Marsupialized wrote: How about the owner of the bar can decide if he wants to let people smoke inside his bar? Some bars can be smoke filled, some can be smoke free....people who like to smoke can go to and work at smoke bars and people who don't like it can go to and work at smoke free bars....for some reason this isn't good enough for some people, and I don't understand why.

Actually they can... All they have to do is declare their establishment a private club, and then charge a membership fee. This is then no longer a public establishment and members can smoke...

but on the other hand.
I think sometimes people forget we live in a society, and the individual benefits from the society. Would you want to be in your house, and all of a sudden everyone else in the United States just disappeared. Of course not, society protects you from invasion, bodily harm, gives health care, food, goods, and frees the worker to pursue the arts or other careers besides hunting, food gathering and shelter building. Society has doubled human life expectancy.

So sometimes the individual has to give up rights for the good of the society from which each individual benefits. Forget cancer... what is worse is that 1 in 5 smokers will develop emphysema, and will eventually end up with constant pnuemonias and trips to the ICU for expensive medical stays for which society must flip the bill. Society knows people will go to bars, will work in bars, so that is the rationale... protect society from the huge cost of smoking related illness.

If you don't like being in a society and it's restrictions on the individual, but would rather strike out on your own. I hear Antartica is rather untamed and free of society.

bm nobturner

right now, if Alf's Bar decides to go non-smoking, all of Alf's patrons will go down to Bert's and Carl's Bars. Alf will see a little pickup in business from people who like to go to the bar but can't stand smoke, but that's a pretty small customer base. But, if the state outlaws smoking in bars, Alf's patrons will have nothing to gain by going down the road, and they'll still want to be at the bar for whatever reason they wanted to be there in the first place. They'll lose little, if any, business, and gain that small amount of business from people who can't stand smoke.

So essentially what you're saying, aside from the ill-stated comparison, is that without the smoking ban, a business owner (alf) who chooses to make their bar non-smoking (in a world full of choices) would be at a detriment since their patrons would most likely scratch the idea for a smoking bar (bert's or carl's)... but what about the *throngs of non-smokers* who would then come out of the woodwork to replace the abandoned barstools? if they don't actually exist in the #s all the ban-advocates say, then it seems Alf shouldn't own a business at all, or should cut costs to stay afloat, cause obviously the demographic he's looking for (like Ned Flander's left-handed store) just doesn't support the venue. But guess what! That's Alf's perogative! To drive his own business underground!

By claiming that you have to even the playing field (that being, enforce a non-smoking ban on every privately owned establishment) in order for a non-smoking business to succeed is sort of proving the point that a ban is unnecessary and furthermore extraordinarily selective.

But obviously the non-smoking thing works, right? And that's why last time I was in SF I was dragged around (exclusively) to the bars that were lax on smoking. Weird Beard! Not to mention the independantly owned trucker diners down in South Tampa that went out of business once smoking was regulated. Coincedence!? Double Weird Beard!

Linus Van Pelt wrote:right now, if Alf's Bar decides to go non-smoking, all of Alf's patrons will go down to Bert's and Carl's Bars. Alf will see a little pickup in business from people who like to go to the bar but can't stand smoke, but that's a pretty small customer base. But, if the state outlaws smoking in bars, Alf's patrons will have nothing to gain by going down the road, and they'll still want to be at the bar for whatever reason they wanted to be there in the first place. They'll lose little, if any, business, and gain that small amount of business from people who can't stand smoke.

This is not how things have gone down with non-smoking restaurants. Or even vegetarian resturants. Specializing can create a large pool of customers who while being in the minority, can show up in greater numbers. It is certainly true that not every non-smoking business would thrive as the exception, but that is just in keeping with supply and demand.

I have never smoked, and am always happy to attend a non-smoking event, but I will be unhappy if this comes to pass.

bm wrote:

Marsupialized wrote: How about the owner of the bar can decide if he wants to let people smoke inside his bar? Some bars can be smoke filled, some can be smoke free....people who like to smoke can go to and work at smoke bars and people who don't like it can go to and work at smoke free bars....for some reason this isn't good enough for some people, and I don't understand why.

