| Author | Message | ||
     Paul Surovell Supporter Username: Paulsurovell Post Number: 464 Registered: 2-2003 |
Here's a question I posed to Libertarian twice on the other No Smoking thread that -- as far as I'm aware -- he/she has failed to answer: Do you recognize society's right to require restaurant owners to provide a safe environment for their customers? | ||
| The Libertarian Citizen Username: Local_1_crew Post Number: 1307 Registered: 3-2004  |
Do you recognize society's right to require restaurant owners to provide a safe environment for their customers? i have failed to answer it because it is a trick question. you will twist my answer to suit your point. it is an obvious ploy that i saw coming down b'way like a macy's thanksgiving day parade balloon | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2322 Registered: 3-2003 |
"No one is arguing the harmful affects of smoking people" Agreed. Smoking people is very, very bad. | ||
| The Libertarian Citizen Username: Local_1_crew Post Number: 1310 Registered: 3-2004 |
soylent green is people!!!! | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 1859 Registered: 8-2003  |
the idea that this is "imposing morality on the majority" (actually a minority, but let's ignore that for the moment) is silly. if the state wanted to impose morality it would prohibit smoking entirely. people can puff away to their hearts' content, as long as they don't impose it on anyone else. | ||
| The Libertarian Citizen Username: Local_1_crew Post Number: 1311 Registered: 3-2004 |
people can puff away to their hearts' content, as long as they don't impose it on anyone else. but this bill is touted as a health initiative. if people can puff away then what is the point? | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 1860 Registered: 8-2003 |
it is allegedly to protect the health of non-smokers from the hazards of second hand smoke. but our lawmakers should be honest - it's a quality of life issue for non-smokers and should be positioned as such. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2323 Registered: 3-2003 |
"Cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined." Jamie, your data on the comparative lethality of smoking (which I would like to point out is conveniently not reported as an age-related phenomenon: alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs likely kill people much younger, on average, than smoking does) is located here: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm Regrettably, you left out the very next most important cause of death on this list: Poor Diet and Physical Inactivity (365,000 deaths per year, which is, according these claims, only 70,000 deaths fewer than smoking). I would like to ask you and Paul Surovell if society's "right to require restaurant owners to provide a safe environment for their customers" extends to prohibiting the sale of foods that contribute to a poor diet. Shouldn't Friday's be prohibited from serving dessert to fat people? After all, they are killing themselves. (By the way, I wouldn't want to have to vouch for any of these stats--they come off a pro-drug-legalization website and may be exaggerated to support that agenda--or Jamie's claims one way or the other. However, just for the record, I do support legalizing and taxing domestically grown marijuana.) | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2324 Registered: 3-2003 |
"but our lawmakers should be honest - it's a quality of life issue for non-smokers and should be positioned as such." Exactly. | ||
| Dave Supporter Username: Dave Post Number: 8377 Registered: 4-1997  |
And yet if Mr. Creosote eats the wafer thin mint he is only killing himself. | ||
| Paul Surovell Supporter Username: Paulsurovell Post Number: 465 Registered: 2-2003 |
If your position cannot respond to such a fundamental question, you have conceded the debate. | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 1861 Registered: 8-2003 |
yes jcrohn, because there's nothing wrong with that. the state has a legitimate interest in improving the quality of life for its residents. smokers may disagree that this legislation improves their quality of life, but millions of non-smokers will believe that it does. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2325 Registered: 3-2003 |
"the state has a legitimate interest in improving the quality of life for its residents." Sure, to an extent. But not to the extent that bogus claims about the lethality of second hand smoke must be used to justify banning smoking everywhere. (Except of course, mysteriously, casinos.) Quite a lot of unnecessarily intrusive legislation can be justified under the banner of 'improving the quality of life for residents.' I'd like to believe there's an up side--that the increasing prevalence of smoking bans will have a net benefit on the national cost of healthcare. But then I think...ehh, probably not. If people stop dying of lung cancer in their 60s and 70s, they'll start dying of other cancers (etc.) as a result of living longer, and these will be just as costly, or more so, to treat... | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 11942 Registered: 1-2003  |
