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People who annoy are many; New Jersey Drivers, people who have bullet stickers on their cars, and Notre Dame fans. But people who really get my blood boiling are those supporters of government rights over private rights who desire to ban smoking in every single place on Earth.
I see no problem with a business, be it a restaurant or bar, allowing smoking, or not allowing smoking. If a business owner wants to allow smoking, it is his decision. If he doesn't want smoking, that is also his decision. On the same token it is my decision as a customer to decide where they want to shop and eat. But it is doubly true for owners and members of private clubs. These are only open to members and cater to certain groups. VFW's, American Legions, gun clubs, and other social clubs all fit the bill. But there are certain people who won't stop at banning smoking in publc places. From the the Boston Herald
Bill LaRaia, a retired Quincy EMT, said he's paid dues to a private club for 25 years. ``For you to tell me I can't go in there and have a cigarette - that's a disgrace.'' The issue pits private clubs against some restaurant and pub operators, who support the smoking ban expansion. Operators said they stand to lose business to private clubs. "`We feel if you're not going to allow people to smoke in a public place, why should they be allowed to go smoke in a private club?'' said Bill Damon, with Darcy's Pub. A state law went into effect this week banning smoking in public places, including offices, restaurants and bars, though not in members-only clubs or cigar bars. Under Scheele's local proposal, smoking would also be banned at private clubs in Quincy as of July 18. He has the authority to enact such health-related regulations under state law, said Monica Conyngham, the city solicitor. Spread the word 
 Article Author: Tom BuxTom Bux is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University with a degree in American Studies. He is currently working on his masters degree in training and development at Penn State Harrisburg.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Eric Olsen
man, I hate government butts
2 - Jim Carruthers
What annoys me about this knee-jerk junkie reaction is that it ignores that smoking in a public place is a public health issue.
A good test of this sort of nonsense is to do a search and replace of "smoke" and "smoking" with "piss" and "pissing", or "rat feces". Imagine that! The gummit won't let us operate our club kitchen because there's rat shit in the food. Why, that choice should be up to our members. And the e. coli in the tap water? The goddamn gummit should mind their own business (that's what happened here in Ontario, 11 people died, hundreds were made gravely ill).
And by the way, William B. Davis, doesn't smoke tobacco, and he's done benefits to curb smoking in public.
Smokers should be given treatment, not indulgence of their addiction. If you want to commit suicide, go jump off a bridge, it's faster.
3 - Tom
You would believe all that bullshit. You live in a nothing country. NOTHING COUNTRY.
You don't even know what true liberty is. If you would actually read my post you would say the FREE MARKET should decide. Why should the government decide for a taxpaying bar/restaurant if they should allow smoking, which is a legal product. But the free market doesn't decide in your country hence your lack of any major industry or business exports from Canada.
If you hate smoking that much get out of the cigar bar and shut the fuck up.
4 - Mark Saleski
wow! maybe you should run for congress tom.
you've got the current tone just about down.
5 - Tom
Let me clarify, not the Canadian to shut the fuck up, but people who butt their turned up noses into private affairs and tell us how to live our lives.
It comes down to this. Basic Freedom=All Controlling government.
6 - Jim Carruthers
Tom, I can't wait to hear your tirade about how masturbating in public outside of elementary schools is the last bastion of "liberty".
Wank on, crazy dude!
7 - Mac Diva
LOL @ Mark! (On second thought, if Al Barger can. . . .)
The no-smoking rule is about to be expanded to include bars in Portland. The reasons Jim Carruthers gave are why. After several years of Tom Bux's 'solution,' i.e., allowing owners to decide, it has proven unworkable. Workers in the establishment are particularly vulnerable. They have to accept smoking or become unemployed. Nor do tiny smoking areas really work. The smoke often drifts into the larger room(s). Nor patios. Just last week I had to ask a barista at a Starbucks with those large front and side windows open to shut them. Being there is just like being in a smoking area because there is no real division.
Tom Bux's mistake is the kind of reasoning error I get frustrated with when I teach. He has grabbed hold of the owner's 'rights' and is ignoring the rights of everyone else effected, particularly employees.
8 - Tom
Jim,
Stop grasping at straws, equating masturbating in public to smoking is nonsense.
Mac,
If smoking is so bad. Ban it, or stop taxing it. I find it ironic that public officials who piss and moan about how bad smoking is, still take the tax reveune from smokers.
Why don't be ban alcohol now. Too many people are driving home drunk and putting me at risk when I am coming home from work sober. I don't have a choice to avoid them. They are everywhere. The same arguments you are using now were used to start prohabition.
There are plenty of places to work which don't allow smoking. I mentioned in my post there are two steakhouses. Both comparable in food and price. One allows smoking and drinking, one does not. I get to choose. As an employee I get to choose to work at either place. Are you saying that if a restaurant allows drinking, but you are against drinking should that place ban it now just because you don't want to be around it? No, go find some place that fits your idea of a nice time. Why should the government tell ME or YOU what environment we eat, drink, or hang out in.
Many bartenders work at bars because they get good tips, but don't want to be around the type of people (smokers) who go to these places.
It's like saying you want to be a lineman for the power company because of the good pay, but don't want to be around electricity.
9 - Tom
You also say this:
The reasons Jim Carruthers gave are why. After several years of Tom Bux's 'solution,' i.e., allowing owners to decide, it has proven unworkable.
You mean unworkable because the outcome didn't fit your social agenda? If the market decided that bars should remain smoke freefloating, then your side lost.
