Smokers facing more restrictions

In Toronto, they have a two-tier approach to restaurants. Smoking is only permitted in bars - which means children are not allowed in places were smoking is permitted. Restaurants had a choice of which way to go. It's been interesting to see - fewer and fewer allow smoking as the months pass by - the market is definitely in play.

The same thing with hotels. When I started travelling for work in about 1988 or '89, I could ask for a non-smoking room and get it. A few years later it was difficult to get a non-smoking room as so many people were requesting them. Some hotels have moved to non-smoking floors and wings. the market speaking again.

ViaRail here - same thing - they started with having a few non-smoking seats in the late 1970's. Then it went to non-smoking cars in the early-mid 1980's. Now it's all non-smoking. The demand was there, so the market went to it.

Took the subway to work with a friend yesterday, she said it had been easier to give up cocaine, heroin and alcohol than tobacco. I didn't have that difficulty giving up tobacco, but when i hear that story over and over, i say i'd do almost anything to make it difficult for people to start/keep smoking.

I guess the reason why ex-smokers are more ardent about it, is that there really is no place for us to go out to. One town around here is all non-smoking. If I'm going to be drinking, I want to be on foot. So, if I go out I suck it up. I just don't go out much anymore.

I just wish there would be more non-smoking bars mixed into the fray. I think if this law is put through, if bars become non-smoking and build up clientel afterward, maybe... just maybe some would stay non-smoking when/if the laws reverted.

The issue of second hand smoke is a real physical one - cell phones are annoying (dangerous while driving, perhaps), perfume can me temporarily disabling (with a severe enough reaction).....

Beth - I also read somewhere (sorry no idea where) that going non-smoking wouldn't hurt business.

I think if they did the same thing here and just mandated that each bar/resturant declare themselves one or the other we'd see a similar result. Instead we have government decisions that are all or nothing and here in Boston it seems it will be "all" bars and resturants will be off-limits to smoking.

They tried the 'all or nothing' approach a few years earlier. It failed completely, literally within weeks, due to court challenges. This approach seems to be saner, and is more successful. Even the 'smoking' restaurants/bars have non-smoking areas. The line-ups are usually to get into the non-smoking sections. Kinda funny to see a group of smokers standing outside of a restaurant that you know is 'smoke-friendly' - they've asked to be seated in non-smoking and come out to smoke!

New York City is about to make their non-smoking laws even tougher in order, they say, to protect employees. The only place in bars that people will be able to smoke is in special 'smoking rooms' in which no employees will be allowed to enter. And the exemption that allows such rooms applies only to bars, not restaurants, and will expire in 3 years. The only other places left to smoke in will be hotel rooms (smoking only, of course), private homes, private cars, hired limos, and a few 'cigar bars'.

http://rc.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--smokingban1212dec12,0,2492785.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

The thing is, a few years back laws were passed requiring restaurants serving over 35 to either eliminate smoking completely or create special, separate rooms with special ventilation for smokers. Most chose to create those rooms rather than risk losing their smoking customers. The cost of the special ventilations systems was pretty high (especially for smaller restaurants) and now those rooms are useless. Doesn't seem very fair.

Recently saw a non-smoker on tv suggesting that smokers should file complaints under the ADA cause things are getting out of hand.

Oh, yeah, and a while back there was a town in Maryland, I think, where they were trying to pass a law stating that you couldn't even smoke in your own home if a neighbor complained they could smell it.

No employees would enter the smoking room? Who'd empty the ashtrays?

I suppose they could issue respirators to the maintenance people, littlek. Actually, they could do that to the waiters, too. But this law apparently just says they can't go in (I believe I heard that owners are allowed in, just not employees).

Interesting.

bandylu2, it wasn't just a town in Maryland, it was a whole county! Montgomery County Executive Duncan (we saw a lot of him with Chief of Police Moose on TV during the killings in and around that area this past October) was on the bandwagon to enact such a law. It was defeated by clearer thinking county Commissioners. My sister lives in that county and I teased her unmercifully about his brilliance.

Couldn't get the idea out of my mind each time I saw him at a presser: "This is the man who wanted to pit neighbor against neighbor?" Can't you just see it--a couple of neighbor kids have a spat and the parents get involved. In a couple of days, the kids are friends again, but one neighbor reports the other for smoking which results in a hefty fine against the 'offender.'

