Segragated Smoking for All!

[evirus]

after eating at a local restruant(non smoking section) it came to my attention that the difference between my non smoking table, and the closest smoking table, was only a somewhat tall wall bewteen the two booths, not even reaching the ceiling.

not only do i have them reuining the taste of my vary tasty cheese burger, but i also get the side effect of a splitting headache and my father complaining about it due to his slightly more sensitive sense of smell

come on, there should be a real difference between the two sections, if the smoke can drift into the non smoking section, its not a true non smoking section! FIX IT!

[kwassa]

1. An impossible request

The real solution is to not allow smoking in any restaurant or bar. It is happening in many places in the US. If people want to smoke, they should head outdoors.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

3. I feel it should be up to the individual buisiness owners.

Some places choose to be non-smoking anyway, but it should be up to the owner to decide that.

[SteppingRazor]

5. To quote our mutual avatar...

when he was asked to extinguish his cigarette while onboard a plane,

"You fucking body nazis have had your way long enough!"

:smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

6. Exactly! I'm not looking forward to winter.

There's something wrong with not being able to have a ciggarette at the bar. It's just going to be really fucking wrong when I have to go outside in a sub-zero windchill to smoke.

[SteppingRazor]

8. They passed a smoking ban in restaurants here in Florida...

but you can still light up in bars and clubs. I think that's a great compromise -- hell, I don't really even mind the restaurant smoking ban, and I'm a pretty heavy smoker.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

10. I can deal with a restaurant ban, but bars & clubs is ridiculous.

Alcohol and cigarettes belong together...in harmony.

[SteppingRazor]

11. Precisely -- two halves of the equation n/t

[Not a moonbat]

84. Smokes and Booze

A couple weeks ago Chris Porter on Last Comic Standing made a good analogy on this point. You can pee without pooping and you can smoke without drinking, but you can't poop without peeing and you can't drink without smoking.

[kwassa]

12. on the other hand ....

as a non-smoker, I can't go to a bar or club without being miserable.

Is that fair?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

13. Well there were non-smoking bars by me before the smoking ban.

I still think it should up to the individiual buisiness owner. Neither the smoking or the non-smoking places seemed to be hurting for buisiness.

[kwassa]

17. Before the ban, I never heard of a non-smoking bar. Ever.

and we won't ever agree on this one, will we?

Marriot Corp has gone all non-smoking on all hotel rooms. The rest of the industry is expected to follow. A great development.

[Juffo Wup]

23. Well, life ain't fair, is it?

I used to smoke - and it would be just as miserable for one who had to wait six or seven hours before they could light up again. It's a bar, people go to smoke and drink. If you don't like it, you're under no obligation to go to one, and I'm sure there are plenty of alternative things you could do instead.

[Dulcinea]

15. Couldn't agree more.

This is America! What happened to freedom of choice?

If smoking offends you, stay away from smoking places. There are plenty of smoke-free establishments.

If you absolutely must smoke, there should be a place you can go without being hassled.

Simple as that. Smokers will always be with us. It's not a perfect world. Get over it!

Eventually we're all going to die from something, so I don't want to hear any pronouncements about the dangers of secondhand smoke. I, for one, would rather smoke than end up in a nursing home, wasting away from Alzheimer's, incontinent, bedridden, & waiting for death.

:rant:

[evirus]

19. yah sure we are all going to die from something

so why should we worry about a draft, nazi concentration camps, the KKK, street gangs, WMD's, terrorists....

you see by the logic you use, we can justify anything even genocide, because hay "we are all going to die some time.

you see how crapy that arguement is?

[Juffo Wup]

25. Spare us the histrionic garbage

Dying from cancer and dying from Zyklon gas are not even in the same ballpark. Give it a rest.

[evirus]

27. he didn't make that distinction

so i didn't include that in my response, and frankly a few minutes of suffering vs. a few years of suffering, which would you rather have?

[Juffo Wup]

30. Uh-huh

In other words, you posted all pissed off and wanted to try to be profound and failed.

