I live in (militant) non-smoking California and love it!
Not having to worry about where to sit in a restaurants and
other establishments is worth it to me.
Someone mentioned already the health risk involved for
employees working in Restaurants and Bars: being subjected to smoke for 8 to 9 hours straight every day has certainly a tremendous impact on ones health, not to forget that mostly young people are working in restaurants/bars
whose lungs might be damaged for life due to second hand
smoking.
Smokers should do so in the privacy of their own homes,
I don't want to be subjected to it, period.
CalamityJane wrote:I live in (militant) non-smoking California and love it!
Not having to worry about where to sit in a restaurants and
other establishments is worth it to me.
Someone mentioned already the health risk involved for
employees working in Restaurants and Bars: being subjected to smoke for 8 to 9 hours straight every day has certainly a tremendous impact on ones health, not to forget that mostly young people are working in restaurants/bars
whose lungs might be damaged for life due to second hand
smoking.
Smokers should do so in the privacy of their own homes,
I don't want to be subjected to it, period.
I'm in California too CJ and the ban on smoking everywhere has not affected my smoking friends in the least. They simply step outside if they want a smoke. Even when smoking friends come to my home, they all know they have to step outside for their puffs. It's not that I am against smoking for those that choose it, that's their business. But I gotta tell ya, it's awfully nice to walk into any establishment and not have to duck under the cloud layer that at one time used to hang there.....
There is a push at the moment, I believe in Manitoba, to ban smoking in cars and homes where children reside. Beats me how they will enforce it. Looks as if anyone, neighbours will have to act as rats. Big brother is closer than you think.
kickycan wrote:Smoking should be allowed everywhere. Period. These overzealous non-smokers are just whiney little crybabies who are finally happy because they get to piss all over the people who are actually out there enjoying their lives.
Having been a non-smoker for all of 5 months
, I now understand firsthand the Hoo-Hah non-smokers raise. But they're still wrong. Thomas said it best I think:
Thomas wrote:I don't smoke, but I didn't vote because I missed the option: "Depends on who does the banning". I'm fine when the government bans smokers from its own offices, airports, and other closed rooms it owns itself. I'm fine when restaurant owners imposes a smoking ban in their own establishment, seperates the smokers from the non-smokers, or comes up with some other arrangement they expect to be workable.
But when the government bans smoking from privately owned places, it interferes with a decision that isn't its business, and which it is incompetent to make. I oppose this kind of intervention.
I would add that exceptions should be made for proprietors of businesses that are deemed of high public importance but lack competition... Like the only Grocery Store in town.
Public demand through preference is sufficient in the Bar/Restaurant industry and the employee argument is weak... as they do have options. Same goes for outside... that's just silly... (especially while we're still selling diesel powered vehicles and making electricity from coal.
)
Btw Kicky, that's yet another reason you'd love Costa Rica: Smoke everywhere and no silly lawsuits!
Costa Rica, here I come! :wink:
Do you agree with banning dogs from restaurants? Do you agree with requiring shoes and shirts to be worn in restaurants? These rules are typically set by city or state, not by each restaurant and also have to do with health issues.
Linkat wrote:Do you agree with banning dogs from restaurants? Do you agree with requiring shoes and shirts to be worn in restaurants? These rules are typically set by city or state, not by each restaurant and also have to do with health issues.
No. That is exactly the same. Health issues? How is a shirt a health issue?
Yes, and I too am disturbed by the big brother aspect, understand obill's comment re only grocery store in town....
No smoking in cars in Manitoba, give me a break.
From a health pov, I get it.
Still, it is easy for us non smokers in California to be sanguine, as the dreaded smokers don't have to go out at 7 below zero (if it gets that cold any more in the eastern US after global warming.. it used to be that cold in Chicago when I was a kid, I iceskated when it was 7 below.) But, hard to smoke when your arm is waving from the shivering.
My sense of what's up comes from watching the folks in the alley behind our gallery/studio. Now it happens that that is not the worst alley in the world. The businesses are pretty cool, an art center, a frame shop, us with the landarch studio and gallery, a kite shop, a gift shop, a pizza place, a fair sized engineering firm, a printer's, and insurance shop, a good restaurant... and the alley cognescenti take care of a bunch of cats and the whole back of building area is not creepy but sort of friendly. But, y'know, no place to sit.
Which is why I circled around to conjecturing bars, or if not bars, smoking lounges. It's about 50 here most winter days, sometimes down to lower forties, sometimes a tad higher. Not the same as seven below, but not comfy in inner office clothes.
I remember the first time I had to smoke outside... it was after a many hour drive from LA to Felton, near Santa Cruz, California. We got there about 1 in the morning, to find our long time friend and boyfriend didn't allow smoking in their house. (what?) It was pelting rain.... and there we were, dumbfounded and outside. Must have been around 1970.
