Posted on 06/23/2002 9:26:10 PM PDT by chance33_98
Smoking Ban Hurting Tempe Restaurants
Tempe, June 19 (AP) -- It may be a breath of fresh air to walk into restaurants here and not smell smoke, but restaurant and bar owners say they're smothering.
They are asking the City Council to do something to ease the financial pain arising from the new, restrictive anti-smoking ordinance.
A number of owners say revenue is down by as much as 20 percent since the voter-approved ordinance took effect May 30. They plan to outline their concerns during a council meeting Thursday.
"You can either kill yourself with gloom and doom, or you can take the tack that clean air is far better than dirty air," said Lee Fairbanks, who spearheaded the campaign to restrict smoking. "It's healthy, it's better than sitting in a cloud of cancerous smoke."
Since Tempe voters approved the most stringent smoking ban in the area, police have responded to 38 complaints of smokers in bars and restaurants but issued no citations.
Oh, no. Lets have no back-pedaling here. The point is that public establishments operated on private property are subject to control other than by private owners.
I believe that both smokers and non-smokers have the RIGHT to either enter or not enter any PRIVATE business as they wish! Try imagining a business where even non-smokers were FORCED into lighting up to enter (and don't give me all that tired rhetoric about SHS - it's been debunked several times and I refuse to even dredge through it all again).
I argue this case STRICTLY from a Constitutional standpoint while most non-smokers who wish to argue it do so from a Personal Desires/Emotional standpoint. It's been PROVEN that more red sportcars are pulled over every year for speeding. Should we ban red sports cars to ensure the safety of the masses? It's been PROVEN that waterbeds are not good for our spines. Should we ban waterbeds to make everyone more healthy? What about french fries, sodas, candy, ice cream? Let's take Flouride - the government puts it in our drinking water because it was supposed to prevent tooth-decay in the poor children of America. Can you say POISON? There are MUCH larger issues to worry about than a few random minutes of SHS to some non-smoker who WANTED to eat in a particular restaurant and much more inclusive bans coming down the road if people like you don't soon realize that this is NOT about smoking but, rather, about what the government has the power/right to control.
Now, you have it.
And, yet, you consistently deny that people who injest your smoke into their lungs are not at risk. Talk about dodging and weaving...
I am a smoker. I AM the minority.
You, AGAIN, mentioned OSHA in another post to the thread. Find for me, I'm SOOooo obtuse, the OSHA, EPA, ANY U.S. government entity's regulation on how much exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke is considered dangerous.
As for IARC's wonderful little report - The WHO's (World Health Organization) OWN study, the largest of it's kind, could find no significant statistical correlation between ETS and death of ANY kind.
The EPA did a meta analysis, which the federal courts invalidated.
I expect that the IARC's report is much of the same.
Show me where on this thread that any smoker claimed that smoking was a Constitutional Right. All anybody that I've seen has been saying is that the GOVERNMENT has NO RIGHT to control or restrict LEGAL behavior on PRIVATE PROPERTY. Or is this concept to complex for some to understand?
I think that your assumption here is just an assumption. Businesses constantly go out of business due to other factors.
Perhaps, you should reread the posts where I use OSHA as an example of how the feds regulate public establishments. I wonder if the tobacco industry's money has anything to do with invaliding certain studies. They have done that before.
We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence
No Rabid, the problem is that people no longer give a darn about how others feel. We live in a society in which Number One is uppermost and immediate, personal gratification is most important to the individual.
You folks carry on, I am going to take a shower.
I don't believe they have been taling about any rights specific to those who smoke. They have simply been pointing out that smokers have the same rights as those who don't smoke. If I choose to allow smoking in my home and you don't like it, don't come inside. OTOH, if you don't allow smoking in your home and I smoke, I have the right to not enter a place that I cannot light up. There is no double standard here - there is NO LAW that requires you to enter my house nor that requires me to enter yours. Same with PRIVATELY owned establishments. There is no law that forces ANYONE to enter including employees who are free to work at another establishment. Once again, capitalistic concerns will determine allowable behaviors and not the desires of periodic VISITORS who are free to enter or not at their pleasure.
Perhaps YOU should reread my post. I asked for ANY GOVERNMENT ENTITY'S regulation. If there is NO entity in the government that has a read on how much ETS is dangerous then what say SHOULD the government have in it? They have facts and figures for everything else they regulate. Why not ETS?
My own suspicion is that they don't have ANY supporting proof that can't be invalidated. It is only the tyranny of the majority, egged on by the anti-smokers, and that's ALL it is.
However, if a fascist state prohibits it's patrons to enjoy the fruit of their labors in their favorite watering hole, the patron will go where he is welcomed...not where he is being oppressed...
Thank you for this quote. It is exactly what I needed. Non-smokers are citizens, and they have the rights of citizenship under the Constition,including the right of representation with their representatives. In other words, they have the right to seek laws when not expressly forbade by the US Constitution.
Oh my goodness!! This is TOO funny coming from an "anti-smoking everywhere that he wants to go" proponent! ROFLMAO!!!! Who is so worried about personal gratification that they can't pass up one restaurant in favor of another that doesn't allow smoking??? Oh, but this IS RICH!!!! LOLLOLOLOLOL
No, I understand that the federal government has illegally stiffled freedom of association through private "anti-discrimination" laws. I find it sad that you think "blacks" should be any more upset that someone will not serve them than a smoker would if someone refused to serve them. Its two equal cases of freedom of association. Neither group should be mad if its soley the decision of the property owner.
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