You have a right to eat what you want, but not to make me eat some too. That is the problem with public smoking in confined places. I’m happy to let businesses decide if they want to allow smoking. Or not.
But it isn’t the same as a vaccine mandate. There is no morality issue in smoking or not, while people had moral concerns about taking untested vaccines.
And the big problem with masks is that they simply did not work - as was clearly known BEFORE 2020!
My perspective (FWIW) is that second-sand smoke is chiefly a property rights issue. One man's negative externality is another man's positive externality. Yes, smoking can cause cancer and other Nasty Things to the smoker. It also lessens stress and keeps weight off. Carrying the negative externality argument to the smoker, by restricting second-hand smoke, society is essentially pushing obesity onto the smoker.
Things devolve very quickly thereafter. But that's my point...the "owner" of the air is the business where that air sits. It should be the PROPERTY OWNER who sets the rules. You wanna light up and the owner says ok? Fire up, Johnny. You want smoke-free air? There's a restaurant next door. Let the market sort it up. Same for airlines - let "Fresh Air Airlines" compete with "Pall Mall Air."
When we let the govt regulate commercial property rights on the basis of smoke, we surrendered a little bit of freedom. Many people - conservative and liberal - seem all-too willing to have done so, based on the comments in this thread.
"First they came for the smokers, and I didn't care"...the line from demonizing smokers to antivaxxers is pretty bright to me. Your mileage may vary.