Posted on 06/23/2002 9:26:10 PM PDT by chance33_98
Smoking Ban Hurting Tempe Restaurants
Tempe, June 19 (AP) -- It may be a breath of fresh air to walk into restaurants here and not smell smoke, but restaurant and bar owners say they're smothering.
They are asking the City Council to do something to ease the financial pain arising from the new, restrictive anti-smoking ordinance.
A number of owners say revenue is down by as much as 20 percent since the voter-approved ordinance took effect May 30. They plan to outline their concerns during a council meeting Thursday.
"You can either kill yourself with gloom and doom, or you can take the tack that clean air is far better than dirty air," said Lee Fairbanks, who spearheaded the campaign to restrict smoking. "It's healthy, it's better than sitting in a cloud of cancerous smoke."
Since Tempe voters approved the most stringent smoking ban in the area, police have responded to 38 complaints of smokers in bars and restaurants but issued no citations.
Dammit, if I can't smoke, I ain't gonna' eat!
So, starve, already!
Like maybe the return of slavery or Jim crow, or lynchings? How about communism? I'm sure you support that. Or maybe a new third reich? the possibilities with you people are endless.
Well, actually, yes. Politicians like Henry Waxman are absoloute True Believer foam-at-the-mouth anti-smokers and others just see a convenient cash cow.
It is other citizens who are driving their political leaders to give them a rest from all of the smoke in various establishments.
Oh, you poor, misguided soul. Do you honestly believe these crusaders are simply citizens finally standing up for their rights? Little hustler Stanton Glantz who gets several million dollars a year plus many more for UCSF, or portly John Banzhaf, the attorney who has made anti-smokerism a 30-year career, are simply citizens like the rest of us. In a pig's eye! If you do believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you...
And, non-smokers have as much right to a smoke-free environment when the establishment is open to the general public. Non-smokers exist too.
Ah, but here is where you're wrong, don't you see? An establishment can be open to the public without being public property, and that has always been true until the current hype and hysteria trampled all over everyone's private property rights and individual liberties. You are completely entitled to any kind of environment you want, but you're not entitled to the whole damn world. Whether you like it or not.
Course he can't, Joe, because OSHA has refused to fall into that trap. In fact, ASH's recent lawsuit was dropped like a hot potato when OSHA threatened to set a standard which would take away the anti-smoker zealots' one-note cry of "there is no safe level...." In fact, OSHA says right on their website that levels of secondary smoke rarely if ever exceed allowable PELs. But sheeple like Mr. Myers don't want to see things like that. Their minds are made up, don't confuse them with the facts.
Tsk. Don, you're not paying attention. Smokers don't say any such thing, or at least I've never seen it. What we DO say is that neither smoking OR not smoking is mentioned in the Constitution, so that means our "rights" are equal. The rights that ARE mentioned in the Constitution, those of private property and individual liberties are the ones we're concerned about.
PROVE it.
The discredited EPA report and the as yet unpublished IARC report are not valid - for obvious reasons.
And that is why nannyists such as yourself insist on the government getting involved. There is only one thing I despise more than an anti-smoker and that is a hypocrite. I put you squarely in both categories.
I also am an ex-smoker who is really bothered by smoke now. My wife has an asthma condition, and smoke bothers her quite a lot too. Tell us the truth here. Do you really have no consideration for others?
Hey, Don, old buddy, old pal....bring 'em on.
