Posted on 01/21/2007 5:56:10 AM PST by NJRighty
RENO, Nev. (AP) - Thirty years after it began as just another quirky movement in Berkeley, Calif., the push to ban smoking in restaurants, bars and other public places has reached a national milestone.
For the first time in the nation's history, more than half of Americans live in a city or state with laws mandating that workplaces, restaurants or bars be smoke-free, according to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.
''The movement for smoke-free air has gone from being a California oddity to the nationwide norm,'' said Bronson Frick, the group's associate director. ''We think 100 percent of Americans will live in smoke-free jurisdictions within a few years.''
Seven states and 116 communities enacted tough smoke-free laws last year, bringing the total number to 22 states and 577 municipalities, according to the group. Nevada's ban, which went into effect Dec. 8, increased the total U.S. population covered by any type of smokefree law to 50.2 percent.
It was the most successful year for anti-smoking advocates in the U.S., said Frick, and advocates are now working with local and state officials from across the nation on how to bring the other half of the country around.
In a sign of the changing climate, new U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi banned smoking in the ornate Speaker's Lobby just off the House floor this month, and the District of Columbia recently barred it in public areas. Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Louisiana and New Jersey also passed sweeping anti-smoking measures last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at kpic.com ...
Go ahead and tell a Black, Hispanic or Jewish person that you will not rent to him based on race, ethnicity or religion.
In other words, there is no going back to the days where you could smoke in restaurants, airplanes, grocery stores and schools. Those days are over and it is what the majority of the public demands from their government.
I've read the Fair Housing Act..........I know how it can be gotten around.....and at no time in my life have I ever been a landlord.
I wouldn't be one if anyone paid me to do it.
OTOH, I have been on the tenant end and so know exactly how landlords can get around it. Thankfully I haven't had to rent an apartment in over 15 years, but the last time I did the only only reason I got it was because one of my personal references happened to be the landlady's brother, a fact I didn't know at the time. She later told me she did not want to rent to a 29 year old divorced woman. And she could have easily gotten away with not renting to me.
Now, tell me something I don't know.
Dialogue?
We've been having a dialogue?
Funny, I thought you were making assertions and falling apart when you met resistance.
And no, I don't acknowledge that secondhand smoke is harmful.
The harm is in the acceptance of the myth.
This, God help us, has given you and your fellow hive members credibility and permission to cause harm.
Your "arguments" are tired and worthless and with every response to you, I can feel another brain cell dying.
I'll leave you to your fictions now; be sure to declare victory at your next Bund meeting and good luck on your march to Utopia.
In other words, there is no going back to the days when private property rights were respected and protected by law.
Thanks for declaring yourself a champion of mob rule, too.
How pathetic you and your buddies are.
In my opinion...
Thanks for sharing your opinion. I don't share it.
I don't know of any other totalitarian governments that have sought to oppose tobacco.
Which makes the case at hand more poignant, though you, somehow, don't recognize that.
I don't have to give a reason for denying rental.
As a business owner I have the right to refuse service for any reason I wish.
There are few if any property rights left in this nation.
Almost every piece of property in the nation is zoned for land use.
A owner of a grocery store cannot store toxic waste or permit smoking.
As for me, I pay $7,500 a year in property taxes.
What rights if any do any of us have to our property?
You're uninformed. Smoking Bans have NOTHING to do with "smoking." They're about control and the "managing" of the proletariat (that means we tax-paying scum) by The Elite. Been in America long? Do you know ANY American history? What was America founded on, and why did we break with England? Overtaxed and underrepresented! Remember the Boston Tea Party? Well, imagine that with tobacco...a LEGAL, taxed substance, as was tea in it's day.
Choose a legal, taxed, adult "vice" that you have. Like gambling? How about a game of Bingo at Church? Like to have a beer on the weekend with your friends while you watch the game? Alcohol is BAD for you. For shame! How about a burger? Trans Fat City, Baby! Shame on you for not watching your health for the rest of us innocent bystanders. You might fall on us and cause bodily harm because you don't adhere to the "standards of emaciation" imposed on all of society!
How about driving while talking on your cellphone? Ever do that? How about that time you forgot to put on your seatbelt? How do you feel about helmet laws? Do they protect you, or the other guy from hurting himself? And who cares? Thin the herd if people want to be stupid, but it should be up to the HERD as to what they want to do!
Now imagine that we all HATE you because of your CHOICE to do as you will in a FREE country...while all of your ADULT choices are legal and taxed! You pay and pay for that vice! :)
P.S. I don't smoke. But this imposition of the denial of rights by one "class" of people (Smoke Gnatzies) on another (Everyday People) irks me to no end.
Oh really? Unless I choose to patronize a restaurant where the owner has chosen to prohibit smoking, and there are several that I do patronize, I can smoke in the majority of restaurants I patronize.
"The Godwin's law thing seems to be uniformly rearing it's idiotic head the last couple of days."
The last resort of those unable to debate based upon ideas. ;)
Your head is buried deep in the sand. I'm not saying that secondhand smoke is harmful. The entire scientific community is saying that.
Go on, though, and believe that I am a member of some mysterious "hive" and that my arguments are incorrect. I care not, as I'm no longer going to debate you.
My only point was that a landlord cannot just deny renting to anybody for any reason. The fact that landlords skirt the law does not mean that they can give any reason to anybody - it just means they go to greater lengths to discriminate. The fact that loopholes exist - I'm sure people will look for a box not checked if they really want to - doesn't make it right. Discrimination is discrimination no matter how you look at it. You may not like who you are supposed to rent to, but that's the price you pay for being a landlord.
Don't even try with this one. If you want to frustrate yourself read over the exchange I had with this individual.
"I care not, as I'm no longer going to debate you."
As an outside observer...ROFLMAO! :)
Not For Long.
I understand where you're coming from but to me this is an issue of where my rights end and somebody else's begin (or vice versa).
I understand where you're coming from but to me this is an issue of where my rights end and somebody else's begin (or vice versa).
Actually you are wrong. Some members of the scientific community have determined that insiginificant statistical risk of the increase of a particular disease is harmful. Other members ofthe scientific community laugh at them. That some government bureaucrat with an agenda chose to cherry pick data does not mean anything........except of course what the lamestream media tells the sheeple to believe. BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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