How far should we take that argument, jcrohn? I've learned a lot here. Thanks, folks. Libertarian, why not answer Paul's question? Is your argument so vulnerable to twisting? Why don't you tell us the way you anticipate he will twist it and give us the counter-counter-argument? | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 1862 Registered: 8-2003 |
J.Crohn, I'm not a huge proponent of this smoking ban, but I don't see how it's "unnecessarily intrusive" given that smoking is already prohibited in virtually every public building except restaurants and bars. The smokers' argument, to me, seems to boil down to one of entitlement - I've always been allowed to smoke in bars, and so I should always be entitled to. But relatively recently, non-smokers have also decided that they are entitled to clean air. How, in the enclosed space of a restaurant do you accomplish both? I think the sorts of bans that are proposed are eminently reasonable. No one is saying smokers can't smoke, or that they can only smoke in their homes. All this ban is saying is - if you want to smoke, step outside for a few minutes. The smoker gets nicotine, the non-smoker gets clean air. In a few months, everyone will adapt to this, and realize the controversy was overblown. Smokers will drift outside for a quick butt, and go back to their beers. Non-smokers will rejoice that a drop in at St. James's Gate no longer means taking their suits to the cleaners the next day. | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 11944 Registered: 1-2003 |
jcrohn, ya gotta admit, 100% of smokers die!  | ||
| tjohn Supporter Username: Tjohn Post Number: 3940 Registered: 12-2001  |
Bear in mind the following: 1. Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. 2. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday,lying in Hospitals dying of nothing. | ||
| Hoops Citizen Username: Hoops Post Number: 719 Registered: 10-2004  |
at the cost of actually trying to sound like our friend Southerner - Hey if you dont like the new law vote some people in who care about the shrinking 20% of people who are smokers. Right now my side has won and if you are a smoker you cant smoke on me in a restaurant anymore. Good for me and anyone who hates to eat where there is cigarette smoke. | ||
| J. Crohn Supporter Username: Jcrohn Post Number: 2326 Registered: 3-2003 |
Tom Reingold: "How far should we take that argument, jcrohn?" Just about as far as it makes sense, all other things considered, and no further. "How, in the enclosed space of a restaurant do you accomplish both?" You don't, Dr. Boogie, and I haven't suggested you can. What I have suggested is that rather costly smoking licenses could be granted to a small number (certainly under 50% per business category, probably considerably less, but subject to local decision) of bars and restaurants in every municipality. (I'm realizing, though, that a flaw in my suggestion is that municipalities here tend to be very small, which might lead to market distortions between towns close to each other, where one held more smoking licenses than another. So perhaps this would have to be regulated at a county level.) Determining how many licenses would be available should take into account market conditions, which is to say, majority preference, and also the state's interest in discouraging smoking (not "improving citizens' quality of life," which is another matter altogether). People under the age of 18 could be prohibited from entering smoking establishments altogether. If Hoops is correct that only 20% of people in Maplewood smoke, then this data could be employed in establishing that no more than 2 out of every ten local bars could hold a smoking license at any given time. There might even be applicable extraneous arguments for reducing that number further. By the way, there have been here some assertions that such a scheme would create a debilitatingly "unfair" advantage for some establishments over others. But I have seen no reasonable rebuttal to my argument that, over time, most such advantages would be taken care of by the market. Again, I would point out that alcohol is already regulated in ths way. Not only does Pathmark not suffer by being next door to A&P, which has an alcohol license, but restaurants that don't have alcohol licenses seem to do well enough that no one really cavils much about unfair competition in their case. So I see no reason to hang so much on that argument here. "I don't see how it's "unnecessarily intrusive" given that smoking is already prohibited in virtually every public building except restaurants and bars." All law is, potentially at least, intrusive. A law is unnecessarily intrusive if an alternative that can accommodate legitimate opposing interests may be had, at no unbearable cost, but is dismissed in favor of the law that does not accommodate legitimate opposing interests. (Just to head off someone or other's next silly hypothetical: a counterexample of a legitimate opposing interest, IMO, would be the interest of parents who don't want to have to be bothered buckling their small children into car seats.) Such an alternative is available to the total bar/restaurant smoking ban, whereas it is generally not available to employees and visitors to public (or private corporate) buildings. That is because it is not usually practicable for a company to supply different, separately ventilated facilities for smokers and non-smokers (who virtually always must be able to work together), but it