Smoking ban

Local, Norfolk, Politics, Virginia 2 Minutes

The very first trip I ever took to the General Assembly was to accompany then-Delegate Thelma Drake to a committee hearing where I testified about the need to exercise control over credit card companies. I recall getting out of her car and lighting a cigarette. Upon reaching the doors of the building, I put my cigarette out. After all, I had been used to not smoking inside government buildings, having been a federal government employee when that ban was introduced. (That is a story for another day.)

Upon entering the building, my first stop was the ladies’ room. When I came out, I could smell smoke – in this case, cigar smoke. I asked Del. Drake about it and she said that smoking was indeed allowed in the building and that up until recently, members of the GA smoked at their desks during session! As Margaret Edds said in her column today:

By all rights, as a reporter covering the General Assembly over several decades, I probablyCigarette in ashtray should be dead by now. Other than “bartender,” if there were a profession or a workplace more consistently draped in a canopy of smoke, you’d be hard-pressed to find it. Once, I remember counting the ashtrays in a committee room. Astonishingly, they outnumbered chairs.

However, it is not because of the history of Virginia being so intertwined with tobacco that I oppose the smoking ban. Nor is it because I am a smoker. Heck, I’ve had parties at my house and retreated outside my own home to smoke in deference to those who don’t smoke. No, I oppose the ban because it is simply the wrong thing to do.

People talk about personal responsibility and how the government shouldn’t interfere in our lives and then they turn around and support a ban like this. Where’s the consistency of thought? Either you want government to regulate behavior or you don’t.

I don’t.

Everyone has a choice. I choose not to go to outdoor baseball parks that ban smoking. (Of course these same parks allow folks to get rip roaring drunk and then get behind the wheel of a car. Hmmm.) I sometimes choose to go to nonsmoking restaurants because I happen to not like smoke around me when I’m eating. But I am unwilling to impose my choice on someone else. It’s kind of like what was said about gay marriage: don’t want one? Don’t get one.

Don’t want to be around smoke? Don’t go to a restaurant where it is allowed. Vote with your feet and your pocketbook. If enough people don’t want smoking in restaurants, guess what will happen? Restaurants will be smoke-free. We already see that happening.

But for those who want to have a cigarette, places like Greenie’s shouldn’t be put out of business simply because government is “protecting” us. If the majority of Greenie’s customers prefer a smoke-free environment, guess what? Greenie’s will either adopt a non-smoking policy or go out of business.

Government is not always the answer, folks. Business people who are afraid of being the first one on the block to go smoke-free have no guts. If you believe it is the best thing for your customers and staff, then do it. Grow a pair and stop relying on government to help you out.

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79 thoughts on “Smoking ban”

  1. PJ, if you think that’s heated or rude, how ever do you survive out there? (please read the last line in a Scarlett O’Hara voice)

    I suppose it is rude to point out how sloppy someone’s argument is, but isn’t that sorta what we’re here for? To distill the reasons for/against an exercise of gov’t power? You’re bouncing around like a BB in an airplane hanger looking for arguments to support your preference to be able to blow smoke wherever you feel like it.

    ~

    Not that it particularly matters, but I’m not pro-smoking ban (but am admittedly very sympathetic to the motivations behind it). What gets me involved in these conversations is the (frequent, not absolute) pretense of concern for rights by the anti-ban crowd. Usually lost in their paeans to individual rights are the rights of any individual other than themselves.

  3. Jaime,

    Would you clarify for me please how you feel that smoking in a restaurant is a right while simultaneously supporting making tobacco outright illegal? I think that’s why MB is confused, and I know it’s why you’re confusing the heck out of me. You don’t support any ban on smoking in public but you would criminalize it in a private home?

    In my opinion, that’s an even nastier slippery slope you’re proposing, possibly leading to outlawing other things which some may deem harmful and offensive, like alcohol. And Lord knows THAT little experiment didn’t work out….

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  5. Here’s why, anon. If we are going to use the logic that we are banning smoking soley for health reasons regarding second hand smoke and that smoke is worse than this or that, then why do we allow it at all? Why don’t we take a stand and completely outlaw it, since clearly the majority supports non-smoking and we all do know that cigarettes are addictive, are dangerous, are unhealthy, etc., etc.? Well, there is a BIG reason we won’t do that and it’s $$$$$$$$$$$$$. So, because that is what drives the political arena in regards to tobacco (bc don’t think the fines collected when bars secretly allow smoking anyway aren’t nice and hefty) I would like to see them go ahead and make a decision for the good of the American people, but that also allows them to put our health over their wallet.

    Basically, the way I see it, they want to grow it, sell it, tax it, fine people for it, spend time and $$ on legislation about it, and as we can see from California-outlaw it everywhere, including outside and in private homes. So, we’re basically on the way there anyway, right? Ban it outright, and lose the billions of $$ the industry makes every year.

    Again, it’ll never happen. Instead, they will appease the loudest, and at this point in time, the loudest are the anti-smoking radicals.

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  7. Ever been warned against cutting off your nose to spite your face, PJ?

    Putting aside the question of individual rights, there are any number of things that are both harmful and helpful, to which reasonable regulation should be applied. Factory emissions, vehicle engineering, alcohol consumption, etc. There are almost no absolute bans on *anything.* Thoughtful people try to weigh the harms against the benefits of a given activity, and adopt the least restrictive regulation that can address the heaviest of the harms. And yes, this is often done in a wash of money.

    You, on the other hand, seem to be engaged in a not-all-that-convincing game of all or nothing.

  8. Do you want to have the last word? Because I am tired of trying to explain my point to you. If it’s that important to you, then have it.

    Bottom line is this-the anti-smoking crusade is NOT trying to work together with smokers or property owners. Instead of making smoking illegal in restaurants, they can enforce stricter set-ups and ventilation systems. They can make places smoke free during the am-early pm hours and let people smoke at night, like the typical bar setting. They can decide on their own whether or not they have a smoking section at all. But no. Instead, non-smokers win and smokers should shut up and get the hell outisde where they belong.

    You have your one sided view, I have a list of feasible compromises. So be it.

  11. Yeah I have to say that was my first thought, too, although I’m sure Jaime doesn’t herself feel that her “right” to smoke is as sacrosanct as her right to vote, nor would she equate smoking bans with Jim Crowe laws, nor would she complain about smoking sections for having separate but equal service. I’m sure it’s simply an unfortunately-phrased statement.

  13. Wow – I see you guys had a busy day. Anyway, let me see if I can catch up. I see no one has changed their positions here.

    Vivian, your thoughts on seat belts?

    I dislike the seatbelt laws for the very same reason that I dislike the proposed smoking ban: government stepping into the area of personal choice. Before there was a law requiring the wearing of seat belts, I wore mine all the time. Heck, my insurance company gave me a discount for saying that I would 🙂 Truthfully, I did it because I was quite aware of the statistics on injuries when not wearing one. Since the wearing of a seat belt became mandatory, I resent putting it on.

    I don’t need the government to save me from myself.

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