Posted on 11/16/2005 7:05:02 AM PST by SheLion
If you've gotten used to smoke-free bars, here's a new concept to wrap your mind around: smoke-free cigar lounges. This innovation comes to us courtesy of Washington state's voters, who recently approved an initiative that bans smoking in nearly every indoor location except for private residences.
The ban makes no exception for businesses whose raison d'etre is tobacco consumption, even if they have ventilation systems that whisk smoke away as soon as it's produced. By forbidding smoking within 25 feet of entrances and windows, it even threatens to eliminate sidewalk smoking sections and quick outdoor cigarette breaks.
As these provisions suggest, the real motivation behind government-imposed smoking bans is not to shield customers and employees from secondhand smoke, although that rationale is popular with the general public. For the activists and government officials who push the bans, the main point is to discourage smoking by making it inconvenient and socially unacceptable, transforming it into a shameful vice practiced only in privacy and isolation.
That doesn't mean everyone who voted for the Washington ban, which will be the most restrictive state law of its kind in the country when it takes effect on Dec. 8, is eager to save smokers from themselves. By and large, I'm sure, the ban's supporters simply wanted to avoid tobacco smoke without having to make any sacrifices.
For example, they did not want to have to choose between tolerating smoke and passing over otherwise appealing bars and restaurants that allow smoking. Instead they decided to force the owners of those establishments to change their policies by threatening to fine them and take away the licenses on which their livelihoods depend.
Contrary to the propaganda put out by the initiative campaign (which raised about $1.4 million, more than 100 times as much as the opposition), support for the ban probably had little to do with the possible long-term health effects of secondhand smoke. It's hard to believe there are many people who sit in smoky bars and worry that, if they stay there for 30 years, their tiny risk of
lung cancer might increase slightly.
People who object to secondhand smoke are much more likely to be worried about the immediate smell and discomfort. But they feel that if they pretend to believe the smoke is not only bothering them but might be killing them, their complaint becomes a legally enforceable right.
There is nothing noble about this impulse to impose one's own tastes and preferences on everyone. "People ... stood up and said we believe this is the right thing to do," an American Cancer Society spokesman told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer after the vote. "We're proud to stand along [with] others who are trying to protect their community."
How much courage does it take, in a state where nonsmokers outnumber smokers by four to one, to declare that the minority's desires should count for nothing, even when business owners want to accommodate them? How admirable is it, in a state where 80 percent of restaurants already are smoke-free, to insist that the rest follow suit?
The employee protection excuse does not make this demand any more reasonable. As a nonsmoking Seattle bartender told The Seattle Times, "You know what you're getting into when you work in a bar. If I had a problem with smoke, I'd get another job."
Secondhand smoke is, in any case, not the main concern of those who promote smoking bans in the name of "public health." Laws like Washington's are "one of the most effective ways to provide the strong incentive often needed to get smokers to quit," according to John Banzhaf, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health.
"We know tough indoor laws are a motivator to quit," a spokesman for the Washington Department of Health told the Everett Herald. "We want to help people do that." How could smokers be anything but grateful?
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a contributing columnist on Townhall.com.
Nearly everywhere except indian casinos, because it doesn't apply to them.
Now smokers, I know that you will be desperate to find a place to sit and have a smoke and a drink, but the indian casinos should not be rewarded for this... They did not merely sit back and shrug about this initiative, they FUNDED it in a big way, knowing they were excluded and could benefit from it.
Very similar language is actually contained in the Delaware statewide ban law.
But you're right, they do not really want to stop smoking, they just don't want to have to see it being done, even while reaping billions upon billions of dollars in revenue every year.
I wish Maine Indian's could have gotten away without being forced to go smoke free, but Maine forced the ban on them as well. We smoker's in Maine have NO place to go to sit and enjoy a drink and a cigarette. The lawmakers here even got to the casino's and our Indian's. 
This is why I voted "no", even though I don't smoke and I'm bothered by smoke around me in restaurants and bars.
No exception was made for private cigar clubs, which is flat out wrong. And staying 25 feet away from a door or window? That puts most smokers into the middle of the street.
Not to mention the personal freedom issue. If I don't want to be around smoke, I can find a restaurant that's smoke free. If I choose to go to one that's not, well, tough toenails to me.
Perhaps you didn't understand my post. I will be boycotting the indian casinos as well. The indians in our state FUNDED this initiative to ban smoking in bars, to the tune of millions, because they WANTED to ban smoking everywhere else, knowing they'd be the only game in town where people could smoke. I am tired of them funding initiatives that won't hurt them and only benefit them. They did the same thing on a slot machine initiative a few years back. They don't deserve the business.
Yes! It's time to stand up to reeky perfume!
We had a very nice lady at church who slathered it on so deep we knew she was on the premises five minutes before she came into view. Her perfume preceeded her everywhere she went.
Nobody dared say anything to her, we all just suffered in silence.
That's exactly how it should have worked out, SandyInSeattle. This smoking ban should have been left up to the business owner and his patrons. Not Nanny Government. This just opens the door to all kinds of restrictions put upon us.
Very good point.
OIC! I apologize! I "did" miss-read your post.
Well, that's too bad. They want all the business, and I can understand that, but to help force others into a ban is just wrong.
Maine lawmakers wouldn't allow our Indians to permit smoking. Everything went smoke free.
Thank you for your "no" vote, you obviously understand the underlying issues of this.
If there were more folks like you, with your type attitidue, we wouldn't be having this conversation and it would never have been an issue on your ballot.
I have nothing against a business choosing to be smokefree on their own, in fact my favorite Mexican place is smokefree.......alas they were closed when we thought to go there last night.....but I am absolutely opposed to government mandates such as this.
Yeah - I'm too pissed at them to even seek refuge there when I want to go out.
The problem with democracy is that reason falls 20% for each 10% of loss of representation; back when roughly 50% of adults were active smokers there was no movement to ban smoking other than where the ignition of flammable substances was a concern, now only about 20% of adults are smokers which places them about 100 feet below the radar screen of influence.
A super-majority of non-smokers now has the floor and no reason to relinquish it.
That might change. Even if I was torqued off at them, I would still go and spend my money because they accommodate everyone.
But Maine didn't have that choice. And I really miss going out to dinner and breakfast. Oh well...........
As long as no one tramples on your life and your rights, but to hell with the rest of us just because we use a legal commodity.
Nice guy there, Prof!
Well, it's not the only sin... there's also the bit about the salmon...
To heck with them. I'll stay home :~D
In Delaware it was the chains that backed the ban to include the bars and casinos. Applebee's, Ruby Tuesday's, Outback, etc.
They were all fighting the ban in the beginning and doing a good job - except they assured the legislators they would support it if the bars and casinos were added.
Even though I no longer live in Delaware, I will not spend a dime in any of those places ever again - even in areas where smoking is permitted.
peta is a lot less than 20%. so is greenpeace, or for that matter NOW.
And, for all their antics, they are still nuisance groups.
You wouldn't be suggesting that current smokers adopt PETA or Greepeace tactics to bring about a return to the adoption of smoking as a cultural attribute, would you?
Dunno. they might have something to teach us.
That's funny, it really is. One of the major funders, Robert Woods Johnson foundation, of the smoking bans is a big funder of PETA and some of their "advocacy" front groups.
Proponents of government mandated smoking bans are in bed with the PETA types - I hope they are happy :)
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