is quite practicable to reserve a small number of bars and restaurants for people who wish to go there and smoke. Because the number of employees in such businesses tends to be small, it wouldn't be difficult to find people who would agree to work there because they personally had no problem with inhaling others' fumes, or because they valued the opportunity to smoke on the job. One could even make it a law that such employees should have to sign a waiver that says something to the effect that, "I am aware and accept that I have applied for work at a legal smoking establishment," or whatever. And if you wanted to constrain unintended consequences further, you could provide that only bars/restaurants with X number of employees or fewer would be eligible for smoking licenses at all. All this is only to say that fairer alternatives to this law were surely available and could have been made as workable as other consumption restrictions commonly enacted (e.g., on alcohol). But again, I prefer a smoke-free environment, so this thinly garbed power grab that I find reprehensible in principle will undoubtedly benefit me personally. Only, what kind of precedent does it set for the day when I am a victim, rather than a beneficiary, of some regulation that someone else claims is in "my" best interest? On that subject, BTW, why is it in my best interest to have children's fluoriude vitamins available only by perscription? Or prenatal vitamins, which are exactly like regular multivitamins except that they have extra folate in them (which I think can also be purchased separately over the counter)? Or steroidal asthma inhalers, like Advair? It's not like any of these substances is prone to abuse, or even overdose, really, unlike pseudoephedrine, which is a common ingredient in OTC cold medications. (I can't even take the stuff, myself--it gives me heart palpitations.) Who do regulations such as these benefit? | ||
| Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 11948 Registered: 1-2003 |
Good thoughts, jcrohn! Where were you when the legislators wrote the smoking ban bill? As for controlling those relatively safe drugs, I believe there are bad effects from overuse. I acknowledge that overuse is not as bad as abuse and overdose, so maybe these restrictions are too tight. I can't claim to understand FDA rules, nor can I claim they are consistent. | ||
| jamie Citizen Username: Jamie Post Number: 398 Registered: 6-2001  |
Why hasn't there been any backlashes over the smoking ban in California? Let's look at where this has taken effect and note any negative issues. Seems like once a ban takes - it sticks and it makes no sense to overturn it. Restaurants make more $ & society gets healthier. | ||
| Mayor McCheese Supporter Username: Mayor_mccheese Post Number: 788 Registered: 7-2004  |
Jamie, much of the stuff written on the California ban is from a few years ago because it was enacted in 1998. What I have seen written about this ban from the years of 1998 to about 2001 is that the ban was largly ignored by residents. In addition there are many articles readily available through a quick google search showing businesses hurting or shutting down as a result of this smoking ban in California. End result: Restaurants/Bars lose more money & society loses freedoms once protected under the constitution. Oh... and people may or may not be slightly more healthy depending on whether you buy into the recent studies you read by antismoking groups. | ||
| GOP Man Citizen Username: Headsup Post Number: 257 Registered: 5-2005  |
McCheese is right. Which of you libs is going to volunteer to take care of all the bartenders' kids who will be homeless when bars start closing due to this ban? The state should be encouraging people to smoke in bars, not discouraging them. It's a known fact that smoking dries out the throat, leading to patrons ordering more drinks. The alocohol then stimulates a craving for nicotine. It's like an isoceles triangle of substance use. The net is more alcohol sales, more cigarette sales, and more tax revenue to the state. As always, the unfettered market means more revenue pouring into the treasury. And if we could lower the tax on cigarettes and alcohol, the resulting stimulation in sales would cause even higher sin tax collections. the bottom line is this: this is America, land of the free. I should be free to smoke anywhere I want, and if non-smokers want smoke free air, they can stay home with their granola. moron libs and their nanny state. | ||
| The Libertarian Citizen Username: Local_1_crew Post Number: 1316 Registered: 3-2004 |
Restaurants make more $ & society gets healthier. please show the source of your data. | ||
| Rastro Citizen Username: Rastro Post Number: 2197 Registered: 5-2004  |
Mayor, where in the Constitution is smoking a protected right? | ||
| Scrotis Lo Knows Citizen Username: Scrotisloknows Post Number: 305 Registered: 10-2005 |
the same place where abortion is... | ||
| Rastro Citizen Username: Rastro Post Number: 2203 Registered: 5-2004 |
Actually, no. I believe the "right" to abortion was derived from the "right" to privacy. There is at least a thin trail that leads from the Consititution to the ruling that a State cannot prohibit abortion. I would be very curious what thin trail there is from the Constitution to allow someone to smoke near other people. Note, no one said you do not have the right to use a legal product in a manner that does no harm to others. | ||
