Asymmetrical Information

As a smoker (yes, I know, dumb: at least I won't sue, claiming I didn't know), I am glad to see that exceptions were made. I still think the approach was wrong, non-smoking places could have opened and if successful expanded, but as long as there are places I can have coffee and a cigarette I can go with it - and I won't miss it in most restaurants.

Certainly beats most such legislation, which outlaws smoking in any "public" place even if a seperate room with its own heating/cooling is used.

I'm very curious as to how this will be enforced. Couldn't individual owners just look the other way when people light up? And what's the penalty for those who don't comply?

I think I would be incredibly angry if I were a restaurant or bar owner in New York...

In my city, Ottawa, Bars, feasting houses and Malls have been smokeless for about two years or so. On the one hand I am outraged at the affront to my liberties...but then on the other hand do I really care its a foul habit...and I smoke. Happy New Year Jane.

The owner of the bar would be fined, so he has incentive to eject smokers.

Smoking Ban, Breathing Regulations Signed Into Law

DECEMBER 30TH, 2002

Bills to ban smoking and unnecessary breathing at New York City bars and restaurants were both signed into law Monday.

“This law does not legislate morality,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who pushed for the legislation as a worker health issue, said as he signed the bill at City Hall. “This law does not take away anyone's rights. Anyone important, anyway. This law allows important working people to earn a living in a safe workplace so they can provide for their families. Their children. The ban on unnecessary breathing in bars is important to keep oxygen in the air, which is necessary for all life. If we didn't do this, the terrorists would have won. And did I mention it's for the working children?”

The ban will take effect March 30, barring people from lighting up or panting heavily at virtually every bar, club and restaurant in the five boroughs. Violators will face fines from $200 to $400, or even life in prison, the foul swine.

“We hope and believe that this bill will not have a negative effect on businesses and will not be used as a tool to punish nightlife or bars or restaurants or anyone else who is doing legitimate business and making sure that their employees are safe," said City Council Speaker Gifford Miller. "I don't see why anyone would think this would affect any law-abiding business negatively. Nobody likes vile smokers and heavy breathers. But punishing people is so punitive. We hate to do it unless we must."

Exemptions to the ban include the city's seven existing cigar bars, sidewalk cafes with special outdoor smoking areas and bars willing to build separate smoking rooms with their own ventilation systems. In addition, establishments with no employees other than the owners or private clubs where only members work may still allow smoking. Heavy breathing will be allowing in gyms, sporting establishments, and other businesses that build special oxygen-enhanced rooms. Also people will be allowed to breath freely in their own homes, for now.

“I am confident that New York City will establish a new reputation as the smoke-free, easy-breathing capital of commerce, fine dining, nightlife, entertainment and tourism,” said Donald Distasio, the CEO of the American Cancer Society. “For as long as I can remember, this moment has been a dream of ours.”

"I, too, am confident that New York City will boom, now that we have bravely tackled the breathing problem," said Gloria Busybee, spokesperson for the American Oxygen For Children campaign. "From now on, the city sends a clear message: nobody has the right to breathe unless we say so!”

But where will the tax revenues from smokers come from?

Sorry, the libertarian in me feels like my rights are violated anytime someone wants to light up and blow their airborne tar into my airspace. I've lived in California for 3 years now and rather enjoy breathing non-tobacco filled air when I go out.

I'm not sure why business owners would care. If you can't smoke anywhere, their only less will be the people who leave early to smoke. Which I'd imagine is not that large; you can always step right back in, right?

Bob, smokers are a sort of modern demon. Demons make useful slaves, but require much watching to make sure they act right. So there is no contradiction in milking smokers for tax revenue and trying to squeeze them into quitting - both are penalties for Sin.

Reckless, you have the right not to enter smoking establishments. Surely it is convenient for you to have others deprived of their rights for your convenience. But in any case, that's not the peg on which Bloomberg et al chose to hang this law. They purport to be doing it for worker safety - not customer safety.

As for why business owners care, why would anyone care? Perhaps they want to smoke inside? Perhaps they want people to smoke in their establishment and not outside of it? Perhaps they know something about how their customers will respond to this law, that I don't? Perhaps they care about matters of right and wrong? Perhaps they see a slippery slope leading to a ban on all smoking? Perhaps they see a slippery slope leading to even more intrusive regulation of workplace conditions based on the idea that workers are not free to choose their jobs?

I really do hope that rebel NYC bar owners take the same lawless view of this that they've traditionally taken of such puritanical silliness as the drinking age and pure food laws. I honestly can't imagine my favorite scuzzy old man rail-liquor dives (The Blarney Stone, anyone?) complying with this granola-crunching hooey. We who hang out in such places are nearly dead anyway.

