People don't become teetotalers, but they do drink at home instead. I've seen too much data pointing both ways to say it's statistically significant one way or the other, but I know it does happen. One example can be found here.

I'm also hard-pressed to think of another group that would be more affected. Maybe gas stations, where profits come primarily from the over-priced cig cartons fewer people will be purchasing, since you're less likely to need a smoke for the road?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." - Douglas Adams

The Montreal article may say more about French Canadien smoking habits than anything else. They smoke more than we do, so banning smoking in bars is going to have a greater effect there than here. I will say, however, that I know a lot of people who DON'T go to bars because of all the smoke.

The offset of people who tend to eschew bars because of the smoke. Might they not offset the whiney-assed titty babies who decide to stay at home (thank Gawd) once they can no longer foul the air of others who simply want to drink and socialize? Of course they might but, if the initial lie doesn't hold up the next trick is to ignore such facts as do not support their incredibly flimsy position.

CAFKIA (an ex-smoker who never stopped, or even slowed down, going to bars when he quit smoking!)

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It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
  - William G. McAdoo

Those who consider it a vile, disgusting habit wish everyone would stop smoking, so they wouldn't have to be exposed to second-hand smoke, but those who want to smoke feel their concern is misplaced in a world full of factories pumping pollutants into the air and the owners of gas guzzling cars adding to it. Smokers feel the intense anger that non-smokers have against smokers would be better applied to large corporations.

The right to choose to be a non-smoking restaurant is always there, and many of Knoxville's best eateries have chosen this postion. No one forces any restaurant to allow smoking.

The amount of air pollution caused by the few non-smokers left is miniscule when compared to corporate pollution, yet much of the demand to remove smoke from the environment is focused on individuals. Maybe this is because people feel they might have at least some possibility of control over smokers (the majority of whom are poor or older) and none over corporations?

(link...)

The original concern non-smokers expressed about being exposed to second-hand smoke has grown into a vastly expanded movement determined to eventully eliminate a person's right to smoke even in a home they own.

Drinking also has many second effects. Fetal alcohol syndrome damages so many children every year and many people are killed by drunk drivers. Why isn't there more of a hue and cry about alcohol?

Prohbitions in themselves have proven to be somwhat trendy, and they seldom work to eradicate anything. They often make the offensive act seem more attractive to rebellious teens.

A reasonable assumption is that people should have the right to do what they want as long as it does not interfere with other people's rights. If we guarantee ALL restaurants will be non-smoking that would interfere with smokers' rights. On the other hand, if we insisted on allowing smoking in ALL restaurants that would be unfair to those with an aversion to smoking. Compromise is sometimes better than legal actions that divide society. I think the legislature did the right thing.

There are plenty of great eating places that are smoke free and enough places that allow smoking to make this a city of choice.

If we guarantee ALL restaurants will be non-smoking that would interfere with smokers' rights.

Afraid you've got that a bit backwards. Smokers don't have the right to do anything a property owner doesn't wish to allow them to do there. The ban would affect the property owners' rights to allow smoking...the smoker doesn't even have an implied right without the property owner's permission.

Yeah, under current legal theory, a property owner can really prevent you from doing anything he or she wants. There are exceptions, largely in discrimination cases, and in theory any violation of a right explicitly acknowledged by law or Constitution could be seen as a felony under 18 USC 241-242, but in reality, such protections seldom even cover freedom of speech, never mind of legal action.

The rights violated are that of the property owner, who can no longer choose whether or not he or she wishes to permit or deny smoking in a building. Nor does the option of permitting smoking for only employees (food and service workers are more likely to smoke than the average individual). In some areas -- Ohio is the first that comes to mind -- it even strips the property owner of the right to build a stall thirty feet away from the main building for smokers to be at least afforded protection from the rain and wind!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." - Douglas Adams

I still find it ludicrous that people defend smokers saying they have the right to foul the air non-smokers breath and increase non-smokers risks of health problems. Not only would I ban smoking in bars and restaurants, I would ban it on public property. I hate walking through a public park and have some idiot who has not figured out the health issues of smoking to walk by smoking and screw up the fresh air. In variably their are also butts left everywhere, fouling the environment for others.