[evirus]

32. no, i never tried to be profound

i just posted with my opinion as to why his arguement was flawed and useless when it comes to not reducing the impact of unhealthy things on unwilling people

[L A Woman]

2. i am nearly at the point where i want it banned completely!

you haven't been able to smoke in bars and restaurants in LA for years, but there are other places it should be banned, as well, such as apartment complexes. my neighbor's smoke goes right out her window and right into mine. a few times it has jarred me awake at 5am! it's so disgusting.

PS - as a former smoker, i know that these people have NO IDEA how disgusting it is - when you smoke, you can't smell it the way non-smokers can. if they knew, they would be more conscientious, but as it is - it should be banned.

[idgiehkt]

14. true

I was kind of immune to it all the times I smoked. I've been quit this time for about 3 or 4 years. I can't stand it when I'm not smoking and when I am I'm a chain smoker. So I guess I can't bitch either way...one of the first few dozen times I quit, I was complaining about cigarette smoke and this guy said to me "oh, you're not one of thos obnoxious ex-smokers are you?" I was like, lol, I guess I am.

[Shell Beau]

21. Well, I, as a smoker and as someone who quit for a while, do

know what it is like. Yes it is nasty. But I still smoke. Why? Because I am addicted. Period.

[Divameow77]

50. I think it's ridiculous

to request a ban from people smoking in their own homes, that's going too far IMO.
Have you ever let your neighbor know, maybe she would open another window that's further away from yours? It's been my experience that MOST smokers try to be considerate.

[SoCalDem]

70. Let's just execute all smokers

:)

[Midlodemocrat]

4. And we're off.

[ScreamingMeemie]

9. You took the words baby...

If only there were no pollutants in the world, eh? :hug:

[Deep13]

7. Just end it.

The only way for restaurants to feel like they can end indoor smoking without a competative disadvantage is if it is banned everywhere. The state makes decisions about public health on matters a lot more intrustive than this so I don't see anything wrong (and everything right) about ending indoor smoking in all workplace environments.

[Oeditpus Rex]

16. ...

:popcorn:


:smoke:

[southpaw]

18. Smokers should be provided with indoor smoking areas...

Like this one:

[AirmensMom]

60. That would be the one, southpaw.

:thumbsup: Where did you find that?

[southpaw]

77. Actually got it in an e-mail from a friend.

I decided to save the pic in case I needed it later.

[AirmensMom]

78. You sure were brave

to post it! :scared: :yourock:

[evirus]

20. its not about what you want to do its what you are doing to others

for example, if i where to walk up to your dinner table and take a huge dump right there, or heck if i where to take a huge dump on my own table and the smell drifted all around the room and reached your nose, would you honestly sit there thinking to your self "its his right to do that and it would be wrong for me to say anything?

[Shell Beau]

22. Not that that is an extreme example or anything...

[evirus]

24. honestly id rather smell **** then smoke

least i dont feel like im going to pass out from headachs and nausia from smelling crap

[Shell Beau]

26. Ok! Well then!

:shrug:

[evirus]

29. i'm trying not to sound radical to my replys but.....

when just the slightest hint of that stuff in the air can get me, my father, my girlfriend, and my sister ill, realy it says "this can't be the most healthy thing to breath"

[Spider Jerusalem]

28. One way to handle it: separate area with separate ventilation...

here in Georgia, smoking is banned in restaurants that allow persons under 18 years old. But restaurants are allowed to have smoking sections, and smoking bars, even if they admit minors, if it's in an area with separate ventilation. I've also seen this elsewhere; I was in Amsterdam a few months ago, and I was in one bar that actually had a non-smoking section (which is almost nonexistent anywhere in the city; the percentage of the Dutch population who smoke is higher than in America or most of Europe), and it had separate ventilation. Seems like the best solution; that way, businesses don't lose customers, be they smokers or non-smokers.

[evirus]

31. realy thats all im asking

if i had my way and didnt have to worry about what other people thought, id make smoking totaly illegal, but with this all im asking is, truely seperate sections for smoking and nonsmoking, thats it. hell ill give you the benefit of fans that suck out the smoke from the room.

[Spider Jerusalem]

33. So your only consideration...

for NOT advocating the imposition of draconian and dictatorial (and certain to fail; see: War on Drugs) measures to eliminate a behaviour that YOU don't like is what other people think?

That's really sad.

[evirus]

34. well if it makes you feel any better

it is extremly hard to jettison my compassion and need for people to not be totaly pissed at me

[Juffo Wup]

35. Welcome to the world of militant anti-smokers

The Temperance Movement of our time.