As an out and out degenerate, I sometimes feel that no one's looking out for my lifestyle needs.

Reckless Fable, That would be true if it was on your own property.

But it isn't. Its on somebody elses property, so it is his rights that are being violated when you get the government to force your will and desire on his enterprise. WHo are YOU to tell ME how to run my damn buisness?

Your not much of a libertarian, or, at least new at being one.

Does this law apply to substances other than tobacco?

Leonard-
The dirty little secret is that our government has found a personal habit that they can at once demonize and tax. Regardless which side of the argument you come down on - restricting smokers or allowing them their "right" to smoke when and where they please, there remains a bit of hypocrisy at work here.

If smoking is as dangerous to one's health as opponents contend, or is as objectionable to the public at large as most of us non-smokers agree it is, then outlaw it. The irony, of course, is that tax revenues increase when smoking is encouraged.

Moreover, I believe we can expect the assault on personal habits ("vices" in governmental vernacular) to continue as government searches for new revenue streams. What will be next? Drinkers of fine wine beware.

I'm not sure why business owners would care. If you can't smoke anywhere, their only less will be the people who leave early to smoke. Which I'd imagine is not that large; you can always step right back in, right?

Jason McCullough, can I come down to your work and ban whatever I "can't imagine" or "was not sure why" you'd care about? Let me guess: you don't employ anyone; you work for the state; you can't be fired no matter what; you never risk your own money building a business but think you should always be able to regulate people who do. Right? After all, you seem to act upon your assumptions, and you think think the power of the state should be behind them. Don't understand why I shouldn't be allowed the same latitude.

It is a trivial design task to ventilate one room so that no smoke from that room will get into another room, yet California no-smoke rules prohibit such. Smokers went outside, and soon the entrys of buildings were shrouded in smoke, so laws were passed prohibiting smoking within 20 feet of a door. Then laws were passed requiring smokers to walk at a minimum of 2.5 mph while passing doors.All this to avoid making reasonable acomodation. Law makers are assholes.

My right to breathe smoke-free air is analogous to the right to walk without someone happening to swing their fist in my face -- if I didn't want their swinging fist to hit my face, then I shouldn't have been standing there. Your "right" to smoke ends somewhere between the lit end of the cigarette/cigar and my nose.

Bob, smokers are a sort of modern demon

No, they're just drug addicts. What's always confused me is why they think they have a right to indulge their addiction anywhere they please, regardless of the cost to others.

Congrats to New York. Speaking from experience as a Californian, public places are about to get a lot more enjoyable.

Unless they enforce this _very_ strictly I don't think it's likely to be widely complied with. I went to UMass, in Amherst, MA. The town of Amherst passed a similar ordinance. The bars took the ashtrays away, but encouraged people to smoke, and throw the butts on the floor. Several years later, most of them are still doing that. And it sems to me that it would be a lot easier to enforce a smoking ban in a small town like Amherst than in NYC.

If you walk down the street in NY or LA and are worried about someone smoking you are kidding yourself because the air itself is pretty bad. How bad. Probably worse than what you might get from second hand smoke which from what I read recently has been overhyped as a danger.

If it were not for smokers, you would all be speaking either Japanese or German.

Gene,

If it weren't for the Vikings, we'd all be speaking Latin! Guess we should make exemptions for pillaging as well.

Ian

But I have never Viked!

In California, bar owners have found that revenues went up since the smoking ban went into effect. The real losers may have been the dry-cleaners, since after a night at the bar, your entire wardrobe no longer stinks of smoke. Before the ban went into effect here, I thought it was no big deal that people could smoke in bars. Then I was at a club about a week after it went into effect, and some time after midnight it occurred to me that my eyes didn't sting from the smoke and that the entire scene was way more enjoyable. I have smoker friends who say they prefer the current smoke-free environment because they now don't like the smoke either when they are inside.

The smoking ban was passed as a worker safety law, so any bar that doesn't have employees (e.g., only the owners work in it) can still be "smokers" bars. It's not contradictory to both tax cigarettes and widely ban smoking since public interest goal is to improve public health by reducing human exposure to tobacco smoke, either primary or secondary smoke. Smoker-related health problems are a huge cost to the state public health system and to private employers (sicker workers mean lower productivity, etc.), and thus are a big drain on state budgets.

Let me guess: you don't employ anyone; you work for the state; you can't be fired no matter what; you never risk your own money building a business but think you should always be able to regulate people who do.

I don't, don't, I can, I do, I don't. You didn't answer my question: what's this horrible loss the smoking ban is going to cause?

For that matter, isn't this clearly a case of smoker's rights to smoke vs. everyone else's rights to the commons of clean air? Yes, the private business nature complicates things, but the private businesses in question are something of a public area, aren't they? It's not like they're banning smoking in tattoo parlors, or accountant's offices.

