That appears to be a little over-reaction to someone not agreeing with your proposition for smoking licenses, wouldn't you think? Phantom Lord wasn't being snotty with you, and he even identified some very valid points of the pitfalls of licensing schemes, and you come back with that kind of retort? He was 100% right that rights have been eroding. Anti-smokers took the gloves off years ago and are not willing to compromise. Put in smoking areas they said. Spend money for separate ventilation systems for smoking areas they said. Aw hell, forget about it, we'll just ban it all, they now say. That constitutes nothing less than governmental taking of privately owned property without just compensation.
Fact is that it's "people like you" who are asking someone else to take care of your problems for you. Smokers are not asking for accomodation. I could care less if places banned smoking on their own, and I've been in plenty which have done just that. I used to at least have at least one drink before moving on for more ameniable accomodations, but now I don't do that anymore since anti-smokers are now telling us it's all smoke-free or nothing wherever they can. Now I walk in and say how nice, but I have to move on. Do you think any the anti-smokers crying for smoke-free places should open a smoke-free place of their own or continue to whine loudly that the business owner who put his own capital and sweat equity on the line should have a law forcing him to do it?
Oh, BTW, I didn't know private property rights were up for votes, negotiations, and compromise, especially those that belong to someone else, not you. Zoning laws are excepted to keep some things like strip clubs out of residential areas, since property owners usually know what activities are allowable in the community before they purchase the property. But to take away rights is abominable. I don't know if you do own your own business, but it is very sad how it's mostly those without their own business to worry about who are so quick to vote for such restrictions on those who do.
It is not an over-reaction, it is the truth. I live in Los Angeles and have many friends who smoke and it does not even bother me. I also travel often to NY and other cities. The smoking ban in LA is great. There is no loss of business on a scale people are claiming. (So those 'the sky is falling' claims are BS.) Did some go under, probably. (not under my plan they wouldn't) When I travel to cities with no ban, I realize how nice it is in Los Angeles. Here I am, a non-smoker, with no real problem with smoking, suggesting that any business that wants could get a license to allow smoking on the premisis. And I am the one with the unreasonable position? Lol, I get what I want either way. Many smokers insist on getting it their way or nothing. I merely said too bad, because people like me, who are on your side, will vote to keep a ban over elimiating it completely.
Many here are crying about a regulation - as though there are not regulations on all types of businesses and the like. If half of these people believed what they said they would fight liquor licenses and most other regulations. That is not what they are fighting, they are fighting the ban on smoking. Well, I think the government has the right to ban it - I just think it is dumb and that there is a middle ground that comes close to satisfying both sides.
Fact is that it's "people like you" who are asking someone else to take care of your problems for you.
Lol, hardly. And you want no government inspections of restaurants and no minimum sanitary regulations, etc. Well, sounds nice on paper - I prefer some government regulations to none.