[evirus]

36. you sound like a fan of fox

come on stop taking what i say at pure face value and actualy think about what i say, what i ment by "if i didnt have to care about what people think" was, if there was no democratic elections or what not, and i had my way. obviously thats not the case, and that shouldnt be the case.... but if it was that is what i would do

[Spider Jerusalem]

38. Not too big on the idea of 'live and let live', huh?

[evirus]

42. not quite sure what you mean by that statment

when using in response to what i said (special ed classes tend to miss a lot of stuff)

[Spider Jerusalem]

44. 'if I had my way...I'd outlaw smoking'...

ergo, you're not too big on 'live and let live'...if I had MY way, people could do whatever the hell they wanted to, provided that they weren't harming anyone else by doing so (that includes smoking, and heroin, and gay marriage, and prostitution, etc).

[evirus]

46. smoking can harm other people

heroin? thats the injection drug right? probably not provided the producers arnt greedy

gay marriage? come on you know damn well im a democrat, gay marriage dosn't harm anyone

prostitution, again it has to deal with the ummm "employers" and the health of the "workers" but provided both are ok i dont see any real harm done

[Spider Jerusalem]

48. Smoking can't harm other people...

if it's done: outdoors; in a separately ventilated designated area; in the privacy of one's own home or automobile...and so on. You have no argument for outlawing smoking providing that smokers are courteous and respectful of laws that designate specific smoking areas.

[evirus]

51. again, ill agree to that

didn't realy want to go for a 100% seperate but equal arguement(in an attempt to prevent being compared to the black/white seperate but equal) but..... ok

[Spider Jerusalem]

37. And like that earlier outburst of Puritanism...

a uniquely American phenomenon.

One wonders why these people aren't campaigning against internal combustion engines; any cursory examination of the correlation between urban air pollution and rates of emphysema, asthma, and lung cancer should provide evidence that automobile exhaust is a greater danger to public health than cigarettes. But then, everyone (or almost everyone) drives, I suppose.

[taterguy]

40. I campaign against internal combustion engines

I also smoke. I love confusing people:evilgrin:

[evirus]

41. well, you got me there

but prehaps the difference is that while eating near smokers your in a confined space, so the toxins tend to stay around a lot longer then in the open air. but hay if they can make a low emission car good for them drive till you cant drive no more(provided you keep safe mind you) and if they can make a low emission cigerette then again, good for them MARKET IT!

[Spider Jerusalem]

43. Did you know...

that on a typical day in a city like Atlanta or Los Angeles, the air quality is so bad that just breathing is roughly equivalent to smoking a pack a day? And that on severe smog days, it's more like THREE packs? The relatively minor amount of sidestream smoke you'd inhale in a bar or restaurant doesn't begin to compare.

[evirus]

45. ok, ill agree with your statistics

but does that give you the right to reduce the health of others so you can smoke, and obtain, what ever you get out of it?

i mean, with driving your contributing to the economy, going to work, and so on, so that i can justify because your job could mean a lot to other people, but does the benefit/harm ratio from smoking outweigh the benefit/harm ratio from driving?

[Spider Jerusalem]

47. So?

If you're going to use the economic argument to justify behaviour that affects far more people than smoking, I can apply the same thing to smoking, you know. Smokers support a major industry that employs thousands of people in largely rural states, and also support tobacco farmers and their families...smokers support Medicaid and education through the taxes they pay (the excise tax on cigarettes is a major revenue stream for most states)...so smoking helps the economy, too. Are the education of children, the availability of medical services to low-income and indigent people, and thousands of jobs in Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Louisiana somehow less important than your intolerance of a legal behaviour?

[evirus]

49. are we still talking about "my world"

you make a good arguement but if your talking about the "if i had my way" world then i would have to say, end the iraq war, start back up that "pay as you go" thing and use all the surplus to make up for the lack of the "tabbaco industry's" benefits

of corse thats just of the top of my head

[Spider Jerusalem]

53. If I had my way...

I'd take all of the small-minded, petty, Puritanical fuckwads who want to tell other people how to live their lives ('but it's for your own good', these idiots always say), and relocate all of them to a place where they only had each other to make miserable. Or maybe I'd send them to re-education camps. Or maybe I'd just line them up against a wall and shoot them. So I suppose it's a good thing that neither of us has dictatorial power, eh?

