Posted on 06/04/2003 5:03:23 AM PDT by SheLion
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:10:02 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) Public health interests prevailed over warnings that personal freedoms are being eroded as the Maine House gave its final approval to a bill to ban smoking in bars and taverns.
Representatives' 95-47 enactment vote sent the measure to the Senate and put Maine a step closer to joining California and Delaware in imposing statewide bans on smoking in bars. New York's ban starts in July, and Connecticut's newly enacted ban on smoking in bars takes effect next April.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
People who enjoy smoking don't get as much enjoyment when they're not smoking.
Someone who regularly goes to a bar may not mind spending $5-$10 on drinks for a chance to unwind and enjoy themselves. If the law changes so they can't enjoy themselves as much, that $5-$10 may no longer be worth it to them.
[To the "Sanford Democrat"] Blow me, you fascist scumbag.
If they gotta mandate a healthy environment, why can't they just require non-smoking sections???
And I'll tell you the same thing I tell the others. If all you can do is call names .... BITE ME.
People who are addicted to a drug are somehow not drug addicts? How is that name-calling? It was someone else who was equating a misdemeanor/minor infraction/public nuisance/pollution ticket with a Nazi gas chamber.
What's there to think about? That's what the people say who want to go visit a public tavern or restaurant and not be assaulted with someone else's second-hand smoke. Are you advocating the initiation of force by exhaling poisonous fumes in a crowded theater?
Why don't you simply stay out of places that don't conspicuously display a "NO SMOKING" sign by the door?
No, they have no choice but the parent who is a smoker chooses to put his children at risk for his own selfish needs. At least with heat there is a trade off for the child. With tobacco there is no trade off. Only risk for the child and no potential benefit.
Or a family that over-indulges their kids' desire for junk food.
Again the child is making his own choices. This isn't equivalent to the parent forcing the child to breath smoke. Such a parent isn't fit.
\ Or are you of the opinion that cigarette smoke contains some special,EE-VIL, ingredients that must be stamped out by any means necessary?
No. I am of the opinion that a small percentage of people might be the victims of extreme damage from SHS, and until it can be proven without a doubt that exposure to SHs is completely harmless in all cases any parent how forces his child to breath SHS is not fit to be a parent.
Excellent advice for non-smokers ... as well as for smokers. No one in Maine is being stopped from establishing their own private smoking clubs/sweat lodges. Similarly, no one is being prevented from designing, manufacturing, marketing, selling, buying, or using their own personal smoke-containment aqualung aparatus for public smoking. Everyone has lots of free will choices they can make.
The anti-smokers aren't just trying to ban smoking near themselves. They are trying to stomp out smoking everywhere--even the places that they themselves do not go and have no interest in going.
Smokers like to congregate over beer or other drinks. If smokers want to congregate off by themselves, why should they not be allowed to do so? And if the owner of a watering hole wants to welcome smokers in for such comraderie and fellowship, why should he not be allowed to do so?
I don't smoke, but I do like to sing karaoke sometimes. In most of the bars I've been in, the vast majority of people--employees and patrons--smoke. On some occasions, the smoke in the air has been so bad I decided to leave. In many other cases, I've decided to stick around. If I knew of any non-smoking karaoke places which had regulars as nice as the places I go, I'd go there instead. Unfortunately, so far as I know, no such places exist (at least not around here). Unlike many liberals, though, I recognize that even if smoking were banned in all karaoke bars, there still wouldn't be any fun non-smoking karaoke bars. There just wouldn't be any fun karaoke bars at all.
Title: Army Health Promotion Authors: Army Publications and Printing Command Document Number: AR 600-63 Build Date: 03/10/98 12:15:26 Build Version: 1.3.0 Book Path: /usr/lpp/internet/server_root/books/r600_63.boo
Highlights from source.
c. Smoking of tobacco products is prohibited in all military vehicles and aircraft and all official vans and buses.
j. Smoking during basic combat or one-station unit training is prohibited
It certainly will, not because we can't go without a smoke, but we are tired of politicians mandating life styles, we have had a 100% smoking ban for about two years, 60 bars and resraurants have closed, only 13 new has opened, almost all bingo halls have closed.
I sympathize with your sensitivity, but there must be non-smoking places in your area.............. or don't they look like as much fun as the evil smoking places.
Added to my Rings of Hell bookmarks.
Like my grandpappy always said: "tis better to sing in a smokey bar than alone in the shower. I suspect that is where she is ultimately going to end up......
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