselves whether they want to frequent a smoky restaurant or casino. This is about individual choice and preserving my right to choose how I wish to lead my life. This is not about whether anyone likes smoking.
Please explain to me why banning smoking on private property is government’s job. Please explain to me why smoking on private property should earn someone a fine or jail time.
July 27th, 2007 at 2:36 am
“Please explain to me why banning smoking on private property is government’s job.”
Well one reason might be that the free market on its own doesn’t actually give some people viable choices. For example, sure, with no smoking ban, people who work in bars and restaurants and don’t want to be exposed to smoke either for reasons of health or just personal preference could get jobs elsewhere. But is that a real choice if you have to pay the rent and put food on the table but don’t have the skills to get a different job?
Thinking about your question, I wondered about what you’d think about government banning race-based discrimination in private businesses. Here in Dayton for years black people who wanted to go to cinemas downtown had to sit in the balconies, and black people were barred from employment at the Rike’s department store downtown. Now they had choices: go to movies downtown and sit in the balconies or go to movies in black theatres on West Fifth Street, shop at Rike’s despite their hiring discrimination or shop at stores on West Fifth Street. And they put up with those choices for years and then finally started protesting and marching in front of Rike’s and the downtown cinemas. So should that be enough? If you owned Neon Movies, should you be allowed to make black patrons sit in the back, assuming you were willing to brave boycotts and protests?
My answer to that is no, you should not. Our society should say that some things are wrong, and laws are one way for society to express that. I doubt you’re an anarchist who wants no laws and bet that you agree with some laws (e.g., laws banning and punishing homicide). Yes, deciding what’s wrong is sometimes complicated (why we should ban homicide is fairly clear, banning smoking less so) and sometimes the majority gets things wrong, at least in some people’s views (banning gay marriage infringes on the rights of a minority to their pursuit of happiness, banning smoking in restaurants infringes on the rights of cigar smokers to their pursuit of happiness). But sometimes getting it wrong, at least in my view, is better than having a free for all and no laws.
July 29th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
I think that smoking should be banned except in an individuals own home. It is bad for the people smoking and bad for the people that are around the smokers. But more to the point, we have the ban in Washington State and it is AWESOME to go to clubs and not get smokey. If it didn’t have the bad smell I could careless.
July 30th, 2007 at 12:59 am
So Jerimy, you say that the law should only exist to serve your wishes? Sorry bub, some of us would like our own right to choose thank you very much.
Why can’t some clubs be smoke free and others allow it? I’m sure that if a club promoted itself as smoke free it would be more likely to get your business.
I’m sure that in Washington state there were clubs without smoking before the ban. Why didn’t you go to those clubs?
“If it didn’t have the bad smell I could careless.”
That’s the part that ticks me off. That you aren’t really concerned about health issues. You want to prohibit a certain act because you don’t like the smell. How shallow.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Nobody is entitled to every viable choice, and using the police power of government to provide choices for some and eliminate choices for others by turning some citizens into criminals is a slippery slope, and wrong.
I defy anyone who reads this to provide documented medical evidence published by the AMA or a respected, known medical journal, citing an incidence where second-hand smoke was the direct cause of death, or the direct cause of a disease leasing to death.
If you don’t want to be exposed to smoke, get a job someplace where smoking isn’t permitted.
I make my living with computers. I wasn’t born with this set of skills, I learned them. It took time and effort and the sweat of my brow, but more than a decade later my work is making me a comfortable living. Likewise, anyone who doesn’t like working in an industry where smoking exists can work their way into something else the same way many of the readers of this blog worked their way into their current profession. Life isn’t easy, and there are no guarantees that it will be enjoyable, comfortable, or profitable, although it seems people increasingly want to use government to try to create those guarantees.
I reject the premise of this point. Black Americans were being deprived of life, liberty, and property because of a circumstance of birth, and civil rights laws are intended to preserve the rights they should obviously have in any case. Conversely, smokers violate the rights of nobody, and yet they’re being relegated to the proverbial back of the bus with fines and jail time should they resist.
Laws should prevent citizens form being deprived of life, liberty, or property either by other citizens or by the government. Smokers deprive nobody of life, liberty, or property, therefore anti-smoking laws are unnecessary.
This is some part of the reason why I oppose the kinds of state-wide referendums we have in Ohio. Banning smoking has nothing to do with a logical and (I think) Constitutional application of law, rather it has almost everything to do with emotion. People don’t like smoking, so they want it banned. And that’s as much thought as they’ve put into it. Other people suffer government-imposed consequences to indulge the personal preferences of the majority. What was that phrase the Democrats in Congress used before the 2006 elections? “The tyranny of the majority”? “Rights of the minority”? Maybe both.
I don’t advocate a free-for-all, but I also don’t advocate use of the police power of the state to control personal behavior that is not destructive toward others. I do advocate the right of adults to choose how to lead their lives, and I believe in the flexibility of the free market to provide the goods and services for those choices.
July 30th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
As I said in a previous comment, I defy anyone who reads this to provide documented medical evidence published by the AMA or a respected, known medical journal, citing an incidence where second-hand smoke was the direct cause of death, or the direct cause of a disease leasing to death.
And if smoking is bad for the smokers, so what? They do it voluntarily. They know the consequences. Why should they potentially go to jail because they’re doing something that could harm themselves?
So because you like a bar without smoke, someone here in Ohio (I don’t know the penalty in Washington) should potentially spend a year in jail because they smoke when you don’t want them to. Do you realize the illogic and egregious disregard for others inherent in that line of thought?
July 30th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
I think your spam filter blocked my last comment because it was chock full of URLs to various journal articles and other websites.
August 8th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
OK, I’ll try again without the URLs since your spam filter doesn’t like URL-laden posts:
“I defy anyone who reads this to provide documented medical evidence published by the AMA or a respected, known medical journal, citing an incidence where second-hand smoke was the direct cause of death, or the direct cause of a disease leasing to death.”
Okay.
Take a look at the article, “Passive smoking and the risk of heart disease”, published in the Vol. 267 No. 1, January 1, 1992 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Also look at “Mortality and morbidity from coronary heart disease attributable to passive smoking”, published 5 April 2007 in the European Heart Journal.
And look at “Risks for Heart Disease and Lung Cancer from Passive Smoking by Workers in the Catering Industry,” published January 20, 2006 in the Vol. 90 No. 2 issue of the journal Toxicological Sciences.
Also, the American Lung Association claims 49,400 deaths per year in the US because of secondhand smoke, citing the California EPA.
The Surgeon General agrees (apparently Bush didn’t censor this) that “secondhand smoke exposure causes … death in children and adults who do not smoke.”
So at the very least some reputable people argue that smoking in workplaces is in fact a matter of life.