[evirus]

55. you wrecked it

could have had a better arguement, but realy you wrecked it totaly.... whats the word im looking for... cop out? i mean realy if your going to argue about how my idea won't work you can atleast continue talking about my idea and not just say "well, heres my idea, ill kick your ass, hows that?"


i mean ive heard of falacies in debates but id file this as just being an asshole

[Spider Jerusalem]

61. Well...

really, ending the Iraq war is a splendid idea; outlawing smoking isn't. I happen to believe in allowing people the freedom to engage in behaviours I may personally find distasteful, as long as those behavious won't harm anyone other than themselves. And I really have no idea what you're talking about when you say 'pay as you go', so I can't comment on that. But I can say that US federal budget surpluses are a thing of the past for the foreseeable future. Our nation has massive outstanding foreign debt; we have the largest deficits in history; we're looking at looming environmental and economic catastrophe thanks to the combined effects of global warming--drought is killing the Amazon rainforest, and rising temperatures are melting glaciers, polar icecaps, and Siberian permafrost, which adds up to a grim picture indeed--and dwindling petroleum supplies--we're using six to barrels of oil for every one we find; almost every major oil-producing region has passed its production peak and is now in decline; and our consumer economy and the modern agriculture that make it possible to feed six billion people are based on cheap and plentiful oil).

Really, with the number of problems facing the world as we slog on into the twenty-first century, the benefits and detriments of smoking and its continued legality are so far down the list of priorities as to be meaningless.

[evirus]

66. amazing

hard to beleave us humans can walk and chew gum at the same time.

oil companies haven't realy demonstrated a need for subsidies, how about shifting them to true renewables(solar, water, wind). enact regulations on industry's that make kyoto sound like the dumbed down things we are tought about environmentalism in elementary school. hows that effect the global climate? might not fix it but its the equivilint of putting pressure on a wound untill you can get the real treatment if you know what i mean.

other then that i withdraw from this line of arguements, yes this is a non issue compared to the issues of today

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

68. The effort required into making that change still makes it a HUGE

issue compared to banning smoking. Drawing from your "line of arguements," you seem to believe that a magical wand can be waived and massive environmental changes will take place.

By the way, spell check is your friend and it makes things easier to read.

[evirus]

75. more of a government that functions properly without.....

dragging its heels for weeks on end before beginning to fulfill a request.

yah ive been informed of my poor spelling, when i have to rattle off several posts, like here, i tend to pay less attention to my spelling in order to save time.

[Spider Jerusalem]

74. Well...

the only problem with renewable energy sources is that none of them provides as much energy as oil; the global economy would have to shrink drastically. It doesn't help that in terms of long-range, sustainable carrying capacity, the planet is overpopulated; from the viewpoint of long-term sustainability, there are about three times as many people as there should be. Humanity is going to end up killing itself because we've been so damned successful (what happened on Easter Island is a good example of this).

[evirus]

76. unless we have some major advancments, you could be right

weather it be with better renewable energy generation or leaps and bounds in space operations (independent planetary colonization) its a faily deep hole we would have to invent our way out of

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

79. Wait I thought you just said all we needed was a more efficient government

[taterguy]

56. Do you only use your car to go to work?

[evirus]

57. i dont have one

but im going to need one, then again being that im for the most part a shut in i probably will only use it for work, shopping and maybe the ocasional driving to a friends house.

then again i dont think argueing on my future habits as a car driver will be vary fair seeing as how you dont know what kind of car i will drive, nor its emissions, effecienty and so on

[taterguy]

59. sure it's fair

You'll be doing something that pollutes the air for your pleasure. The only difference between you and a smoker is that society hates smokers

[evirus]

63. your making assumptions

your assuming that im going to get a car that pollutes, what if i use biodesil(if any it would be far less then most cars, correct) what if electric cars roll out by the time i get one? if its electric then what? thats why i said its not fair to argue something that i might do in the future

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

65. If you want to be technical about it...

it's highly likely that pollution will be a byproduct of producing that electricity.

