For pete’s sake, lay off the smokers
March 23rd, 2006 by AtomictumorI mean c’mon, they’re going to die sooner than you guys anyway.
Tennessee is all hip to jump on the "ban smoking" bandwagon (I almost said BAN-wagon, but that’d be a pun and GAC would hit me) after a group of civic and clean air minded super best friend high school students, including some from Oak Ridge, dropped HB 2548 (which I will henceforth call hillbilly, in recognition of my new status) like a big sack of in-your-face all over the state legislature recently. It got beaten down, apparently, but the sentiment still stands. And that sentiment is "Smokers, you’ve totally got the highschooler’s pissed…"
As an ex-smoker myself (5 years this year, thanks), I have the right to bitch about smoking and how much smokers are losers, but I won’t. I don’t miss smoking at all, but I completely understand the motivations of those who do smoke, and all this bannination amounts to is just screwing with peoples civil rights.
The jist of Hillbilly is that smoking would be banned in public places. The only public places a body can smoke now are bars and restaurant, which are natural smoking places. In my opinion, the only place worth smoking at in public are bars and restaurants, which, while being public places, are private businesses. It boils down to this: If Red Lobster won’t separate the smokers, and its ruining your "all you can eat" shrimp, get the hell out. Don’t pay em, and don’t come back. Why should Whitey come up and tell Joe Camel he can’t show his face in a private business? And Jesus Christ, a bar without smoking is like a bowling alley without fat people. Its just not right.
Its all been said before, and I’m sure everybody has the best interests of everybody in the world, but I think I speak for smokers everywhere when I say "Shut up about it".
Damn, now I want a cigarette…
March 23rd, 2006 at 9:23 am
Hmmm…I don’t know about that. Does a smoker’s right to indulge his/her addiction outweigh my right to enjoy a meal without second-hand smoke drifting over my shrimp? Why can’t smokers just step outside - it’s not my addiction, why should it become my burden to avoid it?
Am I saying that all restaurants should ban smoking entirely? No. I think that you’re right to let businesses choose their own path, and that such decisions will likely influence who their clientele will be. I just fail to see how a smoker’s rights have more weight than my own (an ex-smoker).
March 23rd, 2006 at 9:54 am
If the government gets involved, as it has in California, New York, England, and like a billion other places, it will ban smoking in private places. Thats wrong.
Don’t want second hand smoke? I agree, I don’t either. So I don’t go to places that don’t properly vent the smoking section. If the place smells like an ashtray, tell the manager and get out. Theres no reason, tho, to throw laws around diluting private power like this.
March 23rd, 2006 at 10:07 am
I remember visiting my dad out in San Luis Obispo, California a few years back and being shocked that you couldn’t smoke in public places, including outdoors. I think that’s taking it a bit too far.
I agree that a smoking ban should be up to the individual restaurant and not the government. What ticks me off is the assertion that smokers have a right to do their thing, regardless of how it affects others around them.
Let’s say a smoker has a right to smoke, and let’s say that I have a right to not be exposed to second-hand smoke. Whose position is more valid, and why?
March 23rd, 2006 at 12:43 pm
I have a “why can’t we all just get along” opinion of it. Smoking is not allowed in every place that I can think of that you would have to be in close proximity with smokers (buses, airplanes, movie theaters, etc), so at this point its outside, restaruants and bars (and maybe wholesale food outlet in clinton… but I doubt it).
I think there should be a reasonable expectation of risk in places with alchohol, like bars. I also think that business should feel a financial sting instead of a legislative one in regards to smokers.
That said, I also don’t mind smokers being scooted over to crappy tables in the loading docks. Smoking makes one somewhat of a loser, and losers sit in the back, but we don’t need Boss Hogg coming up and moving you back there.
Obviously, the right not to be smoked at is more valid. Just like the right not to get hit by a car is valid. Thats why crosswalks have lights…
March 23rd, 2006 at 12:47 pm
I gotta agree with Mrs. on this. Perhaps it is an infringement of smokers’ rights to ban smoking, but there’s a lot of gray area where their right to smoke overlaps my right to not have to breathe it.
On this gray area, I think the non-smokers win out. A smoker has the right to damage their own health all they want, as far as I’m concerned. But when they smoke around me, it begins to damage my health, which they have no right at all to do.
I do, however, agree that the bannanation of smoking should be up to the owner of the business/restaurant. If I wish not to eat in a smoking restaurant, I will either avoid it or order the food to go.
The only place that I could really see this becoming a pain in my ass, are places like bowling alleys, pool halls and the like. I don’t necessarily frequent these places, but I’d rather not have to breathe that putrid air when I’m in there. But there’s no way in hell such places are going to ban smoking voluntarily, as they would lose most of their clientele.
Did I add anything new to the conversation? No, probably not. C’est la vie.
