Smoking rights

[Puros Y Vino]

Stumbled across this video on reddit.com Smoking Bans/Rights

[Vortigan]

Yes indeed,a very interesting perspective.

[canadianbeaver]

An interesting argument and in theory, correct. Hey, I would be first in line to light up in a restaurant or bar that would let me!

BUT

Who owns the restaurant's property? The restauranteur or the landlord and what if a fire gets started from an wayward cig? Also, in the cigar store near my house, it is not consumers that complain, but the neighboring shops that smell fumes from the cigars, as the smoke filters through common duct work. Who should pay for that building modification - if the retailer will, by all means, go for it (that is an edit).

By all means, if you are a stand alone retailer who owns the property outright, light up and enjoy!

[ptrthgr8]

The property owner ought to have the final say, not the gov't. If the property in question is a strip mall or whatever and the owner doesn't care if his or her tenants are lighting up, then that's the end of the discussion. People who don't want to deal with a smoky environment should either not rent a retail space from that property owner or, assuming they're patrons, they ought to spend their time and/money somewhere else. If there's a market for smoke-free restaurants, bars, shops, whatever, then some other entrepreneur will provide that service/business.

I get infuriated when I see those anti-smoking commercials on TV where some poor piece of crap is complaining about the smoke in the bar where they work. Either deal with it and shut the hell up or go work somewhere else. It’s really truly that freakin’ easy.

Cheers,

~ Greg ~

[nick17]

i completely agree and oh how i wish this could be this way

[Hohenthal]

Oh, if things could be only that simple...

Cheers, Alex

[Ryan]

The health authority in this country got around that argument very easily by defining the ban as a ban on smoking in the workplace, i.e. making it about the right to clean air for employees.

This made it a very difficult argument for unions or restaurant and bar owners to argue against. "Do you not care about your employee's/member's health?" etc.

However, there are many (or I should say "were" many) rural pubs in this country, owned by farmers, which opened for a few nights a week, where nobody worked except the owner.

The ban was also enforced in these premises, I'm not sure why the same argument about protecting employees applies but apparently it does.

[winelover]

The property owner ought to have the final say, not the gov't. If the property in question is a strip mall or whatever and the owner doesn't care if his or her tenants are lighting up, then that's the end of the discussion. People who don't want to deal with a smoky environment should either not rent a retail space from that property owner or, assuming they're patrons, they ought to spend their time and/money somewhere else. If there's a market for smoke-free restaurants, bars, shops, whatever, then some other entrepreneur will provide that service/business.

I get infuriated when I see those anti-smoking commercials on TV where some poor piece of crap is complaining about the smoke in the bar where they work. Either deal with it and shut the hell up or go work somewhere else. It’s really truly that freakin’ easy.

Cheers,

~ Greg ~

Amen

[Squarehead]

How true Frank,how true.

[Professor Twain]

The government has a legitimate interest in ensuring that work environments are safe. For example, we wouldn't say that coal miners should work in any unsafe condition that a mine owner chose to provide. The coal mine owner could say that it was his land, that people could choose to work or not work in the place, but as a society we have thankfully decided not to put people in that position.

Some environments probably can't be made safe for smoking without harming workers, such as passenger airplanes. Flight attendants used to experience horrible levels of second hand smoke exposure. Areas like bars though have the potential to have high second hand smoke exposure but at least have better opportunities for ventilation.

BUT there are ways to fix this problem besides banning smoking. One thing I would like to see is research on defining what are SAFE levels of exposure to smoke. We do such research in other areas, but this kind of research is not undertaken for tobacco smoke because of the anti-smoking assumption that ANY level of exposure to tobacco smoke is unsafe.

Ideally we could identify safe levels of environmental smoke exposure and require sufficient ventilation systems to ensure safe levels if business owners wanted to serve smokers. In my own experience I have been in cigar lounges with terrible ventilation, and others where the air is fine despite being full of cigar smokers.

More knowledge is a better approach than taking extreme stances--either that smoking should be banned, or that businesses have a right to expose employees to any level of smoke they choose to provide.