[E Rocc]

If we knew there would be no smoking in a place, we would go there often.

Actually, most decent restaurants and bars have huge smoker eaters installed today that pulls out the smoke AND any lingering stale smoke smell. So that's not really an issue either.

We have a gigantic one. There are days that I come home after work and I can't even smell cigarette on my clothes.

Here's the really ridiculous thing about the "employee safety" approach to attempting to ban smoking in bars. It ignores the primary principle on which occupational chemical exposure laws are based: the Permissable Exposure Limit (PEL).

All chemicals which OSHA, NIOSH, or any other government agency considers hazardous have a PEL. Most have both a "peak" PEL and an 8 hour average PEL. The former is the maximum concentration that any employee can be exposed to at any given time. The latter is the maximum average concentration they may be exposed to over an eight hour period.

Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) has no PEL. The zealots claim that any exposure to it is hazardous. This is a ridiculous claim on its face, since people intentionally ingest much greater concentrations of the same substance. Taken further, it breaks down as well. The substances that ETS consists of do have PELs. They are all found in levels well below the limits established by federal and state regulations.

Applying this most basic principle of industrial hygiene makes it clear that the crusade to ban smoking in bars isn't about protecting workers. That's just an excuse used by the We Must Protect You From Yourselves crowd.

-Eric

[SupplySider]

Great point about the employee safety scam. It's too bad also that businesses are subject to a lot of horrible regulations that could never be passed off on individuals. I guess the constant drumbeat about the evils of business in the news and entertainment media make people forget that businesses are owned by people.