Actually they can... All they have to do is declare their establishment a private club, and then charge a membership fee. This is then no longer a public establishment and members can smoke...

but on the other hand.
I think sometimes people forget we live in a society, and the individual benefits from the society. Would you want to be in your house, and all of a sudden everyone else in the United States just disappeared. Of course not, society protects you from invasion, bodily harm, gives health care, food, goods, and frees the worker to pursue the arts or other careers besides hunting, food gathering and shelter building. Society has doubled human life expectancy.

So sometimes the individual has to give up rights for the good of the society from which each individual benefits. Forget cancer... what is worse is that 1 in 5 smokers will develop emphysema, and will eventually end up with constant pnuemonias and trips to the ICU for expensive medical stays for which society must flip the bill. Society knows people will go to bars, will work in bars, so that is the rationale... protect society from the huge cost of smoking related illness.

If you don't like being in a society and it's restrictions on the individual, but would rather strike out on your own. I hear Antartica is rather untamed and free of society.

bm nobturner

bm, you're really reaching here. we're talking about the u.s. right? the place where we essentially decided on our freedom DUE to restrictions from outside parties... to 1 cent tax increases, an overt military/police presence, and the restrictions on our trade rights... we were founded on the opposition of restrictions ... and just because society exists and we, to a degree, demand certain rights (such as the one to live -- which isn't really being supported by our ozone, air quality, cars, a/c, diesel fuel, refineries, preservatives, microwaves, NUCLEAR WASTE, water quality, fda, lax/nonexistant-to-a-majority-of-the working class healthcare system, off-shore drilling, depletion of our natural resources, etc -- things that affect a lot more people than my smoke after a frustrating day of... uh... society) doesn't mean we should sacrifice any right for any proposed ban suited to one's personal tastes. remember prohibition? it's not like smokers created a law so that they could smoke. shit, tobacco is FROM here.

please don't give me this health bullshit because there's a lot we could cover that go above and beyond -- like how the japanese smoke twice as much as americans, per capita, yet have half the number of lung cancer victems per 100,000 people. think that could have something to do with their general health? the way they actually take care of their society? cause i'm saying, until this is some kind of utopia where health is -- once again -- a viable concern... we're wasting time, money, energy, and legislative attention on questionable (not reasonable) air quality complaints.

i say if yr gonna do something, let's just do it for real... where everybody, and i mean EVERYBODY makes a sacrifice for the greater good... and maybe i'm talking about cars or all the afforementioned -- but how is it so trivial a matter that no one is getting up-in-arms about the awesome progress OUR FAMOUS SOCIETY contributed to during the global warming talks at the G8. i mean shit, we're real serious about air quality... let's do some research for another 50 years but till then ban smoking in bars.

good work guys... let's support what really matters and allow our local governments to ignore other initiatives that could benefit people who can not afford to walk into a bar, nevertheless worry about this shit.

kenoki wrote:
please don't give me this health bullshit because there's a lot we could cover that go above and beyond -- like how the japanese smoke twice as much as americans, per capita, yet have half the number of lung cancer victems per 100,000 people.

Yes, "this health bullshit." My grandma smoked 3 packs a day, and she lived to be 112! It's bullshit!

Please provide a link to this research on Japanese smoking/lung cancer rates. I am interested.

In California, if you say that your bar is owner-run and the owner doesn't mind if people smoke, they can. In Oakland, Italia there are several bars that allow smoking under this loophole.

For the vast majority of bars that don't allow smoking- the smokers end up hanging out together outside, smoking. I'm sure they are forming lasting friendships and obtaining STDs that they never would have, were it not for the smoking ban.

To my mind, smoking bans can only be justified as a worker's health issue (forget the customers). We don't tell construction guys to just suck it up and breathe asbestos and die young.

kenoki wrote:please don't give me this health bullshit because there's a lot we could cover that go above and beyond -- like how the japanese smoke twice as much as americans, per capita, yet have half the number of lung cancer victems per 100,000 people. think that could have something to do with their general health?

