Despite the recent smoking ban legislation in Minnesota, some bars have fought the ban in a very creative way. There is a provision in the ban that allows for participants in theatrical productions to smoke in restaurants and bars. The bars are working around the legislation, legally, "by printing up playbills, encouraging customers to come in costume, and pronouncing them ‘actors’." (see the full article on TheWashingtonPost.com)
Again, this demonstrates that there is a segment of the population that looks forward to smoking in public and they will go out of their way to frequent establishments that cater to their wants. Those that prefer non-smoking restaurants and bars have demonstrated that there is also a market for their wants, as well. The local market has responded with a number of alternatives for smoke-haters — and I think that’s wonderful!
I applaud the efforts of the Smoking Resistance in Minnesota, and I hope that their results are instructive to the rest of the country doesn’t fall on deaf ears. Here is a quote from the article that demonstrates the desire for smoking establishments, and the harm that a smoking ban can do to the livelihood of anyone that gets in the way of the anti-smoking groups:
Proving anew there’s no business like show business, Anderson said her
theater-night receipts have averaged $2,000 _ up from $500 right after
the ban kicked in. Similarly, Bauman said revenue at The Rock dropped
off 30 percent after the ban took effect, then shot back up to normal
once the bar began allowing smoking again.
Here’s a message to the Virginia legislature regarding the *thankfully* failed smoking ban from this year and last year: Keep your mitts off! The free market is working in this case, and there is no need for legislative agendas/egos to get in the way of that.
So you don’t like smoke getting into your clothes?
-Neither do I, but if I want to go to a smoky bar then who are you to say that I can’t?
Protection for the employees?
-Then why isn’t air quality the issue instead of what people are legally consuming?
I don’t really like special interest groups (then again who does unless they agree with you?), but on this one I hope the smoking lobbyists keep fighting the good fight.
I don’t smoke, and neither does anyone in my immediate family. I don’t encourage smoking, but dammit it’s a perfectly legal activity. If you can’t stand the thought of anyone smoking, then go for a full prohibition. At least then you’re being honest. (Not that I think prohibition would work, but it would be funny to see it tried.)
Thanks to Vivian J. Post’s blog for the heads up on the article!
Smoking bans are the real threat
The bandwagon of local smoking bans now steamrolling across the nation –
from sea to sea- has nothing to do with protecting people from the supposed
threat of “second-hand” smoke.
Indeed, the bans themselves are symptoms of a far more grievous threat; a
cancer that has been spreading for decades and has now metastasized
throughout the body politic, spreading even to the tiniest organs of local
government. This cancer is the only real hazard involved – the cancer of
unlimited government power.
The issue is not whether second-hand smoke is a real danger or a phantom
menace, as a study published recently in the British Medical Journal
indicates. The issue is: if it were harmful, what would be the proper
reaction? Should anti-tobacco activists satisfy themselves with educating
people about the potential danger and allowing them to make
their own decisions, or should they seize the power of government and force
people to make the “right” decision?
Supporters of local tobacco bans have made their choice. Rather than
attempting to protect people from an unwanted intrusion on their health, the
tobacco bans are the unwanted intrusion.
Loudly billed as measures that only affect “public places,” they have
actually targeted private places: restaurants, bars, nightclubs, shops, and
offices – places whose owners are free to set anti-smoking rules or whose
customers are free to go elsewhere if they don’t like the smoke. Some local
bans even harass smokers in places where their effect on others is obviously
negligible, such as outdoor public parks.
The decision to smoke, or to avoid “second-hand” smoke, is a question to be
answered by each individual based on his own values and his own assessment
of the risks. This is the same kind of decision free people make regarding
every aspect of their lives: how much to spend or invest, whom to befriend
or sleep with, whether to go to college or get a job, whether to get married
or divorced, and so on.
All of these decisions involve risks; some have demonstrably harmful
consequences; most are controversial and invite disapproval from the
neighbours. But the individual must be free to make these decisions. He must
be free, because his life belongs to him, not to his neighbours, and only
his
own judgment can guide him through it.
Yet when it comes to smoking, this freedom is under attack. Cigarette
smokers are a numerical minority, practicing a habit considered annoying and
unpleasant to the majority. So the majority has simply commandeered the
power of government and used it to dictate their behaviour.
That is why these bans are far more threatening than the prospect of
inhaling a few stray whiffs of tobacco while waiting for a table at your
favourite restaurant. The anti-tobacco crusaders point in exaggerated alarm
at those wisps of smoke while they unleash the systematic and unlimited
intrusion of government into our lives.
We do not elect officials to control and manipulate our behaviour.
Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Ph. 807 3457258
Thomas: Thank you for the passionate comment. I completely agree with your statement about how we make decisions every day about the risks we decide to take, and I’m shocked that this point isn’t brought up more often and more pointedly when the issue of smoking bans are addressed.
Apparently, the public is assumed to be too stupid regarding cigarettes to make their own decisions — and magically the public is able to be trusted when it comes to motor vehicles. The logic escapes me.