A rule I would love to see implemented, have everybody driving report the tag numbers of people who toss cigarette and cigar butts out their car windows. After a person, or vehicle owner, gets a certain number of reports, they have to go to court, get fined a ridiculously large amount of money and have to spend a few weekends picking up trash, including butts, off the public roads.

As for idiotic arguments that industry pollutes more than smokers: 1) We should stop them as well. 2) They do not concentrate their air pollution indoors in a small area packed with people.

The citizens of the world own the air and nobody should be allowed to foul it. Same with water and all the environment.

was struggling bad until they changed their policy to allow smoking in the bar. I once visited a friend at a plant he worked in where the smokers had to go into a glass enclosed room with heavy duty ventilation to smoke.

I don't know what the solution is. Panama City has started having to enforce the no smoking ban in Florida and some business owners there have told me it has cut down on the length of their customers stay. They just eat and leave rather than hanging around and drinking for a while. These owners felt it should be their choice what policy to have and then let the customers choose where to go.

I was hopeful for a progressive smoking ban...caught one of the equity partners in Connor Concepts (includes Regas) on Gene Patterson's Sunday show saying how good it had been for business and as a frequent traveler to NYC, California and occasionally Dublin, Cafkia is right on the money.

"Not only do smokers not have rights, but employees do have the right to a safe workplace."

Er, no, no they don't. For the simplest issue, no one has a right to a workplace at all -- despite the attempts of socialists, you still need an employer involved somewhere and willing to hire you.

Even the OSHA doesn't recognize that right, despite how often OSHA programs bring up the phrase. That act only recognizes some smaller rights of workers, and then. There's good reason : it's plain impossible for most workplaces to truly eliminate potential unsafe conditions while still making a job completable. Can you imagine a cooking position where it'd be impossible to burn or cut yourself?

Sorry, but the whole "let's name rights that we have no intent of actually paying attention to and couldn't keep even if we wanted to try" thing pisses me off. Folk pay too little attention to many of the real ones to cry havok over the fake right of the day.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." - Douglas Adams

For the simplest issue, no one has a right to a workplace at all -- despite the attempts of socialists, you still need an employer involved somewhere and willing to hire you.

But, of course, capitalism would be nowhere without the resource called labor, which necessitates a workplace. Nice try.

____________________________

Georgia's in Florida, dumbass!

Bbeanster
"Getting cut or burnt is a forseeable risk associated with cooking. Developing COPD, ARDS or lung cancer simply from breathing the ambient air is not."

You do realize alcohol fumes are a carcinogen with no safe limit set? And that, according to the logic that no bar could choice to go smoke-free due to economic pressures, just as no one in their right mind would expect a kitchen without flames or knives no one in their right mind would expect a bar without some amount of ashtray?

(As an aside, there are technologies that could virtually negate the chance of any burns or cuts, but they are so costly, inefficient, slow, and often provide an altered taste, that no kitchen could transfer to them and stay in business.)

"Employers who give a shit about their employees recognize the difference."

Strange how, given how much of an economic incentive you'd expect personal health to be, how any employer who gives a shit should notice a difference, and how disgusting 75% of the population must find smoking, it takes the nanny-state to get the employers of even a static workplace and fairly worker-friendly job flow to change over.

Andy Axel
"But, of course, capitalism would be nowhere without the resource called labor, which necessitates a workplace."

Okay, I don't think I ever stated or suggested that the workplace doesn't exist, so I agree with you... here's a cookie.

On the other hand, if you'd like to wrap your mind around some explanation which entitles a specific individual to a workplace, be my guest. On the other hand, the existence of one in twenty individuals deprived, no doubt against their will, of a workplace, under this evil GWB economy, suggests the opposite.

(As another aside, workplace-free jobs are becoming more popular in technical support fields, although telecommuting still has its weaknesses and opponents).

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." - Douglas Adams

On the other hand, the existence of one in twenty individuals deprived, no doubt against their will, of a workplace, under this evil GWB economy, suggests the opposite.

You'll have a hard time suggesting that persistent unemployment and lack of available jobs to be an economic selling point. We typically think of an economy where a lot of people are out of work as a bad economy.

You're getting wrapped around the axle over the term "entitled." Just because a specific individual isn't entitled to a job? It doesn't follow that the same individual, if employed, shouldn't expect a reasonably safe workplace. Occupational safety is one of the things that separates us from, y'know, those other places in the world where we're offshoring our jobs, and where you wouldn't deign to take a job in a second.

