bar owners always claim that smoking bans will kill their business. they blame the non-smoking, "do-gooders" and "dorks" for killing their business. but who exactly is it that stops going to bars when smoking bans pass?

smokers.


i'm a non-smoker and it's not my fault that your socially inept smoking patrons can't figure out what to do with their hands in public anymore. it's time to finally put the economic blame on the right people.

echo wrote:Basically the entire province of Ontario has gone smoke free over the past 5 years or so, and in every city, bar owners complained that they'd lose business, and for about a month they were right...then in every city it went back to the initial level, if not higher. cause the fact is, there are more people in the world who don't smoke, so obviously you're now appealing to a much bigger demographic. many of the bars here have built heated patios where people can still smoke and get served and whatnot, and that system seems to be working very well. smokers can still come and drink and whatever, and non-smokers can go out and not get bothered.

people always say stuff like, "we've always been able to smoke at bars, what gives?" and the answer is just because we've always done something, doesn't mean we should neccesarily keep doing it. like, 175 years ago people would have been saying, "come on, we've had slaves for years! the government shouldn't be able to tell us we can't!" let's get out of the stone age and stop wasting time with this argument. probably in our lifetimes, most public places will be smoke free. get used to the idea.

You realize how insane it is to compare owning fucking slaves to smoking a cigarette, right?
Completely insane and offensive to everyone with half a fucking ounce of common sense.
Ok, all you people so ban happy about shit you don't like, let's take it a lil further....
Why not ban loud live rock music? It's loud, it damages the ears of people who work at the place the band is playing....it damages the ears of the people going to the show...maybe there's a guy who just wanted to go into the bar and sit in silence, even though he knew damn well there was a loud band playing he still went in.... should the band stop playing because this man does not want his ears damaged? Fuck no you'd all say, he should go somewhere else.... he knew there'd be loud music there... plus we LIKE loud music, so it should stay.... what is the difference?
"Can you belive they used to allow people to hurt their ears like that? Thank god they passed that law outlawing it'
If you don't think it could get to that point eventually if the government is left unchecked and trusted completely to protect us from everything you are nuts.
This is all the work of crybaby assholes who insist on everything being exactally the way they want it at all times. These are the spoiled children who've always gotten their way and aren't about to stop getting it now. It's just not their mommy and daddy they are crying to, it's their elected officials acting as their new, more powerful mommy and daddy. The people who come into the record store and demand the music be turned down because it's too loud or the heat be turned up because it's too cold.
You go ahead and trust the boobs who are our elected officials to make sure life is just peachy and perfect for you...give them free reign to pass whatever dumb fuck crybaby laws they want, see how far they take it...

Mr Paranoid wrote:If you don't think it could to that point eventually if the government is left unchecked and trusted completely to protect us from everything you are nuts.

I didn't know there was a link to electrical from survivalistmilitiamen.com!!

This is all the work of crybaby assholes who insist on everything being exactally the way they want it at all times. These are the spoiled children who've always gotten their way and aren't about to stop getting it now.

I know you don't appreciate the irony in this, but what I have done here is quote you, so that everyone who does understand can laugh at you in a haughty and elitist manner.

solum wrote:

Mr Paranoid wrote:If you don't think it could to that point eventually if the government is left unchecked and trusted completely to protect us from everything you are nuts.

I didn't know there was a link to electrical from survivalistmilitiamen.com!!

This is all the work of crybaby assholes who insist on everything being exactally the way they want it at all times. These are the spoiled children who've always gotten their way and aren't about to stop getting it now.

I know you don't appreciate the irony in this, but what I have done here is quote you, so that everyone who does understand can laugh at you in a haughty and elitist manner.

I said earlier I don't smoke and I don't like smelling like smoke after a show either, where's the irony? If I insisted everyone allow smoking everywhere or else I can see, but I proposed letting bar owners choose whether or not to allow smoking...that would give people (like me, mind you) who don't like the smoke places to go as well as people who like to smoke places to go....it's the people who insist on forcing their ideals and morals and dorkiness on everyone else no matter what they might think about the subject I have a problem with.
The fact I want everyone to do whatever the fuck they want and be happy? Is that ironic?

