Posted on 11/08/2012 5:21:17 PM PST by Drango
Legal challenges to indoor smoking bans have failed. But prohibitions on smoking in outdoor areas are churning in the courts~
Arthur Gallagher, an avid outdoor smoker, sued Clayton in 2011, claiming a ban on smoking in city parks it had enacted a year earlier was unconstitutional. He asked the federal courts to recognize smoking as a fundamental right and argued that any law restricting tobacco use deserves the utmost scrutiny from judges.
On Thursday, the St. Louis-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit declined to recognize a right to smoke and held that Clayton had a rational basis to restrict smoking in parks — namely, to preserve and protect the health, safety and welfare of the public.
Gallagher had argued that the ordinance unfairly targeted smokers but failed to address other sources of air pollution, such as smoke from barbeques or exhaust from nearby vehicles. He also argued that no member of the public could be harmed by secondhand smoke outdoors, because it dissipates in the air.
Clayton relied on a number of studies in enacting the law~ indicating “there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke,” ~
“We need not determine whether outdoor secondhand smoke exposure actually causes harm. Because the City reasonably could believe this to be true, the Ordinance survives,” Judge Riley wrote. ~ (One of the few studies found that nonsmokers who visited outdoor restaurants and bars where smoking was allowed had elevated levels of tobacco-related chemicals in the body compared with people at a smoke-free control site.)
“People who smoke are pariahs in polite, sophisticated society, but people in the lower rungs of society smoke all the time,” he said. “There is a class warfare element to this thing that is unattractive, and we’re pushing for liberty.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
BUMMER
I don’t smoke, but I find the ever increasing restrictions on smoking absurd.
Sure, I understand that smoking indoors should be curtailed because it effects non-smokers, but outdoor bans are ridiculous?
What next? Corporal punishment for smoking?
What do you say?
“We need not determine whether outdoor secondhand smoke exposure actually causes harm. Because the City reasonably could believe this to be true,”.
Therefor, by this logic, whatever the City reasonably believes gives them the right to control.
I must ask, who owns “the City”?
The laws are exactly backward.
There should be smoking bans in public places, indoors or outdoors. Either that or everyone should be able to combust whatever they like in public places. Smokers are given ‘special rights’ that others do not have in public places.
But, there should be NO BANS in private places, private businesses and private outdoor places.
Outdoor bans in public places are not ridiculous. As a non-smoker I am prohibited from combusting any material I want in public places ... therefore smokers are given ‘special rights’ that I do not have.
I do not agree with smoking bans in private places or private businesses. That is of no concern to government.
Smoking nazis can all kma. Myfervent hope is that one day all smoking nazis will receive the exact treatment they are so willing to foist on others.
“People who smoke are pariahs in polite, sophisticated society, but people in the lower rungs of society smoke all the time,”
Now you know liberals want to promote pot and ban smoking.
“Outdoor bans in public places are not ridiculous. As a non-smoker I am prohibited from combusting any material I want in public places ... therefore smokers are given ‘special rights’ that I do not have.”
It is true you can make the case for banning smoking to prevent people from burning down the park.
The only moral (and presumably, legal) reasoning for such prohibition outdoors is preventing real (and physical) harm to others; NOT THE RESULT OF NEUROTIC PANIC. This has NEVER been scientifically proven.
In fact, The largest, most detailed true scientific study of second hand smoke was buried by the anti-smokers, both in and out of government, and was prepared by the World Health Organization under the auspices of the UN. It lasted many years, and involved tens of thousands of people, but failed to arrive at the "politically correct" answer.
The neurotic, rabid anti-smokers can be tolerated; the careless government rulemakers cannot. The Constitution still applies to everyone, and most obviously and evidently, the Federal Rules of Evidence have been blatantly ignored.
The latest version is 2012. Remember, these apply by order of the Supreme Court!
Specifically see Historical Note.
I wasn’t so much commenting on second-hand smoke’s health effects, so much as it is obnoxious to non-smokers. Similar to noise violations.
I’ll leave the health issues to people who are more informed on the matter.
No, there are other grounds for laws. Nuisance laws ban loud noise, bright or strobe lights at night, nudity, lewd behaviour, etc.
Now you can make a case there there should be no nuisance laws of any kind. But what about a community’s right to make it’s own laws?
Community and local laws have always been around. Sure, some of them are silly ... like no vegetable gardens in front yards. But people have the opportunity to change those at the local level.
Unfortunately, you are one of the arrogant crazies who absolutely believes that if you can smell burning tobacco it's exactly the same as burning toxic trash in your back yard, or in a public park.
Fortunately, the Federal Rules of Evidence does not make exceptions for small, arrogant delusional twits; they cannot trump real science!
I’m not talking about science.
If I can’t burn what I want in a public place, then neither can anyone else!
Tobacco is not sacred.
Smokers have always wanted special rights above and beyond anyone else. Although I don’t believe in the ban on smoking in PRIVATE places and I’d work to get that repealed I have to say smokers brought all that upon themselves by their absolute arrogance and intransigence.
Now they want others to stand up for their ‘special rights’.
From the nuisance point of view, I can say that as a non-smoker, I find ANY smoking nearby to be a nuisance.
If I am outdoors and somebody is smoking 30 feet away, it is an instant irritation. At that distance it’s not as bad as some of the idiots who play pounding music in traffic, but it is still a significant irritation and annoyance.
I had a fake cigarette once and I acted like I was smoking it. People were actually waving their hand and doing that fake coughing thing. Pretty funny stuff.
I would be forced to agree with you, were it not for your false premise. Not all, or even most smokers fit your description.
Many years ago, when I smoked, at an outdoor music performance, I had an insane woman (no other description fits) who ran a couple of hundred feet to scream at me, for "poisoning" her air.
The fact that she was upwind the entire time had no effect whatsoever on her neurosis.
You want to talk absolute intransigence and arrogance?
she blamed you for somebody else’s smoke
See post #18.
Therapy might help...
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