Posted on 04/06/2008 7:20:30 PM PDT by lastchance
Do you smoke? Well, you better be careful where. I don't smoke, and I don't like the smell, but what some people are doing to smokers makes me say give me a break.
For the last 12 years, Galila Huff has owned Caffé la Fenicé, a restaurant serving Italian food on the Upper West Side of New York City.
Smoking there is forbidden. New York state bans it in all restaurants and bars.
Huff's apartment is a few blocks away at The Ansonia, an ornate turn-of-the-century building that both Babe Ruth and Arturo Toscanini once called home.
Huff lives there alone except for her Chihuahua, and her cigarettes. For 40 years, she's smoked a pack or two a day.
But then in October, she got a letter from her neighbors. It said, "Dear Resident, immediately cease smoking in your apartment, unless and until you take adequate steps to properly ventilate your smoke out of your apartment such that none enters the common hallway."
Huff couldn't believe it. First she can't smoke in her own restaurant, now she can't smoke in her own apartment?
"I mean the cigarettes smell, yeah. But I'm not puffing into their faces," she said.
The complainants -- Jonathan and Jenny Selbin -- wouldn't agree to a television interview, but they did file a lawsuit against Huff, saying she is "willfully, intentionally, recklessly and/or negligently endangering the health of plaintiffs and their 4-year-old son. & As evidenced by her refusal to address the grave danger posed to the health of a small child, despite repeated requests and warnings, defendant's conduct is actuated by evil and/or reprehensible motives."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Oh, you’ll get a kick out of this. Last summer I was on a OUTDOOR patio (balcony). I was with three ARMY men, and we were enjoying the beautiful weather, a chat, and a smoke. Somebody called the Cleveland Police on us. Guess who spoke up to the nice police offer? (Hint in wasn’t the three men in uniform.) :-)
A real stud is he.
What the hell happened to Ohio?
I’ll take the “tough guy” on — I’m short, middle-aged, but I’m married. :-)
Yep, he is a classic bully.
I was the non smoking nerd in HS.
I got over it. This geek looks like he still holds a grudge.
Really? Well, enjoy, friend, because, someday soon, "they" will come for something you enjoy and is perfectly legal and who will speak up for you???
"First they came for cigarette smokers and their right to smoke in private establishments, and I did not speak up or object, because I don't smoke and furthermore, believe it is a dirty, smelly, nasty, disgusting habit...........
"Then they came for foods that contain trans fats and I didn't speak up or object, because I eat healthy and besides, this did not really affect me.........
"Next they came after children for eating candy in school and I didn’t speak up or object, because I don’t have children or this is simply an isolated extreme situation…… (conn. student suspended for buying candy in school) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1984558/posts
Okay all of you defenders of the Nanny-Nazi-Police-State ( having delegated to themselves Extraconstitutional powers) who have begun arbitrarily regulating many of our personal (LEGAL) activities and choices, we tried to warn you, but you dismissed us as fear-mongering, self-serving, irrational, dotes.
(AND ONE OF THE BIGGEST OFFENDERS WAS ELLIOT--#9-- SPITZER WHEN HE BULLIED AND THREATENED CREDIT CARD COMPANIES FROM PROCESSING PURCHASES OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS ONLINE AS WELL AS FEX EX AND UPS FROM ACCEPTING SHIPMENT OF SAME)
We users of tobacco products tried to tell you this was all about POWER as opposed to legitimate "health issues," and all about "the chilluns," but you would not listen.
Well, the proverbial chickens are predictably coming home to roost. Which “right” or “freedom” do we all enjoy, will be the next target of the power-hungry-nanny-state? How do you like it now?
I only wish I knew. I’ve lived here all of my life. I work hard every two years to keep this state red. The 2006 elections (when the dems took control of state offices (but not the house and senate) and took a couple U.S. House Seat and a U.S. Senate seata, along with THREE VERY BAD state ballot initiatives were the worst that I’ve ever seen. I don’t want to see anything like that again. People are really angry in this state now. The straw that broke it was the no-smoking law. Private clubs are even illegal. Vets cannot even smoke in their own private VFW halls. There’s no place for adults to be adults anymore. I am starting to become hopeful that things will start to turn around. There are a lot of unhappy people in this state now. I can’t wait until I’m in Vegas 5 weeks from today where I can finally be around some happy adults.
We live in a democracy where the majority makes the rules. Since smokers are outnumbered at least two to one by non-smokers, you will just have to suck it up. That’s the reality of it
Wrong. There’s such a thing as working things out where just about everyone will be happy. You just made our point.
And if two out of three people on your block are cannibals and decide they are having you over for dinner?
This is a Republic, not a democracy, and the purpose of the Constitituion, among a host of other laws was to protect the rights of the minority from the ravages of the mob.
You are comparing cannabalism with smoking? I think there is too much carbon monoxide in your brain
Wow. Just wow.
This is the other side’s view of COMPROMISE.
You go girl. I am with you 100 percent. It’s time now to unnominate the you know who Presidential candidates we the people did not select.
Does that mean if one sect of a religion outvotes everyone else, we all have to convert or die?
If the majority decide water does not run down hill, that waterfalls will be banned?
If they believe humans cause global warming, we will end up back in the stone age?
As the saying goes, "democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what is for dinner."
Thank God we have a Republic! (if we can keep it).
I quit smoking over a year ago, but that was my choice, not some forced action. (There isn't much ambient CO in eastern Montana.)
If people want to smoke, especially in their own home, let them!
This person has been doing this for years and suddenly it is a problem?
Like developments moving in next to everything from pig farms to shooting ranges and then complaining about the neighbors, I have no sympathy for the whining newbies.
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