A strange side effect...

[phantasmagoria]

in england they don't

[Grudge]

lol, in 10 years everyone is going to say "Remember when you were allowed to smoke in restaurants? How disgusting! Hahaha!"

[werldhed]

ffs people.
Banning smoking in public places isn't about controlling whether people smoke. It's protecting people who don't smoke from having to breathe that shit.

Some people are into bondage, too. But you can't go into a restaurant and start whipping people because you think you have the right to do that wherever you want.

[losCHUNK]

non smokers die everyday

[+JuggerNaut+]

or they could just go somewhere else to smoke.
a restaurant is meant to get food. so dont smoke in my food area.

bam.

[+JuggerNaut+]

And yet you fools still pump ten times the toxins of smoke into the air with your two and four wheel poison factories. Waaa! My clothes smell like tobacco! Waaaaa! I'm eating and I don't wanna smell yer smoke.

Get bent you skirt wearing sissies! I'll be at the Starbucks on Bradshaw in Sac today at 7:00p. Why don't you come on down and put my cigarette out for me.

douchebags

shut it, you flaming cunt.

[MKJ]

What's the governments incentive to stopping smoking? why should they care if people are killing themselves off by smoking?

believe it or not, public health is a governments responsibility. theres nothing 'sudden' about it

[R00k]

Which is why it's legal in the first place.

[Dr_Watson]

If non-smokers boycotted smoking restaurants, you could get the change you wanted to see. Passing social engineering legislation for the part of people who are militant anti-smokers is just a half-assed measure anyway. You either outlaw cancer-causing tobacco products (which I would support), or stop dictating to businesses what clientele they are allowed to serve.

the most sensible thing in this thread.

seriously... either make the things completely illegal or let the business owner decide what to allow in their establishment.

Some people are into bondage, too. But you can't go into a restaurant and start whipping people because you think you have the right to do that wherever you want.

How about you walk into a bar that allows the serving staff to wear bondage gear and whip wanting customers and then complain rather than go to an establishment that better suits your tastes.

[LawL]

"smoker's rights"

"non-smoker's rights"

I love the way non-smokers have ostracised smokers and exposed them as the rejects of society that they are.

[Chupacabra]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7480856.stm
what now, twats?

Researchers say this could potentially help save as many as 40,000 lives in the next 10 years

That's a possible 40,000 houses the next generation of single-living sprog droppers are going to need
For fuck's sake though. People die. Get over it. I wouldn't consider my life 'saved' if I was forced to stop smoking. I'd consider it controlled. I can't sit in a pub with a fag and a pint but I can get shipped to a desert and shot in the cunting face. Bugger off

[Peenyuh]

ffs people.
Banning smoking in public places isn't about controlling whether people smoke. It's protecting people who don't smoke from having to breathe that shit.

Some people are into bondage, too. But you can't go into a restaurant and start whipping people because you think you have the right to do that wherever you want.

Shut yer car off...and leave it off. The emissions are bothering me.

You people quit driving, I'll quit smoking.

solved

[vesp]

Lol... yes lets compare a mode of transport that has become essential to a lot of people in their daily lives (eg traveling to work) to an addictive drug that causes health problems in the user and those around them (particularly young children).
Not to mention that it can make an entire room of people stink of rancid smoke for no better reason than to satisfy some selfish bastard's cravings.

I take it Peenyuh doesn't have to drive to the job that supports him and his family then...

[Grudge]

he just sits on a street corner and waits for the white man with a truck to come pick him up

[vileliquid1026]

I miss smoking in bars and restaurants...

It's hard to get off the stool to go have one once you've have too many...

[werldhed]

Smoking apparently prevents the use of apt analogies in this thread.

How about you walk into a bar that allows the serving staff to wear bondage gear and whip wanting customers and then complain rather than go to an establishment that better suits your tastes.

