Yet, we have to go through great lengths just to get it declared murder, for someone to kill an unborn child.

"“The police department will enforce this ordinance in the same professional way we approach all of our tasks."

This has got to be the spookiest remark I've heard in a long time. I'm sure it will be repeated again when guns are outlawed in that town.

But . .but they are from the government and said they were there to help you.

Here we go again.

My God,don't the police have enough to do in Fayetteville,or is it totally crime free?

No Smoking on Planet Earth!

Sounds like a good time for criminals to "have at it", what with the police all busy arresting all those dirty old smokers. Better hope they don't have a bank robbery. Oh the horrors if someone actually siezed the moment of police diversion to sneak in a smoke!

Such juvenile idiocy. How do city governments get so stupid?

The invasion of the smoking nazis presses on. Smile and remember it's a free country. Yeah right.

Soon we won't be able to smoke in our own homes.Oh wait
in most rentals or apts/hotel rooms you can't. Homes are
next.

If I'm not heard of again - this is why!

I sent this letter to the major newspapers. the governaor - attorney general and quite a few others here in the "Banana Republik of Arkansaw" ...

---

I do NOT smoke, but if this were attempted in Hot Springs, I would purposely begin in protest to an unconstitutional infringement of our liberties.

If legislators (aka lawyers and leftist activist judges) had any courage of conviction or honor or integrity (words of no consequence nor meaning to them), they would simply BRING TO A VOTE to the legal citizens of the state of Arkansas whether or not to make tobacco an illegal product - and abide by the voice of the people.

The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

-- Noah Webster


Arkansas Gestapo
Wednesday, March 10 @ 20:30:22
Smoking Ordinance Takes Effect Thursday
KFSM
Dena Drabek

FAYETTEVILLE - Thursday it will be against the law to light up in most places around Fayetteville. That’s when the new smoking ordinance officially takes effect and the city police department says it’s ready to enforce it.

The biggest issue the department has been faced with is determining which establishments are bars, where smoking is still allowed. They’ve come up with a list of 25 so far, but say more could be added.

Smoking will be prohibited in almost all indoor facilities Thursday. That includes public places, businesses and restaurants.

Businesses have been asked to post no smoking signs and report anyone refusing to comply with the ordinance.

For the nest 30 days authorities will issue warnings to people and establishments violating the ordinance. Repeat offenders will receive a ticket.

“The police department will enforce this ordinance in the same professional way we approach all of our tasks. We still hope and believe the great majority of citizens will abide by this ordinance and not present a large problem for the department,” Police Chief Rick Hoyt said.

Any businesses that still have question regarding their status are asked to call the police department at 587-3500.

---

One man says to a second man: "Do you believe in the First Amendment freedom of speech?"
The second man says: "Of course I do."
The first man then asks: "Do you believe in the Second Amendment freedom to bear arms?"
The second man replies: "No, I don't."
The first man insists: "Then shut up!"

The moral of the story is: you can have your rights, but you have to protect and defend them, too.

Just light up laws don't mean a thing look at San Fran.

My God,don't the police have enough to do in Fayetteville,or is it totally crime free?

Thanks for the ping!

This war on the smoker gets more sickening every week!

No Smoking on Planet Earth!

Then why is tobacco still being sold? The government sure is hungry for the smoker's tax dollars, but they want to keep us hidden in a closet.

I wonder just how much smokers are going to take before a revolt starts. What sheeple!

"Businesses have been asked to post no smoking signs and report anyone refusing to comply with the ordinance."

Why should businesses do the cops' work?

Such paternalistic government action is an affront to property rights and individual freedom.

Property rights are essential to the existence and operation of a free market, and, for a business, these rights include the right to determine which amenities and services to provide on your premises. If a business decides not to reimburse employees for commuting costs, the business is well within its rights to do so. If a business decides to provide a lounge for its employees, it may do so. If a business decides to validate parking for a customer, it may do so.
The freedom to smoke on the premises is like any of these other amenities-it is within the purview of the owner to provide it. The freedom to permit smoking is part of the property rights a business enjoys that permit it to serve its customers effectively in the marketplace.
The only difference between the freedom to smoke and the other amenities mentioned is that smoking is deemed socially undesirable and may pose a health risk (the carcinogenic properties of second-hand smoke have yet to be conclusively established).
The social undesirability of smoking does not give the government, municiple/county/state/etc, carte blanche to run roughshod over property rights. A free society-that includes property owners-can decide for itself what is undesirable behavior and employ its own arsenal to combat it, without the aid of state coercion.

