Freedom Is In The Air (cough)(SMOKEFREE D.C. CREMATED)

TheAmericanSpectator ^ | Published 12/10/2003 12:08:48 AM | By Gene Healy

[fight_truth_decay]

WASHINGTON -- Mayor Bloomberg's New York is only the most prominent example of a city recently fallen victim to a bad idea whose time has come: smoking bans in bars and restaurants. Bans have been imposed statewide in California, Florida, and Delaware, and even deep in tobacco country, in Lexington, Kentucky. This year, the movement came to Washington, D.C. Backed by a $250,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the antismoking activists of Smokefree D.C. began lobbying the city council. Surely a well-funded effort to extend the ban to the nation's health conscious capital couldn't fail.

Or could it? On Wednesday, December 3, the D.C. city council held hearings on the Smokefree Workplaces Act of 2003, which would ban smoking in all D.C. bars and restaurants. Smokefree D.C. brought out former surgeon general David Satcher, a host of other public health professionals, and an assortment of college activists fighting for their God-given right to go clubbing without getting smoke in their hair. And an amazing thing happened: the council pushed back. Councilmember Carol Schwartz (R.-at large), who chaired the hearing, formerly the very model of a midatlantic moderate, suddenly discovered her inner Ayn Rand.

Schwartz repeatedly said that workers had a choice about whether to take jobs in bars that allow smoking. At one point, the owner of the nightclub Mirage averred that pregnant women had no place in smoke-filled bars, Schwartz cut him short, saying that it was up to the woman herself to make that choice. When antismoking activists claimed that most bar patrons wanted smoke-free environments, she told them to "put your money where your mouth is" -- go into business themselves and capitalize on that demand. Toward the end of the day, Schwartz declared, "this is America" and that she didn't want to live in a country that watched over its citizens' diets and lifestyles in the name of public health.

On the eve of the hearing, Schwartz cut the legs out from under the would-be-banners, introducing a competing bill that would provide a tax break to bars and restaurants that decide to go smoke-free. With a majority of councilmembers signed on to her compromise bill, and with Mayor Anthony Williams announcing his opposition to a total ban, it looks like the Smokefree Workplaces Act has been cremated.

Readers needn't like secondhand smoke to cheer that result. They simply have to resist the notion that adult Americans can't be trusted to weigh the risks of their lifestyle choices themselves -- a notion far more noxious than cigarette smoke. The epidemiological evidence shows that secondhand smoke is, at worst, a minor health risk. And it's a risk that's easily avoided: Smokefree D.C. published a list of over 260 smokefree restaurants, coffeeshops, and bars in the D.C. area. But the fact that workers and patrons have a choice was offensive to the antismoking activists, who, like Mencken's Puritans, are haunted by the notion that someone, somewhere is having fun.

Ideally, Schwartz's tax-breaks-for-smokefree-bars proposal would also be a nonstarter. The government has no business using the tax code as a vehicle for social engineering, and it ought not to put its thumb on the scale when a bar or restaurant owner is weighing the benefits of staying smoke friendly or going smoke-free. But unlike the Smokefree Workplaces Act, the tax credit bill doesn't coerce smoke-free uniformity. For the near future at least, smoking in bars will remain legal in D.C.

Given national political trends, that's an astounding result. The antismoking brigades came to one of the most pro-regulatory jurisdictions in America. They had cash to burn and the full force of the public health establishment behind them. And they lost. Is it possible -- just possible -- that people are getting tired of this nonsense?

Gene Healy is senior editor at the Cato Institute.

[fight_truth_decay]

...adult Americans can't be trusted to weigh the risks of their lifestyle choices themselves -- a notion far more noxious than cigarette smoke... Well said!

[jmc813]

WOD Ping

[jmc813]

This year, the movement came to Washington, D.C. Backed by a $250,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the antismoking activists of Smokefree D.C. began lobbying the city council.

Say, ol' chaps, isn't that the same gun-grabbing organization who is the Daddy Warbucks of the ONDCP?

[jmc813]

ping

[ILBBACH]

This statement bothers me:

At one point, the owner of the nightclub Mirage averred that pregnant women had no place in smoke-filled bars, Schwartz cut him short, saying that it was up to the woman herself to make that choice.

So does Schwartz believe that owners have no say in who works at or patronizes their establishments?

[CSM]

I am shocked beyond beleif!

[Gabz]

Goodness gracious - look where some common sense is rearing it's head!!!!

[dread78645]

" ... haunted by the notion that someone, somewhere is having fun." Bump.

[Gabz]

GMTA!!!!!

[Just another Joe]

Well, well, well, a politician that gets it.
You can bet that this politician will be demonized in the next few weeks due to this decision.

[Texan5]

A glimmer of common sense-will wonders never cease? I think a lot of people are becoming unwilling to drink the kool-aide any more....

[Gabz]

The entire council is going to get demonized, as you well know.

But as is pointed out - there are already well over 200 smoke-free venues in DC as it is. And the people who pointed this out are the same ones backing the total ban. Common sense would tell me that if those venues are doing such booming business others will follow. Sheesh.

But what we also know is that if they don't push for the total ban they lose their cushy jobs because RWJF wouldn't give them any money......

[CSM]

"GMTA!!!!!"

OK, my internent lack of intelligence is showing. I have no idea what that means.....;-)

[Gabz]

You're right.

Even with the nearly total media support for these bans, and near blackout of any information of their utter failure - the information is getting out.

Thanks in large part to places like FR and groups like the Puff List, etc...............

A few more slap downs like this and maybe, just maybe someone will wake up.

[Gabz]

Great Minds Think Alike.

We were both pinging each other to this thread at the same time!!!

[CSM]

There is 260 restaurants on their list. The problem for them is that probably 200 of them are fast food and mall food court places. Of the remaining ones, very few are actually adult tavern type places. The breakdown makes sense to me, but the anti must just hate it!

[CSM]

Ahhhhh, I get it. It is clear as a bell now........I have a goal to learn at least one thing every day and you have allowed me to meet my quota. Thanks.

[Gabz]

The antis hate anything that doesn't agree with them.

The antis are going apoplectic about the fact that a very vocal critic of the smoking ban, who owns a bar, is running for Governor in Delaware.

I bet they are having total fits this morning because a tavern owner just announced he is running for Mayor of the city of Dover.

2 long term Delaware legislators lost their seats in the last election and both agreed it was primarily because they supported the smoking ban.........their districts covered the beach areas of the state - just over the line from maryland.

[fight_truth_decay]

But should a tax-breaks-for-smokefree-bars proposal "thumb be placed on the scale when a bar or restaurant owner is weighing the benefits of staying smoke friendly or going smoke-free"?

[Gabz]

Government always places their thunb on the scale with everything in the tax code.

It's for the children, don't ya know!!!