A lot of what you said I agree with, but your logic is if we don't fix all these other horrible corruptions to society, then why fix this one. I don't think that is an argument... You are saying that because we don't have the political resolve to fix problem A which is worse, then we shouldn't fix problem B. Why is that an argument?

About this Japanese Stat What does the amount smoked per capita have to do with per 100,000 people. There is no information that can be derived from this statement. For example you could still have the japanese smoking twice as much per capita, and have half the smokers per 100,000. It depends on the population count, number of smokers, and how much each smoker smokes. Either you have incorrectly stated this, or it is meaningless.

And plus didn't you read that I said cancer is not the big health care cost... It is smoking related illness such as empysema (1 in 5 smokers), and heart disease.

I would actually support smoking in bars if every patron that smoked and frequented smoke filled bars were required to waive all right to smoking related medical care derived from insurance or freebies, and would be required to pay every penny out of their pockets. Because then they would choose not to smoke, and my health insurance costs would be less, as would health insurance for the poor. 1 in 5 get emphysema, that number is huge...

El Flaco wrote:

Also, principle aside, any bar owner ought to like this, for the same reason factories eventually embraced and supported child labor laws:

First of all let's not say that "factories", embraced anything. A factory is a building.

You're obviously right, and you're obviously picking nits. Unless you somehow thought that I actually believed that it was the buildings who embraced these reforms, and not the corporations that owned them. Yeah, I meant the corporations. Point Flaco.

These buildings are owned by very rich and powerful men who in post industrial revolution America exploited every form of worker they could get their hands on. Children were spared no mercy in this new economy. Previous to the dawn of the factories America's economy was largely based on agriculture and small "boutique", industries. On family farms children shared in the burden with the adults and had little or no freedom in compairison with their modern counterparts. They did not exist as a seperate class. Children did not bask in the endless summers of childhood that we now idealize. They worked, suffered and toiled. When the economy shifted and farmers migrated to the city their twelve kids went with them and the factories were more than happy

Please, let's not say that the factories were more than happy. A factory is a building.

to except the virtually free labor. Unfortunately for the owners of such places, the industrial revolution also brought with it a refreshing breath of humanist thought. Unions were formed and the first two decades of the twentieth century became quite violent. Simply because workers wanted fair wages and humane conditions. I could go on and on and on.

But apparently you prefer to be brief.

Thanks for the history lesson, but I don't know what your point is. I didn't say that child labor reforms came about due to the generous spirits of factory owners. I said that the corporations were eventually willing to accept and even embrace these reforms because of their own greed, and that that greed would not have allowed any one corporation to unilaterally institute these reforms.

So, please Linus, for the sake of many a child worker who died in the factory, or jumped out of a burning building, or was beat to death with a bat.........please don't make light of this with your careless comparisons.

Who's making light of anything? I was making a serious analogy. We have two examples in which businesses in an industry engage in a practice which becomes increasingly controversial, and yet they feel unable to quit this practice because it would put them at a serious competitive disadvantage. In the first case, they welcomed government intervention because it allowed them to quit the practice (exploiting children) without losing competitive advantage, because their competitors were forced to as well. And what I'm saying is, due to the similarities in the cases, we might expect similar results from bar owners. I don't see how this analogy is offensive to child laborers or any of those who gave their lives for the cause of labor.

Angus Jung wrote:
Yes, "this health bullshit." My grandma smoked 3 packs a day, and she lived to be 112! It's bullshit!

And my mother smoke 1 pack a day for 45 years, developed emphysema and then cancer and died at 61. Was it the cigarettes... I have no clue, but now we an N of 2 science boy.

bm

bm wrote:A lot of what you said I agree with, but your logic is if we don't fix all these other horrible corruptions to society, then why fix this one. I don't think that is an argument... You are saying that because we don't have the political resolve to fix problem A which is worse, then we shouldn't fix problem B. Why is that an argument?

About this Japanese Stat What does the amount smoked per capita have to do with per 100,000 people. There is no information that can be derived from this statement. For example you could still have the japanese smoking twice as much per capita, and have half the smokers per 100,000. It depends on the population count, number of smokers, and how much each smoker smokes. Either you have incorrectly stated this, or it is meaningless.