(As another aside, workplace-free jobs are becoming more popular in technical support fields, although telecommuting still has its weaknesses and opponents).

Parsing error. The home is still a workplace in a telecommuting job.

____________________________

Georgia's in Florida, dumbass!

I agree with cafkia in that living in Calif and being a musician in many of the drinking establishments here in Sacramento, business actually increased as more non-smokers are feeling safer about breathing... fdupr

The Connor Concepts guy gets on my nerves. On the news and in the papers he always talks about "leading a trend" and many variations of stuff about being "trendy." He always mentions health as the third of fourth reason to ban smoking at Regas. If he was showing pictures of black lungs or whatever and saying that was why he did it rather than to lead a trend I'd have more respect for him. He was recently named marketing person of the year, I think that is his game, talking about the smoking ban like you would talk about being first on the block to sell bottled water. I'm an occassional smoker who agrees with Carole about the industrial polution and I've heard Cafkia's argument before.

Debating industrial pollution vs. second hand tobacco pollution is nuts. They're totally different types of pollution and not mutually exclusive. Can't one be against both with different levels of enthusiasm, not necessarily proportional to which is "worse"? How would you decide which is worse, anyway? They're too different. False choice.

Smoking in one's own home for instance has been the most recent assault.

Where have you heard this?

From Wikipedia (not always a great source, but this one seems historically accurate)
"Pope Urban VII's 13 day papal reign included the world's first known public smoking ban (1590), as he threatened to excommunicate anyone who "took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether it be by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose".[14]. But the first modern, nationwide tobacco ban was imposed by the Nazi Party in every German university, post office, military hospital and Nazi Party office, under the auspices of Dr Karl Astel's Institute for Tobacco Hazards Research, created in 1941 under direct orders from Adolf Hitler himself.[15] Major anti-tobacco campaigns were widely broadcast by the Nazis until the demise of the regime in 1945.[16]

From BBC
A woman, who has not been named, has written to the council saying cigarette smoke from next door was "permeating into her living room".

Gwynedd Council's public protection service has said it has a duty to investigate.

Gavin Gordon-Crawley, the subject of the complaint, called it "a joke".

Also from England

This startling development came to light when a Home Office memo was discovered in a bin bag in the Treasury car park by an illegal asylum seeker looking for discarded passports. A development that was confirmed today when Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, told a packed Member's bar in the House that: "We now have conclusive intelligence that smoking leads to paedophilia, heroin addiction and suicide bombing. Which is why we will be seeking to extend the ban to cover private homes at the earliest opportunity."

From Bob Barr at Atlanta Journal Constitution

n Golden, Colo., a judge has upheld the power of a homeowners association to ban smoking even in the confines of a person's own home. More troubling, a near majority of Americans actually favor a federal law making cigarettes illegal, according to a recent Zogby poll.

Based on the results of this poll, things are not likely to get better anytime soon, at least for those Americans—including this writer—who believe government already regulates far too much personal behavior. Zogby found the strongest support for a federal anti-smoking law was prevalent among those ages 18 to 29; 52 percent of "born-again Christians" favored such a law, as did 60 percent of those labeling themselves "very conservative." So much for "conservative" ideology as a bulwark against government power.

There are many, many people who are resisting the extremist in the anti-smoking "armies".

All fascist causes slipped into democracies as well intentioned ideas. When government intrusion goes off the deep end, it is important to be alert.

I'm not for people making other people sick. I just think it's crystal clear there is something a little "off" about the farthest out, almost hysterical fringes who are pushing the non-smoking issue.

Dr Karl Astel's Institute for Tobacco Hazards Research, created in 1941 under direct orders from Adolf Hitler himself

Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge reported that the occupants of the bunker broke out their cigarettes and booze almost immediately after hearing the gunshot that blessed the world with this teetotaler's absence.

More troubling, a near majority of Americans actually favor a federal law making cigarettes illegal, according to a recent Zogby poll.

Here again is a prime example of the fact that so many do not profit from history. A similar "noble" idea stuffed the pockets of Al Capone. But that sort of thing couldn't happen again, could it?

The Hill Online

Enough said for me. I respect those we disagree with me. It's one of most precious rights we have in this country.