Posted on 05/30/2002 12:47:19 PM PDT by SheLion
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:50 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
It's not a question of smokers' rights, it IS a question of property owners rights.
I don't believe that I, as a smoker, can smoke whenever, wherever, for any reason I want.
I do believe that as long as smoking tobacco is legal it should be left to the property owner as whether to allow smoking or not.
Exactly. You DON'T need friends like that. And neither do I. Segregation at it's finest. I thought we were done with segregation, but the nico-nazi's brought it back with the smoking issue.
We have very few friends who do not smoke. The ones who do not smoke and hang out with us could care less about second hand smoke. They, too, see through the lies.
It gives me a crude chuckle when the anti-smokers who post in here hit the bars and disco's on Friday nights, and never say Jack Chit about the smoke. Because they are having FUN!
But then, when the fun night is over, they sniff sniff, and say "oh Gawd, I stink from all that smoooooooke." Well, must come with the hang-overs.
I speak for myself, my family and friends and a lot of my smoking friends in here. We will NOT patronize a place that does not allow smoking. Period.
Why should we pay for that personal abuse? We won't.
Amen! Exactly what I just said. We refuse to spend a dime at a bar or restaurant that doesn't have ashtrays. Sorry, but facts are facts.
In addition, smokers are absent more often and for longer periods of time, on average, than non-smokers. Would you let employers charge higher health insurance premiums to smokers versus non-smokers.
I'm so tired of this argument I can puke.
When I worked with that 300 lb guy, he was sick ALL the time. Don't tell me smokers are more sickly. I could run circles around that fat guy.
Furthermore, I never missed ONE day in EIGHT years for sick reasons! And if a job is busy enough, there is no reason for a smoker to take a break. Although the law gives a 10 minute break in the morning and a 10 minute break in the afternoon, plus lunch.
I believe if a person takes a lot of smoke breaks, that person isn't busy enough on the job.
Your blowing smoke!
People will stay home and drink or go to private clubs where they can smoke all they want.
Smoking in a bar is between the owners and the customers.
No. If a person does the job to the employers satisfaction it should not matter whether they smoke or not.
Every non-smoker has to put up with the lousy productivity of the smoker going outside to smoke and letting someone else do the work.
You have now fallen into the trap of generalization. Many many other things can cause lousy productivity.
In addition, smokers are absent more often and for longer periods of time, on average, than non-smokers.
Another piece of anti bull. If a smoker is healthy to begin with and takes care of themselves they miss no more work than a nonsmoker.
Also, ever place I have worked, the smokers create huge "butt" mess in their smokng area.
Every place I've ever worked the people that eat fast food make a mess. I'm not going to demand that they pay extra to clean up that mess. I don't expect to be asked to pay extra when I DON'T make a mess.
Of course, smokers could demand a lower deduction for pensions since they, on average, will not be around as long to collect.
If we don't live as long then why are we being asked to support states budgets with cigarette taxes? We're not going to be around to enjoy whatever programs the state comes up with. Right?
This is my biggest complaint about my smoking co-workers. What they do on their break is their business, but sheesh, what a disgusting mess they leave by the entranceway. I don't throw my garbage on the company lawn, why must they?
If a bar owner should have the right to make his bar a smoking bar, then any other employer should also have the right to allow who he pleases on his property.
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Maybe if your company provided outdoor ashtrays, there wouldn't be a mess.
Re:Public smoking foes target the holdouts/MASS by Paul E. Kandarian, May 30, 2002
It is amazing to me that Mr. Kandarian, who is supposed to be a reporter, uncritically accepts the statistics handed to him by Lindy Muraca.
The numbers quoted, 53,000 deaths a year including 1,000 a year in Massachusetts are from The American Cancer Society which refuses to remove these false statistics from their web site.
The American Cancer Society got those figures from the 1993 EPA study that declared second hand smoke (SHS) to be a class A carcinogen.
The only problem is that in 1998 U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Osteen, of the Middle District of North Carolina, vacated the portions of the EPA study containing those figures as junk science.
As Judge Osteen said,"EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research has begun; excluded industry by violating the [Radon] Act's procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the agencies public conclusion, and aggressively used the Act's authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict Plaintiff's products and to influence public opinion"
To continue to propagate these "facts" about SHS makes me, a forty year Globe reader, think that Mr.Kandarian and the Globe have ulterior motives. If you do not like smoke and smokers and wish to marginalize them, have the courage and intellectual honesty to say so, but please refrain from continuing to lie to your educated, aware readers.
That doesn't leave a lot of places. And once all the bars go non-smoking, you're going to staying home a lot.
The way they operate is to keep bringing these things back everytime they lose a vote (As they've done here in Maine on the Northern Forests issue; three times they've lost referendum votes), then when and if, they finally win a vote, that's it, case closed, the people have spoken.
I can't express my distaste for them strongly enough.
They do. The smokers don't care.
And even there was no ashtray, that's still no reason to dump trash on someone else's lawn. Employees don't throw their lunch wrappers on the lawn when there's no trashcan.
Hooray for a great statement about the real America! Damn all those southern governments for codifying their predjudices and making it a problem that the Feds could jump into!
No one-eyed, gimpy midgits in my bar. Hit the road, Bub.
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