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So let me understand--what you are saying is, if you can't smoke, you and most smokers will stop going out to eat?

That's not what I said. I said that if the majority of customers in a restaurant smoke, they'll go to a different location that allows smoking, making the original restaurant lose business.

With smoking bans in Montgomery County, Howard County, and DC, there won't be many places for smokers to go out to eat in central Maryland.

Yep. But I live in Colorado. It'd be quite a drive for me to go find someplace that allows smoking if the entire state went smoke-free. Unlike that area where one can drive for three hours and go through at least two different states.

Speaking as a nonsmoker myself, someone who LOVES a smoke-free atmosphere, I am generally opposed to smoking bans. Let the market decide; let the private restaurant owner make a decision about how he wants his space used.

Makes sense.

The point I'm trying to make is, probably only 15% of the people in upscale, health-conscious Howard County smoke, and those are the ones who don't have much disposable income for dining out anyway. So I'm wondering how losing 15% of the customer base will drive many restaurants out of business. Statistically most of their customers now must be nonsmokers.

You'd have to direct smoking FReepers who live closer to that area than I do. SheLion, perhaps?

Statistically most of their customers now must be nonsmokers.

Nonsmokers have outnumbered smokers for the last 40 years.

It doesn't affect me much one way or another; I'm only trying to understand, without criticizing smokers.

Here's one way to look at it. If second-hand smoke is such a deadly thing, why do a lot of these smoking bans not apply to casinos? Don't they also employ and cater to people who use lungs?

These bans are an attempt to legislate a nuisance. Nothing more.

And if people think that they'll stop with tobacco, think again.
Like coffee much?

(BTW, there's a LOT of nonsmoking FReepers who are against these bans as well. You're in good company.)

And if people think that they'll stop with tobacco, think again. Like coffee much?

I absolutely agree with you. It was years ago that Rush warned us about the coming campaign against SUVs, and he was proved correct. The same thing is true of smoking. You've heard that there are increasing attempts to legislate what we eat, because the government knows better than we do about what we should consume and how we should live. They're talking about regulating what's in vending machines in high schools.

No, I don't like coming home from an evening out with my clothes reeking of cigarette smoke. But that's a nuisance, as you say. I'm willing to put up with a certain level of nuisance if it keeps the government from interfering in our lives. I don't entirely buy the argument that restaurants in upscale Howard County, Maryland, are going to go out of business because people can't smoke there, but I think government should stay out of it. They should stay out of everything except, maybe, building aircraft carriers and missile systems, the stuff that private citizens can't do for themselves. Everything else is none of their business.