[Calico Cat]

I'm speechless. WHEN IS THIS INSANITY GOING TO END? When are people going to rise up and bring government to task for this abrogation of basic freedoms? What's next: refusing to hire the overweight or the diabetic or those who suffer depression? I am sick to death of this!

[pbmaltzman]

One more reason not to work for guvmint, I guess.

OTOH, if I ever work in anyone else's office again, I might take a pay cut just to work in a GUM-FREE environment. That would be worth something to me. To me, nothing's more rude than someone who can't chew with their mouth closed.

[GeronL]

Fried food is next, salty snacks and meat products won't be far behind. These people won't quit until every business and taxpayer in this country are pouring billions into socialist front groups.

Imperial Courts...

[CasearianDaoist]

What is really behind this is a contempt for individuality. People are cogs in a machine of social policy; not creative actors in this world. Patton smoked cigars and Einstien smoke cigarettes. They had an effect on the world. Socialist will use this trojan horse to take us in to a beehive.

[Jane G]

I just smoked my third cig of the morning and am having coffee, God bless the fuel of industry! If it weren't for these two items I would be a real nasty person. And when they kick in my door to take my Marlboros away....they better have come for the guns first! the chain smokin, coffee drinkin, gun shootin Subhuman!

[Wolfie]

(((giggle)))

Really, I love this stuff.

[VA Advogado]

"It saves the taxpayers money in the long run, and hopefully it will save some lives," Mayor Glenn Sangiovanni said. "I think as an employer we have this right."

How does this save money and lives? The tax payer gets a possibly less qualified employee and the person that didn't get the job isn't going to stop smoking. DUH.

[riley1992]

So much for our careers in city government.

[E Rocc]

In the first-ever policy of its kind in Central Florida, St. Cloud no longer will hire people who use tobacco. Sanford officials also may adopt the get-tough policy, which took effect Monday in the Osceola County city and is aimed at reducing health-care costs and improving productivity.

If tobacco can indeed be considered to be addictive, this policy violates the ADA. Good for the goose, good for the gander.

-Eric

[GOPmember]

Would this concept fly if the criteria for hiring were changed?

Administrators in the city of 19,000 say refusing to hire people with AIDS will hold down the cost of health insurance, which is rising 30 percent a year...."The bottom line is health economists and the surgeon general have endorsed the idea that AIDS patients are costing their employers and the overall economy."

[JoeSixPack1]

St. Cloud/Kissimmee have adopted the Disney Management approach to everything. Their commitment to outragous laws and regulation go so far as to offer jail time for bumper stickers deemed "vulgar" and have instituted the physical measurement approach with cash fines to home owners who let their lawn grass exceed 3 1/2 inches. They allow private home owners to install speed bumps on city roadways at random and their school board is so nuts they require armed guards for each meeting. City officials have constently been replaced, reprimanded, and fined for using city employees, on city time to refurbish their private homes and repair personal vehicles, offered up huge tax incentives for the local Super Wal-mart after it threatened to leave town if they were not allowed to break the storeage container by-laws for retail business on their little stretch of rt 192, etc. etc....After 17 years I gave up and moved out.

[Publius6961]

"It saves the taxpayers money in the long run, and hopefully it will save some lives," Mayor Glenn Sangiovanni said. "I think as an employer we have this right."

We are quickly becoming a nation of controllers and ignorant mini-hitlers.
Of course being wrong won't slow down this ignorant bastard.
What will he do when he discovers that the real load on health plans is AIDS?

In all my experience, the people wo habitually miss work more than others are female and non-smokers. Everybody but he seems to know that.
As for the "right" to save lives... that is such an outrageous statement that I am at a loss for words.

The same mentality as "we had to destroy the village to save it".
I sure hope a suit is in the works.
Or I will start a campaign to ban fat and ugly...
It is possible to quit smoking, but...

[SERE_DOC]

Long live the black market!

Princess Leia: "Vader the tighter you squeeze, the more people are going to slip through your fingers"

[Bella_Bru]

pingzies.

[yoe]

Even if I did not smoke, I would raise up in wrath over this total infringement of the people's rights. The right to work, the right to own property, the right to free speech, the right to own a firearm and the right to VOTE in a free society.

You would think these meddlesome people would have more to worry about: the threat of Small Pox for instance, terrorists in our midst...we have no vaccine and none in the foreseeable future. Perhaps these businesses should look to their interior paints, carpeting and plastics for real threats to indoor environment.

[zoyd]

St. Cloud's more-sweeping policy raises some questions. For example, what about elected officials? After all, they're on the city payroll. No City Council members smoke, but elected officials are exempt, anyway, City Manager Paul Kaskey said.

Aw, isn't that convenient? So no elected official will ever have to pee in a cup to prove they're not smoking, but everyone else on the payroll has to?

[diefree]

I like the part about saving lives. Do they mean forever? No one will die if they stop smoking?