First of all, if you go to a bondage bar, then you are choosing it based on the service they provide. That is, if I just want a drink, I'm not going to go to a dungeon. If I want to get whipped, then yes, I will go there. Likewise, if I want to inhale smoke, I'll go to a hookah bar, and not a regular restaurant. I choose to frequent restaurants because I want to enjoy a meal there, not because I'm expecting to smoke.

I don't suggest that smoking rooms and hookah bars should have a ban on smoking, because that's their purpose. Smoking rooms are for smoking, bondage dungeons are for whipping, restaurants are for eating. End of story.

Shut yer car off...and leave it off. The emissions are bothering me.

You people quit driving, I'll quit smoking.

solved

Where to start with this?

1. Cars operate outside, not in restaurants. Comparing the exhaust of a car on the road and the smoke at the table next to me is illogical.
2. Even if it was a logical argument, cars already have emissions standards and regulations, so I guess we agree that cigarette smoking should as well, right?
3. Regardless, I have no issue with you smoking on the street, and don't suggest banning that. When I start running my car in the restaurant next to where you're sitting, then we'll talk.
4. Cigarette smoke contains more CO than car exhaust, and more toxins, iirc.
5. Cars serve a purpose, and I'm willing to make a slight risk to my health for that necessary evil. Smoking is pointless and I am not willing to risk cancer when I'll I'm going to get from it at the end of the day is a vile and permeating stench.
6. I don't drive my car more than two or three times a month anyway. So based on your post, that means you're going to smoke only two or three times a month, too, right?

[R00k]

Smoking apparently prevents the use of apt analogies in this thread.

Like this one?

Some people are into bondage, too. But you can't go into a restaurant and start whipping people because you think you have the right to do that wherever you want.

Today, if a restaurant wanted to respect both smokers and non-smokers, and create a ventilated smoking lounge in a separate part of the building, so everyone would be happy, they would not be able to do that thanks to the legislation that was passed here. Businesses no longer have any choice in the matter.

That's wonderful though, right? As long as you're happy (since you're the one who doesn't have the nasty habit), then it's okay if everyone else's choices become limited.

And I'm the selfish one because I'm addicted to something that's sold on every street corner in the country, due to the fact that I was able to buy them easily when I was young and stupid. Fuck off.

[werldhed]

I think it's an apt analogy. It would be generally the same situation

Today, if a restaurant wanted to respect both smokers and non-smokers, and create a ventilated smoking lounge in a separate part of the building, so everyone would be happy, they would not be able to do that thanks to the legislation that was passed here. Businesses no longer have any choice in the matter.

Really? That's retarded. My understanding was that this was still a choice the restaurants could make, at least where I live. I'm all for that sort of situation. I don't support outright banning people from smoking (although I would like that, it's an infringement the gov't has no right to make). So in the case of the legislation where you live... no I don't think that's a good solution.

But I don't buy the excuse of cigarettes being readily available when you were a kid for you having the right to smoke around me. It's nobody else's fault you're addicted. It certainly isn't mine and I shouldn't have to pay for it.

[plained]

Today, if a restaurant wanted to respect both smokers and non-smokers, and create a ventilated smoking lounge in a separate part of the building, so everyone would be happy, they would not be able to do that thanks to the legislation that was passed here. Businesses no longer have any choice in the matter.

That's wonderful though, right? As long as you're happy (since you're the one who doesn't have the nasty habit), then it's okay if everyone else's choices become limited.

And I'm the selfish one because I'm addicted to something that's sold on every street corner in the country, due to the fact that I was able to buy them easily when I was young and stupid. Fuck off.

wtf

[Underpants?]

I don't think you're going to win this one, r00keh.

[R00k]

I think it's an apt analogy. It would be generally the same situation

Today, if a restaurant wanted to respect both smokers and non-smokers, and create a ventilated smoking lounge in a separate part of the building, so everyone would be happy, they would not be able to do that thanks to the legislation that was passed here. Businesses no longer have any choice in the matter.

Really? That's retarded. My understanding was that this was still a choice the restaurants could make, at least where I live. I'm all for that sort of situation. I don't support outright banning people from smoking (although I would like that, it's an infringement the gov't has no right to make). So in the case of the legislation where you live... no I don't think that's a good solution.