But they have banned smoking in tatoo parlors and accountants offices.
It is a trivial task to keep smoke away from people who don't like it.
The increase in California bar business came at the same time as the rest of the boom. Look at it now.
The reason we are not allowed smoking and non-smoking areas is that smokers are much nicer tippers than the naturally pritchel nones and non-smoking waiters did not want to lose that largess.

I ceased to fly except in an emergency when "non-smoking" became mandatory and, here in Vermont when the only exemption is for places that derive the majority of their business from alcohol sales, I have two spots where I go to eat out. When they are forced to go "non-smoking", I'll cease to eat out.
And the airlines and business owners and their employees pay the price as well as I do. The most vocal "anti" I know thinks nothing of doing a little grass and boozing it up - perhaps its time we smokers start to drop a dime and then there are your SUV's which polute "our" air - turnabout is fair play.
"You" people want my tax money and the cigarette settlement money to spend as you wish - well, to hell with you all.

Dan: "No, they're just drug addicts. What's always confused me is why they think they have a right to indulge their addiction anywhere they please, regardless of the cost to others."

The first sentence pretty much answers the question in the second. Addicts are hurting THEMSELVES with every fix - so don't be surprised if they don't give a damn about hurting you. Not that heroin addicts behave quite the same as smokers - dopers are afraid that if they are seen shooting up, they'll wind up in jail and might even go through the full cold turkey withdrawal before they manage to make a new "connection". Smokers don't have to worry about 3 days in a tobacco-free cell, even if they light up in front of the no-smoking sign. And the older ones even remember a time when it was socially acceptable.

But "anywhere they please"? Smokers did light up just about anywhere when I was a kid, and were likely to get pretty aggressive with anyone who objected - but that was 30 years ago! Most smokers nowadays do try to keep the smoke to themselves, although they don't know how godawful the ashes, their clothes, etc., smell. My sinuses are extremely sensitive to smoke, and 30 minutes in a room with a smoker gives me hours of excruciating headache. In the last 20 years, I have rarely had trouble avoiding excessive exposure to cigarette smoke, and then it was always because of poor separation between the smoking and non-smoking sections. (So I don't go back to those places.) But I haven't been to NYC since 1976; is it actually that bad there?

Whoever commented on city air quality - a trip to LA will give me similar problems, but it takes a few days to take full effect - the dose must be a whole lot lower than second-hand smoke. The worst air quality: Detroit airport. I think the jet exhausts somehow get sucked into the terminal building. It hits me about like having a smoker in the opposite corner of a 30-foot square room...

"Yes, the private business nature complicates things, but the private businesses in question are something of a public area, aren't they? It's not like they're banning smoking in tattoo parlors, or accountant's offices." - Jason McCullough [and I am sure, others - John A]

Someone else answered by saying they have indeed banned smoking in such [public] places. I would go further - at least one city in Florida allows you to sue your neighbor if he smokes in his own home. The theory is that if you and he both have your windows open (or use your respective back yards, stoops, whatever) smoke might waft onto your property. Silly.

On the other hand, another city (Hong Kong, I think) has what at first glance seems a silly law: you cannot smoke while walking, but can if you stop. There is a measure of reason to this, though. If you are walking you are tyring to stay out of other people's way, but may not be aware of exactly where your cigarette is. It is common in such a crowded place for a smoker to be quite unaware that his lit cigarette has brushed against another's clothing, or his ash dropped into a baby carriage. But it is not a total ban (unlike - ready? - gum; some commuters were using it to defeat the subway's entrance monitor).

So that's the reason for that gum ban!

I didn't know it was already banned for businesses. Oh well.

"For that matter, isn't this clearly a case of smoker's rights to smoke vs. everyone else's rights to the commons of clean air?"

There is no "commons" inside a privately owned building.

"Yes, the private business nature complicates things, but the private businesses in question are something of a public area, aren't they?"

No, they're private areas. Private businesses have private areas. If you're offended/sickened, simply stay out of their privates. ;-)

"Sorry, the libertarian in me feels like my rights are violated anytime someone wants to light up and blow their airborne tar into my airspace."

When you go into a bar, it's not your space. It's the bar owner's space.

Mark Bahner (Libertarian)

"But it isn't. Its on somebody elses property, so it is his rights that are being violated when you get the government to force your will and desire on his enterprise. WHo are YOU to tell ME how to run my damn buisness?"

My apologies. I hadn't read far enough to see that someone had already ranted on this issue.

But by the way, Nick...if the guy is your customer, he's a god. ("A god, not the God"...in the immortal words of Bill Murray. So that's who he is to tell you how to run your business.

Of course, other customer-gods will also be telling you how to run your business. :-(

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