Posted on 01/10/2003 7:41:00 PM PST by Max McGarrity
Secondhand smoke "might make your hair smell," but it's not a proven health risk, Bears-coach-turned-restaurant-owner Mike Ditka said Thursday, leading the charge against a proposed restaurant smoking ban in Chicago.
With a cigar in one hand and a drink in the other, Ditka said his steelworker father was living proof that it's baloney for medical experts to claim that exposing a restaurant employee to an eight-hour shift's worth of secondhand smoke is the equivalent of smoking a half a pack of cigarettes.
"My dad smoked four packs of Luckies from the time he was 12 until the time he was 60. He lived to 80. He died of hardening of the arteries. He didn't die from what smoking caused. He worked in the steel mill where every morning, you woke up and there was half an inch of soot on the cars," Ditka said.
"People who have survived in industrial areas of our country late into their 80s and 90s have inhaled more smoke than all the smoking in the world can give you. I find it hard to believe that people try to shove the secondhand smoke theory down your throat because I don't believe it. I don't believe it even hurts you. It might make your hair smell a little bit, but that's about it."
Ditka said he has nothing against Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th), the City Council's leading anti-smoking crusader. He simply believes the restaurant business would "suffer tremendously" if Burke and Health Committee Chairman Ed Smith (28th) persuaded their colleagues to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.
"These people who are popping off and throwing their weight around better open up their eyes and understand that you've got freedoms in America. If you don't want to come in this restaurant, don't come in. If you don't want to go where people smoke, don't go. They run the City Council. Let the people down here run the restaurants," Da Coach said.
Reminded that smoking has been banned for years in California restaurants and bars, Ditka said: "That's fruits and nuts. That's what they are. A lot of liberals. . .. All the do-gooders in the world. The people in California who abolished smoking are the same people who want to legalize marijuana. Come on. Give me a break."
At a Health Committee meeting earlier this week, restaurant owners attempted to slow the anti-smoking steamroller.
They warned that a Chicago-only restaurant smoking ban would send customers fleeing to the suburbs and prompt conventions to move elsewhere. They argued the ban would create an enforcement nightmare, with confrontations between tip-seeking servers and their customers.
Mayor Daley sympathized, called for more City Council hearings on the controversy and backed away from his earlier endorsement of a restaurant smoking ban.
On Thursday, restaurant employees held a news conference at Ditka's Restaurant, 100 E. Chestnut, to reiterate those arguments and pile on a few more.
"This city is rich in character--full of taverns, neighborhood joints, steakhouses and family restaurants. A smoking ban would completely expunge that character. It would absolutely reduce this city to another generic, dime-a-dozen, two-bit town," said Glenn Garlisch, a waiter at the Chicago Chop House, 60 W. Ontario.
Let A=B, and B=1. Then AB=AA, AB=A(^2), AB-B(^2)=A(^2)-B(^2), B(A-B)=(A+B)(A-B), B=A+B, A=0.So 1=0.)
Well, (A-B) is zero, so B*0 == (A+B)*0. That (something)*0 == (something_else)*0, however, indicates nothing about the relative values of (something) and (something else).
So now that I've explained the logical fallacy in your tagline, may I now tell you about how wonderful the almighty state is, and how it will solve all of the world's problems from the annoying interruptions of sunlight caused occasionally by the pesky lunar satellite to the unacceptably high (100%) 200-year failure rate of the human organism?
Simple solution: don't go there. How is that not a 'win' for all involved?
But no matter. Something times nothing is nothing.
You may now attempt to overwhelm me with reasoned arguments equating statism to freedom.
One Super Bowl year don't make him right -- it makes him lucky.
Who knows? If he had smoked, he may have died at 33, while Ditka's father may have died at 100 instead of 80 if he hadn't smoked.
Glantz isn't a medical expert either, he only plays one in the anti smoking forces, yet every organization and every level of government listens to him, and some actually believe every word coming out of his mouth.
I did not know that...
Some psychiatrists have theorized that some of those who "smoke" are subconsciously substituting that cigarette or cigar orally for "something else."
It's amazing what conclusions one may draw from the smoking issue -- ain't it??....
.......and you SURE wouldn't say it to MY face.
Remind me what the Ingsoc slogans were again? I remember "Freedon is slavery" [i.e. people who are free to lead their own lives will be slaves to the hardships that are an essential part of the human condition] and "War is peace" [Bombing an aspirin factory is an act of peace]. I forget what other slogans Orwell gave which so nicely fit today's liberals.
And more important, the concept of private property.
Ditka is apparently speaking from his own experience, as many of us do. But we're going to see to it that he has the scientific proof to back up his statements just in case he wants it.
You have the freedom of not frequenting restaurants that do that. While restaurants can be considered public places, they are privately owned and I respect the rights of the owner to have whatever kind of "entertainment" he wishes to have in his restaurant. If he wants to play loud music, have people smoke, have girls dance naked on the tables, that's up to him. There are plenty of other restaurants to go to if I don't like it.
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