But I don't buy the excuse of cigarettes being readily available when you were a kid for you having the right to smoke around me. It's nobody else's fault you're addicted. It certainly isn't mine and I shouldn't have to pay for it.

Nobody's saying you have to pay -- at least that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the government is in the wrong here for at least two reasons:
1) The stated/accepted reason for these laws is that smoke causes cancer, even second-hand. If that's really the case, and the government is finally at a point where it's ready to make statements like that, then how is anything short of outlawing them any kind of solution? It's not like they have any medical benefit - all they do is stink and cause cancer.
2) The government is banning people from smoking on, or near, the property of certain kinds of businesses, without the businesses having any say in that decision. That is wrong.

I may be a smoker, but I don't smoke in my own house because I don't want my house to stink like smoke. I don't blame other people for not wanting to smell like it, and I certainly don't blame people who don't want their kids to be around it. But the decision of whether a business is going to allow people to smoke or not should be made by that business -- unless the substance in question is illegal.

[Ryoki]

I completely agree.

[werldhed]

I mostly agree with your second point. Businesses should have the option of having proper ventilation, if that is a viable option. I didn't realize the ban in your area was so absolute.

I don't agree with your first point, though. I don't think the gov't should outlaw a hazardous substance if it is up to an individual whether to use it. They should be responsible for preventing the exposure to everyone else, however.
Again, I would be happy with a complete tobacco ban, but I'm not sure eliminating every cancer-causing thing is a good road to start down.
I think this gets back to the sort of gloom-and-doom scenario seremtan was illustrating. There are plenty of dangerous things people like to do, but they all have their time and place. You can't race cars on public streets because it's dangerous, but I don't think gov't should ban motorsports.

Or is that another poor analogy?

[R00k]

Well, I see your meaning, but motor sports isn't a highly physically addictive substance.

But to be honest, I tend to agree with you on that point, except for the comparisons it leads me to draw. When it comes right down to it, cigarettes (as they are currently made) aren't too terribly different from cocaine as far as the negative effects they have on you, yet that is illegal.

As far as the laws here:
In Nashville (like most places), restaurants and bars have always had the ability to decide whether to have a smoking section or not. Well before the bans went into effect, there were already plenty of restaurants that did not have smoking sections (I have a friend who is allergic to something in cigarette smoke, so I've been to quite a few of them).

The problem was that a lot of the chain restaurants and sports bars, where so many people like to go, make a lot of money off smokers, so they never had any desire to lose their business. When the ban went into effect, it banned any business from allowing people to smoke within a certain number of feet (10 or 20, can't remember) of the business. This included any restaurant where food sales made up a certain percentage of their business, and any business that wasn't strictly 21-and-older.

So now there aren't even any sports bars where you can have a cigarette, because they do too much business in food, or because they allow 18-21 year olds. They'd like to change this, but they can't. I know one place that has changed to only allow 21 and older just so they could retain all their customers who smoke - but they also lost all their 18-21 year old customers.

Aside from nightclubs (which I never go to), I only know of 3 places within 15 miles of downtown where you can have a cigarette - and I think one of them may be breaking the law just to let their customers smoke. Another one of them is the Flying Saucer -- I guess having hundreds of beers on tap helps their alcohol-to-food ratio. That in itself isn't a problem - the problem is that a lot of those businesses would prefer to allow smoking, but they can't.

[werldhed]

Well, I see your meaning, but motor sports isn't a highly physically addictive substance.

But to be honest, I tend to agree with you on that point, except for the comparisons it leads me to draw. When it comes right down to it, cigarettes (as they are currently made) aren't too terribly different from cocaine as far as the negative effects they have on you, yet that is illegal.

Good point. And I agree that nicotine should be illegal -- which for all intents and purposes would mean a ban on cigarettes, because nobodies really going to keep smoking if not for the nicotine.

Around here, few restaurants and bars have complained about business loss following the ban -- except one, but it's owned by some douchebags.