March 24th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
OK… here we go… Smoker for darn near 20 yrs Here….I do my very best to not smoke around people that don’t smoke. I usually will not smoke in another person’s car that is a non smoker… other than AT’s car
but even that was few and far between. I would smoke prior to getting into the car and after getting out…If you don’t smoke in the car I don’t smoke in it. I went to lunch with a smoker a few times and they didn’t smoke in the vehicle and neither did I. I am by no means saying that you need to be exposed to my CHOICE to smoke but don’t tell me that I cant even go outside and smoke. I will go to anyplace that I want to.. Restaurant or bar and if they only allow smoking at the bar I will go to the bar and have my smoke or go outside. I personally don’t like being told that I can give you my money but because I am there with my friends that don’t smoke and they are not done eating I have to go outside and stand in the FREAKING butt ass cold and have my cig. I would just like to be able to be in the nice warm building if I am paying 20 bucks for a meal. Am I saying that I as a smoker needs to have the best seat in the house and fuck up everyone else’s meals NO!!!!! Stick me in the Flipping Bathroom underneath a vent that is fine with me. 
. As far as a Bar is concerned PLEASE don’t torture me…lol… when I drink I smoke. Heck If you want to have a smoke free bar then go for it.. Subrogation!!!!! have your smokers bar and restaurants and have your smoke free bar and restaurants.. That is fine with me. If you don’t want to be around the smokers then I understand. Yea I probably could and should quit but until I am ready to so there is nothing that is going make me do it. AT has seen me when my soon to be X tried to make me quit just because he wanted to quit smoking.. WASN’T PRETTY.. ANYWAY back to the point…. ummmmmm NON Smokers have their rights and I try not to push my smoke upon them. My brother and sis in law do not smoke.. I don’t smoke in their house and when they are coming over here I don’t smoke in my own house. OK I am getting off the soap box… and bty Thanks for calling me a Looser AT!!!! I love you tooo…. 
March 25th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
A citizen’s “right” to smoke in public? I don’t buy that. Where is it written that I have a “right” to smoke, or belch other noxious fumes into the atmosphere, or do whatever I please for that matter that endangers those around me? This makes as much sense as to say I have a right to dump raw sewage into the drain outside my house.
March 25th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
Depends on how you define public, Bos. I don’t think you should have people lighting up in courtrooms, but in a park, or a resturant? Why shouldn’t they have the right? The raw sewage is a bit of a bad analogy, because cig smoke doesn’t tend to stick around like poo does.
Yes, we’re constantly bombarded with how bad second hand smoke is, but how much of it is hype? I don’t see how there could be medical issues arising from walking by somebody smoking a cigarette. I mean, the stuff isn’t sarin, is it?
And nobody is bringing up the central point I was making, which is that it is none of the .gov’s damn business if restaurant’s let people smoke.
March 25th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
I don’t know AT. I’d say ciggy smoke sticks around quite a bit, especially the residue it leaves on walls, curtains, lungs. Besides we’re not talking about somebody just “walking” by a smoker. You’re surely not going to argue that somebody working in a waffle house, exposed to that degree of smoke, isn’t going to come out better for it.
As for the gov’s business. The gov already dictates to resturants who they can serve alchohol to. It already dictates where tobacco companies may advertise. There’s an economic side to this too. The Amer. Heart Assoc. reports that smoking is “highest among persons living below the poverty level (33.3 percent).” Who do you think is going to foot their medical bills? Then check out the American Lung Assoc. stats on second hand smoke related illness and death.
But don’t worry I’m not calling for the wholesale banning of smoking. There are a lot of bigger pollutants than smokers out there (my truck being one of them). I just think we’ve pushed the notion of civil rights in this county till it makes no sense. How is smoking comparable to sufferage, for example?
March 26th, 2006 at 1:02 am
I think you’re looking at it from a different (wrong) perspective. I agree, civil rights is not an issue here, what is at issue is government power reaching levels that are higher than I am comfortable with. I think this is a situation where laws are unnecessary. The waitress at Waffle House, if she is bothered by the second hand smoke, needs to think about a change of career. Again, this is an assumption of risk. Yes, there are dangers of second hand smoke causing all sorts of nasty things, and yes, smoking is bad. I was always under the assumption, however, that these people getting all sorts of nasty illnesses live with a smoker. Assumption of risk.
You bring up a good point, however, with your truck, and that was one that I was thinking about earlier. Do you think that an impartial study (and lets face it, anything dealing with smoking will be biased on one side or another) would find living directly next to an interstate, or even a 4 lane highway, to have similar effects?
March 27th, 2006 at 9:11 am
I certainly don’t want to misrepresent myself here. I don’t believe a law is necessarily the best solution to this problem. Boycotting the businesses concerned is a better civic action, than turning so quickly to the govm’nt for a solution. I think what got me rolling on this is the reference to civil rights. It seems to me that one role of the govm’nt is to protect civil rights. Any claim to a violation of civil rights necessarily brings the gov into the fray.
I have to say, though, that job mobility isn’t so clear cut. Most servers probably think about career change often enough and then go back to work. For somebody, whose job is in a smoky resturant, this assumed risk is unnecessary. I see the problem as business owners thinking of their bottom line rather than the well-being of their workers. I see the problem as taxpayers bearing the future medical burden of somebody else’s unnecessary addiction. Should we help others who can’t afford medical care (and who can?)? Yes, But let’s do some prevention along the way too.