And plus didn't you read that I said cancer is not the big health care cost... It is smoking related illness such as empysema (1 in 5 smokers), and heart disease.

I would actually support smoking in bars if every patron that smoked and frequented smoke filled bars were required to waive all right to smoking related medical care derived from insurance or freebies, and would be required to pay every penny out of their pockets. Because then they would choose not to smoke, and my health insurance costs would be less, as would health insurance for the poor. 1 in 5 get emphysema, that number is huge...

Ok, well no, my logic is not that if we can not fix all these corruptions we should not correct any other problems. My point is that we are attempting to resolve curtain issues, and that by supporting these issues we are creating a more confusing world with about thirty more turns and crossroads to navigate through in order to get a grip on the idea of criminality. Should it be criminal to smoke in a bar owned by a smoker? In fact, I would not call that a horrible corruption to society, as you group it. That seems like a small-scale moral judgement to me...

If we continue to set the precedent that there is no order of importance in regard to our national health, then we will continue making small moves, avoiding actual issues, to restrict the individual's right. That is just more to overcome, more pseudoprogressive initiatives governments can cite as a reason why they can put off actual, more financially-arduous and thus forgettable, corrective measures. I'm not talking about yr right to walk around and shoot people at will or put our cigarettes in someone's eyeball... just the simple right to have some say in what goes on in the establishment you coined via a personal bank loan (or just personal saving), some ingenuity, and the good ole' american dream. Someone mentioned worker's health here; but that's assuming that a bartender doesn't take a knowing risk when dealing with a smoke-coated room (something I've seen synonymous with the bar-world since I was a lass, beginning with Humphrey Bogart, his rock tumbler and unfiltered smoke). Most of the bartenders I know came into it enticed by the mystique that comes with bartending and the potential rockstar status it includes. You're a bartender, it's dangerous... On a relative scale, no different than the parking garage attendant who has to deal with contained carbon monoxide all day (well, minus the cool points and tips... probably more for the insurance... which I guess then ups your premium once the chronic asthma sets in).

As for smoking related medical care... The majority of my family only have insurance because they served in the army for 20+ years, in every American war. I think that service warrants all the smoking they want as stress relief and all the paid-for medical care in the world. The rest of my family, however, are all uninsured (as are most of my friends). So I guess you could say our medical costs are waived by default.

In conclusion: if yr content, an advocate even, of cosmetic legislation then by all means be that guy... but if in the process you stomp on another hardworking law-abiding individual's civil liberties because you believe you have more a right to be in their establishment than they have authority over it ... I'm gonna have something to say about that, and I hope others will too.

p.s. I'll find those Japan stats... I saw some others on a COPD website (an affliction I also suffer from, actually) too -- but in regard to biofuels in relation to the number of Chinese with a COPD.

kenoki wrote:...

Regarding workers...
What if the bartender worked in a smoke free bar for 15 years, and then the establishment is purchased by a smoker.... The worker is forced to quit after 15 years of service?

Anyway I just believe no individual has the right to harm another individual. And since each individual benefits from society, that any harm caused to society is a transitive harm to the individual.

Veterans should have free health care (better than the VA) as should every US Citizen. Preventive medicine over a lifetime, and prevention of dangerous habits such as smoking and not wearing seatbelts can decrease the cost of health care so we can do this. But as of now Health Care is 15% of the GNP and our health statistics such as infant mortality are pretty bad for a developed nation. As of now if the unisured gets really ill, they are still treated and the hospital eats the cost passing it on to others. So we end up paying for it, so we may as well pay up front and give people frequent oil changes instead of waiting for the engine to fail.

I was being exreme regarding people waive their health care if they smoke to make a point. I just think each individual should do whatever they can to help stop smoking, and other health risks in this country, and in return society provides free health care.

How can you be a smoking advocate when you have now developed COPD from smoking? And I don't think even the tobacco industry will claim that smoking doesn't cause COPD.

bm nobturner