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Personnally, I’m for no smoking in eating establishments but there should be NO ban all other places. I bugs the hell out of me when someone smokes next to where I am eating. It’s just common decency and common courtesy NOT to smoke around people who are eating. My opinion for what it’s worth.

I agree. I'm a smoker but I really get annoyed if someone lights up while I'm still eating.

Proper smoking etiquette is that you don't light up until after all others have finished eating. And that will rarely happen in a restaurant unless it's mid-afternoon in a small town or something.

There is something about the smell of tobacco that inhibits appetite for many people. I lose all interest in food, even food I'm enjoying, if I so much as smell burning tobacco. It doesn't make me want to light up. It just annoys me.

Proper smoking etiquette is that you don't light up until after all others have finished eating.

Absolutely.

I raised that position while at a dinner, in a smoking-permitted restaurant with 9 others. One of the group was still eating when the person sitting next to him started to light up. When I stated it was impolite to light up while someone was still eating, the person looked directly at me and queried "Are you buying dinner, or am I?" My response was simply "I guess I am."

He waited to light up until the other person finished eating.

That was 1992. Both the person who started to light up and the person still eating were tobacco industry lobbyists and the purpose of the dinner was strategy about a smoking ban in restaurants in Delaware.

My entire point was a lack of manners creating the problem and my point was taken. I wasn't an industry lobbyist, but I did work with (not for) many of them because even back then the owners and smokers were being left out of the discussion.

BTW, in the end I did NOT pay for dinner :)

I have never heard anyone else make that comment but it is the same for me. If I breathe tobacco smoke while I am eating, the food immediately loses all its flavor. It is like I have cardboard in my mouth. I have gotten up and left many a restaurant and my uneaten food because of this.