Odd situation - where I see both sides.
Occom - not sure why about the shirt either, but it is always posted as being from the Board of Health.
Linkat wrote:Occom - not sure why about the shirt either, but it is always posted as being from the Board of Health.
Which is why it makes the perfect example of
big brother gone mad.
The shirts thing is because of body hair, same reason waitresses were made to wear pantyhose. At least, that's how it was explained to me...
Either way - it would be gross to have some guy walk in a restaurant without a shirt. Yeck. Any sort of nakedness and food really do not go together. That is why I could never understand serving food at a strip joint.
You haven't eaten at Rachel's here in WPB then... :wink:
Best steak in town (really) in an extremely classy (and pricey) environment where the strippers are like living artwork (plenty far enough away from your food, too). Normally, I wouldn't want to eat someplace where people are naked either, but I don't need Uncle Sam to regulate it for me. What if the restaurant is a burger joint on the beach where everyone is half naked anyway? Customer demand is more than sufficient for this type of rule setting. I wouldn't be opposed to a regulation that forced proprietors to conspicuously post their own rules (or lack thereof).
Did someone say Rachel's? I remember there were two of those in Orlando. Awesome. And they had some pretty good scrambled eggs on the buffet too, if I recall correctly!
I absolutely disagree with governmental smoking bans.
I think people should have the right to do whatever they want with their own bodies, and that includes damaging them, unless they are hurting other people.
Being that other people have the choice not to enter or work in a smoking establishment, there should be no governmental ban on bars and restaurants without smoking. It should be the restaurant's and bar's choice, and if there is a demand for smokeless eat and drinkeries than the problem will solve itself.
OF course, I think the government should provide/ require labels which include adequate information as to the dangers of products. If someone makes the conscious decision that the joy they get from smoking is worth the bodily damage, let them do it! (especially in a country where people don't have to pay for stranger's health coverage.)
As I understand it the legal justification for smoking bans has been for health reasons, that smoking around other people endangers their health.
I believe medicine has thoroughly abandoned science in getting behind the claim, "smoking causes cancer."
Such a general statement implies that ALL smoking WILL cause cancer. It is flagrantly UNTRUE.
The truth is that
Smoking MAY INCREASE THE RISK of SOME CANCERS to the smoker, and to a less studied extent, those who breathe the second-hand smoke.
Yet the surgeon general himself has been printing this on tobacco for years: "Smoking causes cancer, [other disesases, etc.]"
You can smoke for your entire life and never get any of the diseases he lists.
The cause of cancer is a complex issue, involving age, family history, environment, infectious diseases, immunology... too many factors to list. ANY ONE of these factors can be involved in an increased risk, but none of them is the cause. And smoking is just another factor.
Some people seem doomed to get cancer the moment they are born, while others, because their genetic risk is low, or because of their ability to form successful immune response to cancers never fails, will never develop cancer, no matter how much they smoke, how little fiber they eat, or whatever.
If you want to ban smoking practicacally everywhere, I understand your motives. But this anti-smoking movement is not backed by science at this point, now it's just P.R. and politics.
Now I'm going outside for a smoke.
I would just like to say as a 13 year old girl who does not smoke and who is in a position to be effected by passive smoking that i think smoking should not be banned from public places it is up to the smokers to choice there lifestyle it is indeed a form of discrimination !!
Hi ginny13, welcome to A2K. I'm still not sure what I think. I smoke myself, and appreciate that I can still have a smoke in many public places, but sometimes I wish I could't, as it would make giving up alot easier!
Hmmmmm, intersting, very very interesting.
Me-non smoker
95% of friends are smokers.
I had the 'smoking debate' with a smoker friend of mine and it was so predictable, he said.....why should smokers leave a place where non smokers are...why dont they leave....soooooo frustrating.
How are non smokers supposed to be taken seriously in this discussion.
We are not doing anything wrong.We are not screwing up the air.
I agree with smoking on OLD bars/pubs and in designated areas in restaurants and work.
No smoking in public buildings, NEW bars, restaurants.
Its so old fashioned, I think if a new business wants to be modern it should ban smoking.
I saw a sketch show the other day, there was a park and a sign saying 'Would smokers please used designated booths' and it showed glass booths full of smoke with the smoker inside.Thing is, the smoke came out when the door opened.
Id like to see smokers stuck in a room full of smoke with no ventilation without complaining.
I don't smoke cigarettes, and only occasionally smoke cigars. I agree with those above who have stated government should not be involved in the decision to ban smoking. If you despise smoke and walk into a restaurant that allows smoking, and you are bothered ... tell the manager. If it remains a problem, eat somewhere else.
