“You do not have the right to inflict it on anyone else.”
Who has claimed that right? As I have previously pointed out, this is not about a “right to smoke” or a “right to smoke free air.” It is simply about allowing the owner of the property to allow smoking or to only desire smoke free air. I have the ability to chose accordingly which private property I will enter upon invitation, why do you and the SF Director of Public Health lack such abilities?
We have a country that is based on a consitution that is in turned based on individual rights. The old "property rights" system was controlled by titled landowners and was overthrown in part by our revolution. As individuals, we do control what goes on in our own spaces as is our individual right. The limiting factor is when our activities threaten or infringe on others. If I want to experiment with chemistry at home, things are fine. If I want to experiment with dangerous chemistry at home and the effects of my experiments could spread to my neighbors, I'm in the wrong.
We shouldn't need to have government intervene - if we are responsible members of our own community and control our own actions with respect to others.
Smokers didn't. Tobacco smoke is a known carcinogen, lung cancer is very lethal, and smokers routinely lit up next to nonsmokers every chance they had. If I had a nickle for every time some smoker lit up next to me at a restaurant, I could buy that restaurant by now. The tobacco addiction seems to cause smokers to be ostentatious and to take some pleasure in annoying others.
The issue that's causing "government" to take action isn't complaints by activist nonsmokers. It's the huge health care costs caused by smoking and the public smoking is the one area they can affect.
I sincerely hope that you have the toughness it would take to quit smoking if you can. I've known some few that can do it, but it's usually more than normal people can overcome. I still have the memory of one of my closet friends, smoking away, while she was dying of her cancer.