When Duncan's idea was proposed, seems the Montgomery county website was messed up for a couple of days due to the onslaught of emails from all over the country expressing opposition to his proposal. I was one of the people who sent an email. When I visit my Sis and her husband, I always go out on their patio when I want to smoke because my brother-in-law has severe respiratory problems. If my smoke drifted into the neighbor's yard, I would be subject to a fine if the neighbor complained.

More regulations into our personal lives!

The Town of Oyster Bay, here on Long Island, has just approved a ban on smoking at all town parks and beaches except in designated areas (no info as to how many, where or how big such areas will be).

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lismok1218.story

I think this is getting a bit overdone when now you can't even smoke outside!

Bandly2 they tried to ban smoking outside in Rockville, MD, last year but the city had to revoke the ordiance because there was not one to enforce the ban. The police said they did not have the manpower and the city council then repealed the ban.

So ... there will be no smoking in bars, restaurants, movie theaters, shopping malls, train stations, nightclubs, stores, schools, gyms, workplaces, airplanes, etc.

Next will be all hotel/motel rooms, bed & breakfasts, rental cars and rented houses/apartments/condos, and anywhere outside - in the street, park, outside buildings, in doorways, etc?

Maybe we will still be allowed to smoke within the confines of our owned homes with doors/windows closed tight.

If cigarettes are not illegal then surely it is illegal of states/government to ban them from every social scene. Either make cigarettes completely illegal (I'd love to hear how the Gov copes without the income from cigarette taxes and lump-sum gifts from tobacco producers) or give all manner of businesses a choice to go smoke-free or not. It should not be mandated that ALL ban smoking because doesn't that interfere with a smokers rights?

Besides, all smokers should be aware and polite about when and where they smoke. Maybe because I am a considerate smoker (and I really am) I don't understand why a smoker would not extinguish a cigarette when asked to by another patron/employee.

I would not smoke in the street because I am aware that my ash and fumes are likely to invade the space of another.
I would not smoke in a restaurant because that is disgusting while people are eating.
I would not smoke around non-smoking friends because the cigarette smell is repulsive (even to me) and is rather like me spraying them with a bottle of gross perfume.
I would go to smoking-only bars with my smoking friends and I would go to non-smoking bars with my non-smoking friends.
If an employee of a smoking establishment does not want to be pervaded with cigarette smoke then I suggest they either change their employment or move to a non-smoking establishment.

Headline from The Cambridge Chronical:

"Boston drag your butts here!"

I am not a smoker at least not anymore. But it never bothers me when someone smokes. In fact I rather enjoy smell of the tobacco smoke.

I really have mixed feelings about all this. I don't smoke cigarettes, but do puff on a pipe from time to time (only when I'm home alone) and the odd cigar (only outside and not around non-smokers).

I vividly recall the days of going out for a few drinks and coming back reeking of smoke, all of it secondhand. Can't say I miss that, but I do think the anti-smoking movement has done too far. Banning it outdoors is crazy. The pub I go to now has a smoking area, and somehow the smoke doesn't leak into the rest of the place. Seems like a sensible approach.

Heeven, I see your smoking etiquitte is very similar to mine. Through the years I've gone from smoking to non-smoking and back again several times. When at the homes of relatives who are non-smokers, I'd never think of lighting up unless the weather is nice enough that I can go outside. But, then I usually stay only until I feel I want a smoke. Sometimes that's a good excuse to use to get out of there!

Dunno how it's played out since I haven't been down there in couple of years, but I was in and out of California when they enacted their smoking ban (no public places, including bars). 1999, I guess it was, or maybe '98. It was quite an issue in the bars. The law seemed completely ignored when I went out in L.A. (but only went out in the seedier bits of North Hollywood, where a lot of laws are routinely ignored). I talked to one bar owner who said that there was a loose coalition of bars in the city who had threatened to stop selling lottery tickets (I think there was a video keno game or something like that down there) if the law was enforced in any of their establishments. In Sacramento, nobody was smoking in bars, and weren't making too much of a fuss.

The interesting place was Santa Cruz. Most bars hadn't cracked down on smoking, but there was a definite awareness that the law had taken effect. Some places were handing out petitions to have the law repealed; one had coaster postcards you could sign and send to local legislators. I spent a summer there when the ban was fresh and only knew of one place that had been written up (somewhere I drank regularly), and it devastated their business for over a month. Everybody simply went somewhere else.

Every bartender I talked to was oppsed to the law. (But, then, the majority of the bartenders I've known were smokers.)

I fully support banning smoking in restaurants and public buildings for the most part -- but I think it's damn silly in places where the sale and consumption of alcohol is the only activity.