Now I see why you liked it...
Says you. I think it hits the nail on the head.
In fact, urine in a swimming pool is a lot LESS harmful than tobacco smoke. Babies in the womb float in urine and drink it for nine months (in the form of amniotic fluid.) It's just that most people are repelled by the thought of swimming in it.
Local health agencies regulate pool water chlorination and food serving temperatures and all sorts of other minutiae on private property, when that property is open to the public and sometimes even when it isn't. But we only hear the loudest howls of outrage from "good Republicans" when local governments tell smoke junkies to take their filthy dangerous drug habit out of public accommodations like restaurants.
Some radical Libertarians and pseudo-experts in Constitutional law on this thread seem to think the Ninth and Tenth amendments forbid such smoking regulation by local governments. I believe that public health rules of this type are among those powers that are specifically delegated to the States by the Tenth Amendment.
I agree that Federal rulemaking on this subject is inappropriate, but if Nevada and Louisiana decide they want to allow unrestricted smoking while Utah shoots smokers and confiscates their property, that's the way federalism is supposed to work. Don't like it? Get a majority of your local voters to vote the other way, or start a boycott, or whatever, but don't pretend you are upholding some sacred Constitutional right to blow smoke in my face.
-ccm