| Mayor McCheese Supporter Username: Mayor_mccheese Post Number: 790 Registered: 7-2004 |
The constitution does not specifically protect cigarettes. But by the same token, where in the constitution is the right given to the government to enforce smoking bans on private businesses? Our constitution is a pretty vague outline for running a government. It was really designed to keep government power limited. | ||
| Buttercup Citizen Username: Buttercup Post Number: 25 Registered: 12-2005  |
Mayor, you're still up? Me too. Keep fighting the good fight for all us insomniacs. | ||
| Scrotis Lo Knows Citizen Username: Scrotisloknows Post Number: 306 Registered: 10-2005 |
Go Mayor McCheese Go! Rastro, I know I can't prevent you from doing a google search, but quick, where in the constitution (what amendments) protect abortion? Off the top of your head.... I love how people can screech the "right to privacy" but can't tell you how the constitution gives these rights. I also love it when others scream "abortion rights" but don't even know how the constitution provides these rights. Our beloved consitution is taken for granted, abused and bruised and it is sad....  | ||
| jamie Citizen Username: Jamie Post Number: 401 Registered: 6-2001 |
And nonsmokers will have their rights protected in 90 days!!!!!!!! | ||
| Mayor McCheese Supporter Username: Mayor_mccheese Post Number: 791 Registered: 7-2004 |
You mean a small angry group of lobbyists will force their will on everyone living in the state despite whatever is best for business, personal rights, and the lives of employees in 90 days. Congratulations on hurting those people that you claim to be trying to save. | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 1864 Registered: 8-2003 |
that small angry group represents 81% of the residents of the state, that's why this law passed, and it's why it won't be overturned. I wish both sides would be honest about this law and get off their high horses. This is not about "personal freedom." we already don't have the right to engage in a whole range of behaviors that infringe on other people. I wish the smokers would just admit it - they're used to smoking in bars and they feel entitled to continue. there is no libertarian argument against the ban. your right to blow smoke ends at the non-smoker's nose. on the other hand, this is not a health issue for non-smokers. no one is dying of cancer, heart disease, or emphysema from second hand smoke. it's about comfort - the non-smokers should admit it. is the law heavy handed? probably. but it's not a huge infringement when smokers can still take a step outside for a smoke. if it outlawed smoking in all public places, that would be a major infringement. but I don't expect either side to come out and say honestly what this ban means to them, so I'll summarize: Non-smokers: I don't feel like smelling smoke when I eat and drink, and I shouldn't have to. Smokers: I need to smoke and this law makes it really inconvenient for me. But all this aside - THREE CHEERS FOR HERE'S TO THE ARTS, which is already Maplewood's first non-smoking bar, accomplished without the force of law! | ||
| Mayor McCheese Supporter Username: Mayor_mccheese Post Number: 793 Registered: 7-2004 |
I will agree with the last thing you said. I will respect the wishes of any establishment that voluntarily commits itself to nonsmoking. You forgot a couple more implications of this though. When you leave a bar for a smoke, does this mean that you can get in trouble for public intoxication? Because one minute you friend is giving you a ride home, and the next you are in the back seat of a police car because you have had a few drinks as night and were out on the street. Bar owners will have problems keeping an eye on all those smokers who are exiting and entering the business. This could mean that people are leaving without paying their bills. In addition, add the workers to the equation, and figure in the lost tips because people who used to hang out for an hour now say for a quick drink, and hit the road. | ||
| Bob K Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 10276 Registered: 5-2001 |
I was talking to one of our company lawyers earlier this week while grabbing a smoke outside our building. I mentioned the casino exemption and he said you could make a good case that the law discriminates against certain classes of business (ie, any food or alcohol serving business that isn't a casino). Makes sense to me. Wonder how Alieto would rule on this one? For the record I like non-smoking restaurants. Even though I am a smoker I don't like to mix food with tobacco smoke. However, making bars non-smoking is downright Unamerican.  Even though I am a light smoker | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 1865 Registered: 8-2003 |