Property owners and restaurateurs, while many times victims, are not the immediate victims, however, of smoking bans - smokers are. Anti-smoking activists support these bans ostensibly to limit second hand smoke, but the real reason is often to limit smoking itself and make it socially unacceptable.
Bans like these are predicated on the notion that smokers are incapable of deciding for themselves. Bans like these also assume that non-smokers cannot decide for themselves whether or not to expose themselves to second-hand smoke.
This paternalistic premise runs counter to the American founding principles of freedom and self-government. If non-smokers do not want to expose themselves to smoke, they can choose to dine at establishments that prohibit smoking on their own.

Public health busybodies should not dragoon the govt into social engineering for their desires.

The social undesirability of smoking does not give the government, municiple/county/state/etc, carte blanche to run roughshod over property rights. A free society-that includes property owners-can decide for itself what is undesirable behavior and employ its own arsenal to combat it, without the aid of state coercion.

Joe, I just wonder how this has been allowed to happen. You know it and "I" know it! Now why didn't the business owners stand up and fight against this coercion of their own property?

The transition from "public servants" to "enforcers" is complete!

Now why didn't the business owners stand up and fight against this coercion of their own property?

IMO, two reasons, because the govt can make it hard on a business owner, (licenses, inspections, etc), if they do fight it, and the fact that if all other businesses of the same type have to go nonsmoking there is the "level playing field".
The business owner figures if every place else abides by the same thing the people will still come to their favorite place.
They never stop to think that the people just might not come at all.

Great post. It is sad that many "conservatives" on FR will stand up and cheer this confiscation of property and degratation of freedom and liberty!

Vote Kerry! Boil the Frog! Speed up the 2nd Revolution!

Back in July of 2003 was when they started debating this ban. Here's a reply I sent to the editor of a Fayetteville paper on a letter to the editor. Of course, it never saw the light of day in the paper.

To the editor:
In rebuttal to the guest commentary of July 10, 2003 entitled - SMOKING: LEGAL NUISANCE.
The author makes many mistakes in his commentary. First he states that rights are not absolute. The author is talking about liberties.
While liberties are not absolute there should be a good, and compelling, reason to restrict them. There is no compelling reason for a smoking ban on privately owned businesses
The author says, "Anti-smoking ordinances do not adversely alter the behavior of smokers such that local businesses are harmed."
I can give many examples of restaurants, bars, taverns, etc that HAVE gone out of business due to smoking bans.

An excerpt from www.rockymountainnews.com,
"Less than a year after the city of Louisville enacted a no-smoking ordinance in all restaurants, Bart's, a fixture in the town for nearly three decades, shut its doors last week.
It had in recent months become a deserted shell of its former self. The bar, like many in Louisville restaurants these days, stood empty all day."
"Robert Mannion had lost 99 percent of his smoking clientele after the ordinance passed, he said, the folks who once filled the place on Fridays, on the weekend and, particularly, on game days.
Their loss, he acknowledged, was killing him. And without a viable bar business, he couldn't offset his food costs."

Anyone who has run any sort of business that depends upon inducing customers to enter and spend money knows that forbidding 30 or 40 percent to enjoy themselves is very bad for business. From coast to coast the results are the same. Business down and workers laid off.
Epidemiological studies have not proven that Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) is statistically harmful to anyone that doesn't have a pre-existing medical condition. In fact, the two largest studies done to date, one by the World Health Organization, came to the conclusion that ETS, or second hand smoke, is not a danger to nonsmokers.
I will not debate tobacco smoke being a nuisance. Some like it some do not.
The author insists that smokers feel they have, "unfettered right to smoke". How many times in the recent past have you seen a smoker light a cigarette in a nonsmoking section of a restaurant, a truly public building (not privately owned), or an airplane? The vast majority of smokers do not light a cigarette except in places where they are invited to smoke, either explicitly or implicitly.
In his last paragraph The author invokes social engineering, "If smokers really want to quit, what better way to help them kick the habit than by making smoking inconvenient by providing fewer places where smoking is allowed?"
If smokers really want to quit they will, whether society in general makes it inconvenient or not.
In the final analysis, a truly public smoking ordinance should cover no more than what the government (federal, state, county, or municipal) owns.
Anything else is an affront against the property rights of land and business owners.

Sincerely,