The confinements of this limited discussion on smoking bans is mind numbing. Amidst our current political climate thoughts of any type of bans frighten me. They are usually misguided, misrepresented to the public, and more often than not have an underlying purpose which benefits the politicians who draft them. They don't care if your Ben Sherman shirt smells like smoke when you leave the club. Honestly, how many politicians do you think lose sleep at night fretting about 13 yr. old inner city kids choking on a Newport Light? None......... In a republic (this is a republic right?), the personal freedoms of even the smallest minority need to be upheld and defended by the majority. This helps to protect us from the tyranny of an unchecked central government. But, alas!!!! this has already happened and now the idea of states' rights is laughable. It's comforting to know that elements of what I thought was a progressively motivated "scene," are willing to deep throat this ban bullshit and then tell us how enlightened we've become because we can regulate smokers out of the bar. The boys in the white house need more liberals like you to show the rest of the citizens how to put on the rosy tinted glasses. Not only are you doing exactly what republicans criticize democrats for, you are doing their dirty work. Maybe instead of going in the evil and child damaging bars you should stand outside with signs and harass smokers as they come out.

Earth Crisis could do a little acoustic jam session next to the picket line.
It would be a politically engaging event. Unfortunately, I won't be in attendance. I will be at a local pub which, in addition to funneling money to the IRA, let's ME!!!!!!!!!!!!! choose to sit, eat, SMOKE, and enjoy a pint.

I am a little conflicted on this one on principle. On the one hand, I generally support any action taken that makes it harder to smoke. On the other hand, I generally don't support any government action that goes beyond what the government ought to be doing (if that makes me sound like a libertarian, I'm not). So you can see the conflict. Principle aside, however, I really like this, personally.

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

thedishonestdon wrote:

i'm a non-smoker and it's not my fault that your socially inept smoking patrons can't figure out what to do with their hands in public anymore. it's time to finally put the economic blame on the right people.

I can't think of a more appropriate avatar.

Marsupialized wrote:Ok, all you people so ban happy about shit you don't like, let's take it a lil further....
Why not ban loud live rock music? It's loud, it damages the ears of people who work at the place the band is playing....it damages the ears of the people going to the show...maybe there's a guy who just wanted to go into the bar and sit in silence, even though he knew damn well there was a loud band playing he still went in.... should the band stop playing because this man does not want his ears damaged? Fuck no you'd all say, he should go somewhere else.... he knew there'd be loud music there... plus we LIKE loud music, so it should stay.... what is the difference?
"Can you belive they used to allow people to hurt their ears like that? Thank god they passed that law outlawing it'

Excellent analogy.

Furthermore,
If you ban smoking in bars, the smokers will just go outside to smoke and then you have a bunch of drunk assholes standing outside causign trouble to innocent passers by. It happens in new york. A smoker who otherwise would not have been outside was and then a baby died.

I think that a good plurality, if not majority of anti-smokers are closet bigots who need someone to hate and choose smokers because its a politically correct division. I think that there is good progress and genuine progress being made to make smoking a thing of the past, specifically in regards to education and cracking down on underage smoking. This sort of thing is just mean spirited and vindictive.

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. 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 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. 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.

Tom wrote:I think that a good plurality, if not majority of anti-smokers are closet bigots

It's not wrong to hate smoking. No one is born a smoker.

I dont care one whit about a ban, but this fucking apocalyptic crybaby nonsense that the smokers are putting up is just too rich to ignore. You'd think they can't quit or something.

Oh.

Anyway, smoke up all you want, but dont expect me to ignore it (though I probably will), much less applaud you for exercising your "freedom" to do so, as I cough my way through a show because youre blowing that shit all around me. By the same token I'm not a "bigot" just because I resent it and you dont have the willpower to fucking save your own life. I'm philosophically opposed to a ban, but I also think that equating dislike of smoking with bigotry is beyond asinine.

A smoker who otherwise would not have been outside was and then a baby died.

WTF?

The as-yet-unspoken truth that all the smokers are hiding behind is that bar owners will never choose to ban smoking voluntarily, because the people who pay their rent by sitting on the same stool every night typically smoke their weight in cigarettes. Regulars are slow suicides and theyre almost always smokers.

Because of this, non-smoking bars are doomed, and the market will always favor smokers. In light of that, a non-smoker who backs a ban is no more or less a crybaby who wants everything his way than a smoker who doesnt want a ban is. Both sides really have only one option.