10 - Mark Saleski
so tom, should there be no government regulations relating to the health of workers & customers?
no checking for the safety of food?
no checking for the safety of water?
air?
the free market can decide all of this stuff?
11 - Tom
Something indeed is quite funky with the comments. They are getting cross posted with some post about Oasis.
12 - Tom
There has to be a fine line about meaningful regulations.
We are talking about repealing current freedoms many people enjoy. There is a fine line between needfull regulation and needless regulation.
To say we need reguations for our safety can be taken further everytime someone sees something they don't like. What is next? Fattening food? Flourescent lights?
You have to keep in mind that when we lose one freedom, we rarely ever get it back, and it opens the door for more and more freedoms to be infringed upon.
Where the hell is Al Barger when you need him. Ask him, he's a politico.
13 - Phillip Winn
I'm not sure what anybody else is seeing in the comments, but since people are talking about it, I've checked, and it all looks normal to me so far. Can somebody please explain what they're seeing?
I see 12 relatively on-topics here, I think, and none on the Oasis post.
Is that not right?
14 - Jim Carruthers
Tom, I don't know of any cases of people catching diseases from second-hand cum.
Tobacco smoke is a public health issue, just like feces in water, cockroaches in kitchens, anti-freeze added to booze, pissing in the clam chowder (Tyler Durden, please report to customer service).
Your agenda is nothing more than anti-social terrorism, justification of thuggery, society by gangsters, nasty, brutish and impolite.
What's next, you're going to advocate throwing kittens in sacks off bridges?
And I will note, he didn't deny he enjoys public masturbation outside elementary schools, so it must be a favourite hobby.
15 - Semi-Anonymous Banned Fella
Tom: I think you're being too logical here.
Of course, in a rational society, people could willingly choose to go, or not go, to a private business that allowed smoking. People could also willingly choose to work, or not work, at such places.
However, we do not live in a rational society anymore.
Smoking is EVIL, and smokers are also EVIL, and the tobacco companies are EVIL, and if you support the rights of any of the above, you also support defacating in food and masterbating in front of pre-teens.
Get it? You're 100% right, but you're not going to win the debate, because it will neccesarily devolve into sophisms, fallacies, and mindless emotionalism.
Thanks. I feel better now.
16 - Jim Carruthers
[personal attack deleted]
17 - Dan
Just for fun, here is a link that takes a look back at some earlier anti-smoking crusaders: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/313/7070/1450
Not to mention the fraudulent politically motivated junk science that constitutes the majority of second hand smoke hype.
18 - Mac Diva
[personal attack deleted] [The anti-smoking movement] has not achieved all its goals, but has been very successful considering how much money and power (as in influence over legislators) is available to the other side.
Substituting other practices for smoking in public places [personal attack deleted], such as eating fattening foods, does not work because there is no passive effect on other people. I can watch a dozen food fanastics pig out every day and not gain a pound. The same cannot be said for spending time in a smoking environment.
Perhaps there will be 'smokers' clubs, not just for cigar smokers, down the road. As resistance mounts, public smoking is an activity that may need to be done will fellow travelers in special settings, like sex clubs or Ku Klux Klan meetings.
19 - Mac Diva
typo: fanatics
20 - Mike Kole
I don't think smoking is a good idea. I don't smoke myself, but I take the Voltaire approach, if you know what I mean.
This business of banning smoking in restaurants and bars is just another attempt by others to impose their morality upon others- even upon those who are aware of the risks and accept the risks. It is an easy thing for a bar to post a huge sign on the door that says, "Smoking permitted inside. Those who are concerned about the health risks posed by second-hand smoke should consider going elsewhere," thus giving prospective patrons an informed decision to make.
I find it awfully convenient to describe the tobacco side as the only one with money or power. Can you imagine being in a business where you air ads telling people not to use your product? This is not done because Phillip Morris thinks it a good business strategy. It is done because a combination of the Federal and various states governments force it to be done. Now that's proof of where the power lies.
21 - Mac Diva
That is the price of producing a product that kills people. Death, the really onerous burden, is a risk for anyone who regularly comes into contact with smoke from tobacco products. Employees are often not free to just get another job. As I said above, we're curtailing smoking in bars in Portland. Oregon has had one of the highest unemployment rates for years. The workers who were inhaling that smoke over those years had no real choice.
What I see here is doctrine of the elect thinking. A preference for the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and powerless. Phillip-Morris' stockholders and executives are not more important than the waitresses and bartenders forced to inhale smoke from their products in my opinion. They are in yours.
22 - Semi-Anonymous Banned Fella
Perhaps we should ban roofers and lifeguards from working in Florida and California? After all, skin cancer kills...(of course, so do sharks...)
23 - Semi-Anonymous Banned Fella
We should also ban coal-mining. Black lung disease is no joke.
And dental X-Rays? Puh-Lease. In order to appease Big Tooth, we are greatly enhancing the risk of minorites and the poor who are more likely to have cavities.
And people should be prevented from joining the military. I mean, those people sometimes go to war and die and stuff!
Police officers are often shot in the line of duty. Hey, dealing with criminals all day is just plain dangerous! We need to save otherwise unemployable cops from being forced to enter this line of work.
Gas station clerks are also at grave risk. We need to close those bastions of criminality down!
Are there any other professions out there that are not risk-free? If so, we must STAMP THEM OUT. It's the humane thing to do...
24 - bhw
Second-hand roofing and lifeguarding do not kill people who chose not to engage in roofing or lifeguarding but who worked near those who did.
25 - bhw
Whoops, changed tenses in the middle of that sentence. Oh well.