These people who enact these bans truly do not get it and end up running taverns and bars out of business. I could understand for restaurants (though it still should be at the owner's discretion whether or not to ban smoking) but taverns and nightclubs? Forget it.
BUMP
I love the smoking ban in Hennepin County (Minneapolis) here.
When I go out to the bar after work, I can do so without being in a cloud of smoke.
My clothes no longer smell like I've been sleeping in an ashtray.
My lungs feel better too.
These smokers can step outside and have a cancer stick if they want to. Many bars have set up a small area where smokers can go if they want to light up.
At the beginning of the year I was watching one of those prediction things about what was going to be "in" and "out" this year, and it predicted that home theater type stuff would be way in as people chose to stay home and party more, just stay closer to home in general. I thought that with the smoking bans, that was probably right. Sorry bar owners, that probably means a lot of you will be looking for other work. Bars aren't really quite moral anyway, with all the fights and everything. And the smoking and the drinking and the lose wimmin.
Eugene has the same ban. They gave all the bars a 6 months extension to build a smoking deck. Most did and it's been great. The smokers go into a ventilated, covered deck with a central gas heater and the smoke stays out there. It's been great for everyone.
If these guys in this Wisconsin town were smart, they'd start construction immediately on a smoking deck. It works.
"They have to get past this personal vendetta. Don't do that to customers. They need to promote their businesses as smoke-free."
While literally no one objects to smoke free eating establishments, taverns are a DIFFERANT thing altogether. God save us all from the sort of asshats who impose this sort of thing on us. The thing about people like Connie Olson is that they will not be happy until they prevent you from smoking in your own home as well.
It's funny.
I know exactly what's going on here with all these anti-smoking laws, and I've never heard anyone else get it just right, so I'll say it.
Every kid who grew up in the 50s or 60s or 70s, grew up with parents who smoked. It was a universal thing.
And every kid grew up trapped inside of cars full of smoke on long car trips, etc., unable to get away from the smoke.
Now, some kids didn't care.
But a whole lot of them did.
A lot.
And their complaints all fell on deaf ears. Parents were parents, and they wanted to smoke, and kids were kids and would just have to shut up and deal with it.
Power prevailed.
Now all those kids are adults.
And we live in a democracy, where power prevails.
The anti-smoking zeal is NOT just aimed at health.
It's not really aimed at big business.
It's aimed at these kids' parents, many of whom are long since gone. The contemporary smoker is here, now, and invokes all of that animus that all of those kids trapped in smoky cars and houses had back then. The smoker stands in loco parentis.
The fact that smokers scream and bitch so much just makes the imposition of laws on them more delicious to the adult kids who were trapped in smoke-filled cars. Baby grew up and now is in charge, and can impose on the parents who used to impose on him.
That's why it's so mean, so obsessive, and why the anti-smoking lobby is so UTTERLY uncompromising, and so UTTERLY enjoys hearing the smokers scream and whine.
It's called "turnabout", and in a democracy it is, alas, fair play.
I wonder if this is some type of 'eminent domain' back door move. Like we talked about with the Farmers Gabz.
This places can't do business, so they have to sell....
Just a speculation.
It's you, my FRiend, that doesn't get it. For them, it's going exactly as planned. Back door prohibition.
"These people who enact these bans truly do not get it and end up running taverns and bars out of business. "
Oh they get it alright. They know exactly what they are doing. What we have is Prohibitionists in disguise using tobacco as their excuse. These people know that drinkers who smoke won't go to a pub where smoking is banned...and that the few non-smokers who would continue to patronize the pub are not nearly enough to sustain the business.
Let's just call it for what it is...backdoor prohibition.
The applicable assumption being that voting on anything, and getting a majority makes it a valid law.
I will propose outlawing smelly fat people. I expect to get a majority, and am fascinated wondering about the fallout...
"These people who enact these bans truly do not get it and end up running taverns and bars out of business."
Don't be fooled. They get it and their goal is being realized, one bar at a time.
Why do the anti-smokers insist on all or nothing?
They go on about smelly clothes and absolute panic for the health of others, but nothing rational in the way of a solution ever comes out of their mouths...
This smoking thing has always amazed me. The government subsidizes tobacco farmers. The government sues tobacco companies because smoking kills and causes disease. The government enacts smoking bans in communities for the same reason. The government gets all the tobacco settlement money for smoking cessation programs but the money goes into the general fund where it is wasted like the bulk of our tax dollars. The government wants you to smoke so they collect more taxes. Cigarette smoking in public places becomes illegal but growing tobacco and selling it remains legal.
Direct Democracy: Two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.
I do not smoke..in fact, my mother died of lung cancer, and I do will go into places that allow smoking, HOWEVER, I do not agree with government mandated rules such as these. Folks who go into a bar, should be free to smoke.
At least the folks there got to VOTE on the matter...in my home town the silly liberals on the city council voted to end all indoor smoking, all the while happily handing out alcohol permits (every 20 seconds someone in this country is killed by a drunk driver)....
I am not suggesting prohobition, just that these silly liberals latch onto junk science, and do the "vogue" thing, and outlaw smoking...if they REALLY cared about people, the evidence of damage done by drinking is statiscally provable, while the second hand smoke hysteria is not probable...just silly "feel-good" liberalism.
