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.
So what business is it of yours what he does in the privacy of someone else's property, assuming the other person consents?
Have at it, Mango.
You say "Amen to that!" then proceed to use your OWN "anecdotal evidence" to try to prove a point. Why is YOUR anecdotal evidence any more real and true than Ditka's or mine or many millions of others? It isn't.
But even if the cancer doesn't get you, smoking anything usually results in some form of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). If you like inhalers four times a day and oxygen at night and the inability to walk up a slight grade without huffing, just keep smoking -- first or secondhand./p>
I'm sorry about your personal problem, but your sweeping conclusions are just flat-out wrong, as sweeping conclusions usually are. Twice as many lifelong smokers never fall ill from one of the "smoking-related" illnesses, including COPD, as do. And as for "secondhand smoke," that's hysteria. But, even if everything they say about environmental tobacco smoke were true, it would still be a CHOICE to be exposed to it. Or don't you belive in private property rights, either?
WRONG !
He runs a private place and if you don't want to eat there you don't have to. You have your rights and we have ours ! I'm not a smoker but if a restaurant lets smokers smoke then it's their business not the Gov't. If the employees don't want to work there then they can work someplace else.
Let's see what the judge says. My question:
If there's no smoking anywhere, how's it going to hurt business? Has it been shown that people will stay home to eat and drink?
What about smoking sections for restaurants and bars with their own ventilation? That seems to work. Can't we all just get along?
I'm not certain that science backs that statement up.
Then don't go in it. Its his public place, not yours.
Here's a little more info on how the leftist control nazis try to twist statistics to meet their goals. You're right that billions of dollars in tax money were gained, but there were also many, many millions in lawyers' fees. The tort lottery continues, this time with government help.
Yes, it has been so shown. Not everyone, of course, but enough that small businesses are hurt or destroyed. Sixty percent of bars in Northern California are "noncompliant" and the percentage is probably about the same here in SoCal. Business owners are willing to risk the fines because otherwise, they'll be out of business.
What about smoking sections for restaurants and bars with their own ventilation? That seems to work. Can't we all just get along?
What about permitting the free market to work? How about letting the business owner decide who HIS market is and how best to cater to them? I'd love to "get along," but anti smokers want it all, 100% zero tolerance, and absolutely NO accommodation for smokers, no matter who it hurts. It's ridiculous.
I will damn sure never go to a non-smoking bar. None of my smoking friends will either.
What about smoking sections for restaurants and bars with their own ventilation?
Better yet, a bar that forces candy-ass whiney crybaby pidgeon pukes to smoke if they want to come in and stay?
I would love a place that would not admit crybabies who want the nanny-state to ban legal products.
Stay safe; stay armed.
Eaker
Yes it certainly has, in my town business is down appr 25%, ban took effect a year and a half ago.
You could well be right.
On the other hand, what do we call the "products of combustion" in other circumstances? A: Air pollution. Science backs up the fact that sludge in the air irritates our lungs.
I'm not sure how I got into this :-). I certainly have no interest in regulating other people's smoking!
Max, by all means find a nice dark corner of Mike Ditka's Restaurant and smoke, drink, and play doctor with WHOMEVER in total privacy.
I could care less if Ditka turned his restaurant into a San Francisco bathhouse -- in that case hopefully, he would make ashtrays available.
Many smokers find it hard to enjoy themselves if they go for an hour or two without smoking. That's not to say they can't go without smoking, but they don't enjoy themselves.
People who go to bars and fancy restaurants generally do so for the purpose of enjoying themselves. Few people will go to a restaurant to spend $30 or more on a meal they know they're not going to enjoy.
I've noticed that many fast food places around me are completely non-smoking, and suspect there are four reasons: (1) smokers can generally be in and out quickly enough that not smoking for the brief time in-between isn't a problem; (2) smokers who don't want to stop smoking long enough to eat can get food to-go; (3) smokers who don't want to stop smoking, even for a moment, can use the drive-through; (4) many people who go to fast-food restaurants aren't particularly concerned about enjoyment.
If bars were allowed to let people have beverages to-go, they might not be hurt too seriously by a smoking ban. Unless a bar has an attached beer garden which allows smoking, however, they generally can't.
I knew I was forgetting one; that one fits liberals pretty self-explanitorially.
Good Lord, what set you off? I believe everyone has a right to smoke if he/she chooses to do so. (I have no idea what that has to do with property rights, though.)
Feel free to smoke your brains out. Maybe you'll be one of the fortunate ones. Then again....
Carolyn
Mango?
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