I suppose those things are possible, but I'm not sure they're all that plausible. If you're standing outside an establishment and just smoking and not causing a disturbance, how would an officer have probable cause to charge you with public drunkenness? As for people skipping on checks, I suppose they might, but people can already pretend to go to the rest room and skip out. The vast majority of people are too honest to skip out on checks though. If they weren't they'd already be figuring out ways to do it, smoking ban or not. And yes, some people will leave earlier if they can't smoke. But how many of the 80% of non-smoking patrons will stay longer? I agree with you that people going outside for a smoke might cause problems. That's a big reason why I'm not wholly in favor of the ban. I can imagine for example, the sidewalk in fron of St. James's Gate might potentially be a nuisance, constantly littered with butts, with smokers blocking pedestrians. But no one has a "right" to smoke, any more than I can let my dog loose without a leash, or play music at high decibel levels in Memorial park. so I wish the smokers would just drop that argument. | ||
| jamie Citizen Username: Jamie Post Number: 402 Registered: 6-2001 |
I found this to be an interseting excerpt regarding overturning the ban in California:
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| The Libertarian Citizen Username: Local_1_crew Post Number: 1339 Registered: 3-2004 |
From the Cato Institute: Too Much Fire About Smoking by Thomas A. Firey Thomas A. Firey is managing editor of the Cato Institute's Regulation Magazine. With Prince George's County's ban on smoking in bars and restaurants in effect and the D.C. Council having voted 11 to 1 last week to enact a ban -- an action that could be vetoed by the mayor [front page, Jan. 5] -- supporters and opponents of smoking prohibitions are shifting their focus to new battlegrounds. Both sides also had been pressuring members of the Howard County Council, which just approved a smoking ban but is battling County Executive James N. Robey over a grandfather clause in the legislation. Now both sides are setting their sights on Annapolis, where a bill mandating a statewide ban is likely to be introduced this session. Both sides in the battles over smoking bans come equipped with long lists of studies supposedly proving that secondhand smoke either is or isn't a public health risk; that smoking prohibitions either are or aren't economically harmful to the hospitality industry; and that bar patrons, employees and the general public either do or do not support bans. And both sides offer eloquent moral arguments for why their position protects individuals from being unfairly subjected to the will of others. Elected leaders have reason to feel uneasy about wading through this stew of science, economics, philosophy and emotionalism, and they shouldn't have to, because a better policy response is available. One benefit of a free market is that it can cater to a variety of public desires -- including the desire for smoking-allowed or smoke-free bars and restaurants. Government need only pass an ordinance requiring that all places of public accommodation establish either a no-smoking or smoking-allowed policy, that those businesses post the policy clearly at entrances, and that the government establish an enforcement mechanism to ensure that businesses comply with their espoused policies. Such an ordinance would give smokers and nonsmokers the environments they want. If most consumers prefer a nonsmoking environment, bars and restaurants will follow the money and adopt a no-smoking policy. If a smoking ban hurts business, they will allow smoking. Some bars and restaurants likely will choose the no-smoking policy and others will choose the smoking-allowed policy, and smokers and nonsmokers alike will be accommodated. Alexandria, for example, doesn't have a smoking ban, yet about 60 of its bars and restaurants have opted to go smoke-free. This free-market policy would not just give people the environment they want, it could save lives. Ever since Montgomery County implemented its ban on smoking in bars and restaurants in the fall of 2003, I've noticed an increase in the number of cars with Maryland tags at some of my favorite Virginia watering holes. Perhaps the drivers are choosing to drink where smoking is allowed. Occasional exposure to secondhand smoke may or may not be a threat to the public health, but people drinking and then driving are unquestionably a threat. A liberal society favors maximum liberty for its citizens, as long as that liberty doesn't infringe on someone else's rights. Neither a mandated smoking ban nor smokers lighting up wherever they want is consistent with the ideals of a liberal society. Elected officials should choose to support those ideals and give both smokers and nonsmokers the bars and restaurants that they want. This article appeared in the Washington Post on January 8, 2006. | ||
| The Libertarian Citizen Username: Local_1_crew Post Number: 1340 Registered: 3-2004 |
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj11n1/cj11n1-11.pdf | ||
| Mayor McCheese Supporter Username: Mayor_mccheese Post Number: 795 Registered: 7-2004 |
OK, so what this article says is that tobacco companies care about their customers. WOW, I think if any other business received a bunch of mail from concerned customers and acted upon those requests everyone on this board would be praise them. But not the big bad tobacco companies that from the beginning helped this country grow. Well guess what, tobacco companies are just like any other companies. Well, except for the fact that they are taxed to high hell because the demand for cigarettes happens to be inelastic. |