"In general, there was no elevated lung cancer risk associated with passive smoke exposure in the workplace. ..." Brownson et. al., 1992 "Passive Smoking and Lung Cancer in Nonsmoking Women" American Journal of Public Health, November 1992, Vol. 82, No. 11
"... an odds ratio of 0.91 ... indicating no evidence of an adverse effect of environmental tobacco smoke in the workplace." Janerich et al., 1990 "Lung Cancer and Exposure to Tobacco Smoke in the Household" New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 6, 1990
"... the association with exposure to passive smoking at work was small and not statistically significant." Kalandidi et al., 1990 "Passive Smoking and Diet in the Etiology of Lung Cancer Among Non- Smokers" Cancer Causes and Control, 1, 15-21, 1990
"Among women exposed only at work, the multivariate relative risks of total CHD were 1.49 ... among those occasionally exposed and 1.92 ... among those regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, neither of which is statistically significant according to commonly accepted scientific standards." Kawachi et al., 1997 "A Prospective Study of Passive Smoking and Coronary Heart Disease" Circulation, Vol. 95, No. 10, May 20, 1997
"No association was observed between the risk of lung cancer and smoking of husband or passive smoke exposure at work." Shimizu et al., 1988 "A Case-Control Study of Lung Cancer in Nonsmoking Women" Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 154:389-397, 1988
"We did not generally find an increase in CHD [coronary heart disease] risk associated with ETS exposure at work or in other settings." Steenland et al., 1996 "Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Coronary Heart Disease in the American Cancer Society CPS-II Cohort" Circulation, Vol. 94, No. 4, August 15, 1996
"... no statistically significant increase in risk associated with exposure to environmental tobacco smoke at work or during social activities...." Stockwell et al., 1992 "Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Lung Cancer Risk in Nonsmoking Women" Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 84:1417-1422, 1992
"There was no association between exposure to ETS at the workplace and risk of lung cancer." Zaridze et al., 1998 "Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Risk of Lung Cancer in Non- Smoking Women from Moscow, Russia" International Journal of Cancer, 1998, 75, 335-338
Bottom line: Workplace findings such at the ones cited above are not reported in the media. In some cases, it appears that a deliberate attempt was made to hide the facts. For example, the American Heart Association issued a news release on the 1996 Steenland et al. study, but withheld the fact that this study, the largest ever done at the time on ETS and coronary heart disease, found no adverse effect from workplace exposure to secondhand smoke. The same happened in the recent WHO study--WHO's own press release lied blatantly about the results found in their 10-year, multinational study--and, yes, I have read the study. Wouldn't it simply be better for everyone if people stopped allowing the media to tell them how and what to think and learned--again--how to think for themselves?
Go out to your front yard and set some leaves on fire. Then stand over it and breath it. Come back and tell us the results.
Then go back over the posts in this thread.
I am just a poor misguided soul who believes that I and others have basic rights such as not being subjected to second-hand smoke.
"An establishment can be open to the public without being public property, and that has always been true until the current hype and hysteria trampled all over everyone's private property rights and individual liberties. "
Did you know that if you have a pool on your property and a kid comes over and goes swimming without your permission and then drowns, you are liable. It is called an attractive nuisance. And, this notion about open to the public and not public property, how is it that state agencies can do safety and health inspections on the business?
Tom, have you forgotten your meds again?
Tell that to the localities that have passed anti-smoking legislation and business owners that have gone smokeless.
The only time that I have talked about bars was in response to someone making a comment about bars not going out of business. I explained why that was.
I've read them all. If you think I've missed something, point it out, or admit you've misstated the smokers' comments.
Ok, you can start with these.
http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/html/1221.01/
http://www.bgsm.edu/bgsm/physpharm/meh/smoking.htm
http://www.gaspforair.org/gedc/gedcbias.htm
http://www.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets/html/fact07.html
http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health/digest/pubs/smoke/smoking.htm http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/etsfs.html http://www.nntonline.net/ebm/main_pages/Common2.asp http://www.smokefreeforhealth.org/Studies.asp
Of course you do. You have every right not to be "subjected to" anything you dislike. Of course, that takes a little personal responsibility on your part, such as staying out of places that permit smoking.
Did you know that if you have a pool on your property and a kid comes over and goes swimming without your permission and then drowns, you are liable. It is called an attractive nuisance.
Being a homeowner, I'm aware of many foolish laws such as the "attractive nuisance" ones, but those laws are not as simple as you'd have them seem. For instance, if I have a 6' fence and the kid climbs over, I'm not necessarily liable. In other words, there are clear rules I must follow to protect myself from such liability and I do. As long as the rules are clear, and equal for everyone, fine. When there are no standards, as in the case of environmental tobacco smoke, that's not fine.
And, this notion about open to the public and not public property, how is it that state agencies can do safety and health inspections on the business?
That's just another logical fallacy and has nothing to do with private property owners allowing a LEGAL activity in their places of business and you know it. Again, if a standard existed with which the owner was expected to comply, fine. There is no standard because the anti-smoking cabal has not allowed one to be set. They LIKE screeching "there is no safe level of tobacco smoke" even though it means nothing because there is also "no UNSAFE level of tobacco smoke."
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