[evirus]

67. true ture

i could continue by saying what if my area adopts true renewable energy generation at the point when i buy a car? but odds are this will go exactly where it started, nowhere

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

69. At least you're aware that your argument is going nowhere.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step.

[evirus]

73. i already tried to tell you

you can't use such things as an argument because the other side can just comment away on how different the future can be from today

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

81. Apparently, "the other side" is just commenting away using utopian vision

regardless.

Also, I wasn't using it as an argument. I was merely stating what I thought.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

54. Yes because prohibition works SO WELL.

:eyes:

[JitterbugPerfume]

39. I do not smoke

I consider it a filthy habit (as an ex-smoker) Therefore I do not go where people are smoking

period

[Divameow77]

52. You can never make both sides happy

but as far as bars and restaurants go it should be up to the owner of the establishment? I have issue with the government telling me I can't even smoke in my own bar. I believe the smoking ban in Minneapolis has hurt business for some bars and they have had to close their doors.

[kwassa]

58. Smoking ban increases bar and restaurant business in this area

Montgomery County is the suburban county in Maryland immediately north of DC, with about 840,000 residents.

http://www.thestranger.com/forums/showpost.php?p=19415&postcount=1832

Ban's Supporters Cite Boom in Business
By Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 4, 2006; Page B05

Bar and restaurant business has increased in Montgomery County since a ban on smoking went into effect two years ago, according to data released yesterday by supporters of the law.

Council member Phil Andrews (D-Gaithersburg-Rockville) and former council member Isiah Leggett (D), who sponsored the anti-smoking bill, said restaurant sales tax receipts have risen by 19 percent.

In the year before the ban, which started in October 2003, receipts totaled $57.7 million. That climbed to $62.1 million during the first year and $68.8 million the second year of the ban, according to data Andrews and Leggett gathered from the Maryland Comptroller's Office.

[Divameow77]

62. I think the reason the smoking ban

has been hard for some in Minneapolis is that you can go to a number of cities right next door and smoke in bars.
It hasn't been as bad on business as the owners anticipated it could be though.

[kwassa]

82. What happened in the DC area

is that first Montgomery County went with the bans, and the other all surrounding areas are now following suit, most recently DC. Perhaps the same will happen in Minneapolis.

[Divameow77]

83. I enjoy going south of the river

so I can smoke sometimes, so I kind of hope that doesn't happen. I'm not totally opposed to a smoking ban because I understand the complaints that non-smokers have, but it really sucks having to go outside when it's below 0 degrees outside.

[kwassa]

64. Dangers of second-hand smoke

Also from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/03/AR2006070300914_pf.html


Throw Out the Ashtrays
The case for bar and restaurant smoking bans gets even stronger.

Tuesday, July 4, 2006; A14

LAST WEEK the surgeon general's office issued its first exhaustive report in 20 years on the dangers of inhaling your date's cigarette fumes. The study confirmed everything we already knew and a lot of what we previously thought about secondhand smoke. It causes lung cancer and coronary heart disease -- those regularly exposed have up to a 30 percent higher chance of getting either of these terminal illnesses. Pregnant waitresses or bartenders working smoke-filled shifts can expect their babies to weigh less at birth. And cigarette smoke -- whether exhaled or snaking off a smoldering butt -- is plain unpleasant, triggering nasal irritation.

The report also concluded that air-cleaning appliances and separate indoor ventilation systems for smoking and nonsmoking areas can't protect patrons from secondhand smoke. Smoking bans in restaurants and bars, on the other hand, significantly reduce or eliminate the problem. Even when enforcement is lax, the study says that exposure to harmful particulates and chemicals is "several orders of magnitude" lower in regions that have bans in place than those that don't.

(jump)

Cue the hospitality industry screaming that smoking bans will hurt -- even destroy -- local businesses. But the evidence isn't on the side of bar and restaurant owners, either. In fact, the report indicates that people were more likely to go out to bars and restaurants after cities and states enacted tough anti-smoking laws.

(more at this site)

[evirus]

71. thanks for the article

nuff said

[Divameow77]

72. maybe for you

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

80. Don't you know that all we have to do is fix all our environmental

problems and get a more efficient government then smoking won't be low down on the list of problems anymore? Therefore, banning smoking should be a top priority.

:sarcasm: