Health groups turn against Pa. smoking ban bill over exemptions

phillyBurbs ^ | June 26, 2007 | MARC LEVY

[Eric Blair 2084]

HARRISBURG, Pa. - A coalition of health associations on Tuesday pulled its support from Senate legislation to ban indoor smoking in Pennsylvania because the bill would extend partial or full exemptions to private clubs, bars and casinos.

In addition, Gov. Ed Rendell threatened a veto over an exemption added Monday that he said would allow smoking in small home-based child-care settings.

The legislation, which also would upend a stricter ban enacted in Philadelphia last year, was scheduled for a final vote in the Senate on Tuesday, one day after the chamber added the exemptions to a broadly written bill.

The Breathe Free Pennsylvania Coalition asked senators for a "no" vote, saying the newly added exemptions will leave too many people, including hospitality-sector employees, at risk of developing cancer, heart disease and lung ailments.

The coalition also includes the American Heart Association, American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, as well as restaurant, hotel and medical professional groups.

At a news conference Tuesday, Rendell also expressed dissatisfaction with the exemptions in the Senate bill, but said the only exemption that would trigger a certain veto is one for home-based day care settings where three or fewer children are watched.

"I would rather veto the bill and have no bill at all than have a bill that is so compromised," said Rendell, who has made a smoking ban a part of his effort to cut health care costs.

snip

The Senate then added exemptions for cigar bars, private clubs, bars where food is one-fifth or less of gross sales, charitable fundraisers where cigars are sold, one quarter of the gambling floors at slots parlors and nursing homes and other adult-care centers.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Even the FReepers who hate having smoke blown in their face while swilling beer in a bar can read this and see why health groups are aghast at the idea of a compromise and being reasonable....

If smokers have SOMEPLACE to go, they may not be coerced to quit smoking and accomplish the health groups' goal of reducing smoking rates.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Big Brother, Nanny State, Grant Junky, Bogus Study, Junk Science, Social Engineering, Sheeple Control, Health Nazi Ping!!!

To be added to or deleted from this ping list, please click one of the follwing:

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Constitution of the Left Wing Nanny State of Liberals:

Picture courtesy of unixfox. All rights reserved. Copyright MMVII. Any use of the pictures descriptions or accounts of this ping without the express written consent of unixfox, Eric Blair, or Major League Baseball is strictly prohibited. Some restrictions apply. Ping not available in all states. For erections lasting longer than four hours, call the Guiness Book of World Records. Use only as directed.

Preamble:

We the People Sheeple of the United States Nanny State, in Order to form a more perfect Union Socialist Utopia, establish Justice Socially engineer a country of non smoking, physically fit, tea totallers, insure domestic Tranquility Smoking bans in bars, limits on unhealthy food and social drinking, provide for the common defense Universal Healthcare, promote the general Welfare health of the population whether they like it or not, in order to save above mentioned Universal Healthcare entitlement program from bankruptcy, and secure the Blessings of Liberty Dependency to ourselves progressive liberals and our Posterity Hitler Youth who we brainwash through public school education, do ordain decree and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Nanny State of Liberals.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Eric Blair 2084]

To: The 3 undecided Pennsylvania state legislators who might read this

Here is why the health groups don't want to hear about any reasonable compromises. Increasing the number of smoke free environments is a means to coerce smokers to quit, if they have someplace to go, your common sense legislation won't accomplish their goals....

[Eric Blair 2084]

You’re welcome.

[mylife]

Oh great. I cant smoke in an Ohio tavern and now theyre gonna ban it in PA as well.

When are these people who back this sort of thing saying, “When I go down to the tavern for some alchohol and fried chicken and Loud music, I dont want to be bothered with smoke”
going to realize that all the other stuff you do like is on the next list of crimes against society?

[mylife]

Next they will ban pinball due to carpal tunnel syndrome

[mylife]

Ban pool. It causes hyperextended elbow

[mamelukesabre]

And make you buy steel toe boots to mow your lawn...or sic osha on you.

[Eric Blair 2084]

"What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself. The essence of political freedom is the absence of coercion of one man by his fellow men. The fundamental danger to political freedom is the concentration of power. The existence of a large measure of power in the hands of a relatively few individuals enables them to use it to coerce their fellow men. Preservation of freedom requires either the elimination of power where that is possible, or its dispersal where it cannot be eliminated. It essentially requires a system of checks and balances, like that explicitly incorporated in our Constitution..."

-- Milton Friedman, The New Liberal's Creed: Individual Freedom, Preserving Dissent Are Ultimate Goals," May 18, 1961

[mylife]

Doh!

[mylife]

Well stated and 100% true

[Eric Blair 2084]

Don't give the nanny staters any more ideas. The reductio ad absurdum argument doesn't work on them. They will take it seriously. What is next is not a prediction, it's already happening.

Back Door to Prohibition: The New War on Social Drinking: A great piece by Radley Balko who is the editor of Cato.org and a columnist for FoxNews.com. Read his blog "The Agitator", it's great.

Let's have a toast! Now that the smelly smokers are gone from the bar, we can have a few pints without that annoying, stinky smell of tobacco smoke. We're fine. The Government never has and never will go after alcohol....NOT!

Behind the Neo-Prohibition Campaign The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: The Center For Consumer Freedom will help to explain why non-smokers who like Sam Adams or Jimmy Beam have nothing to worry about. It's not as if RWJF, a key group behind the anti-tobacco crusade, has them in their sights. You can rest easy.

Colleges are reaching their limit on alcohol : You're in the stands watching the USC-UCLA game at the Rose Bowl. How about an ice cold beer? Bwa,ha,ha,ha,ha!!!! Not for you my friend. Don't be surprised when you go to the Ballpark to watch your favorite team in the future and find no beer for sale. Can't say I didn't warn you.

Single Glass of Wine Immerses D.C. Driver in Legal Battle: We all agree that the drunk driver with a .45 BAC who kills a family of 5 by plowing into them while going the wrong way down a highway should be put away for life. However, under the category of "this could be you", read this before you take a sip of wine at your cousin's wedding, especially if it happens to be in the capital of our great nation.

Arresting Drinkers...In Bars: Let me repeat this for maximum effect: Arresting Drinkers...In Bars.

Anheuser-Busch Urged to Abandon "Idiotarod" Beer Promotion :Anheuser-Busch should drop its sponsorship of a Washington, D.C. charity event called the "Idiotarod," organized by a local group that goes by the acronym "SMASHED," according to the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). The March 3 event, in which young people are urged to acquire shopping carts and drink beer in one bar after another, is in clear violation of the Beer Institute's Advertising and Marketing Code, which prohibits marketing which encourages rapid or excessive beer drinking or drinking games, according to the group.

[mamelukesabre]

I still don’t wear a seatbelt. I don’t care who knows it. I am an avid biker(harley-davidson). The way I see it, riding in a car is so many times more safe than riding a motorcycle, mandating a seatbelt is stupid. THere’s no way in * that they should have made seatbelts the law without first outlawing all motorcycles and bicycles. I don’t wear a helmet either. They can kiss my *. I talk on the cellphone while driving AND while riding my harley. I think anyone that gets ticketed for an accident in which someone is injured, should be FORCED to ride a motorcycle for one year before being allowed to drive a car again. I think anyone ticketed for drunk driving should be FORCED to ride a motorcycle for a year as well.

Too cowardly to ride two-wheels in traffic? THen no driving privileges for you, you POS pansy a$$ scum.

[justiceseeker93]

What’s surprising is that the “health groups” are adopting an all-or-nothing attitude on this issue. You might think that they would accept what they can get now and come back for more restrictions later. That’s usually the way the left plays the game - it’s called “incrementalism.”

[GOP_Lady]

After months of Ohio’s no smoking law being in full force and effect, I finally went out to dinner (just wanted to get out). The restaurant had four doors into the restaurant (one pair of outer and one pair of inner) and had the Nazi sign with the phone number to the State for reporting your fellow citizen for smoking on each of the those doors (total of four). They also had one framed hanging above the bar. What was most striking was that the place was so very quiet — no humming of people talking in the background and no laughing. People just don’t seem to be happy. I suppose it’s because people are being told what they can and cannot do when they are adults.

[GOP_Lady]

Here, in Ohio, they would not mediate at all. Just like you said — all or nothing. That is not democracy.

[GOP_Lady]

Okay, everyone, it was a TEXAS ROADHOUSE restaurant. ;-)

[Tenniel2]

The most astonishing thing about that excerpt is the title of the article: "The New Liberal's Creed: Individual Freedom, Preserving Dissent Are Ultimate Goals."

Granted, it was published more than 45 years ago. But it suggests just how far the left has slid. Any of today's so-called liberals caught telling this much truth about the concentration of power and its coercive uses would be frogmarched to a reeducation camp in a New York second.

[CSM]

Who would have thought that all of the past suffering by cancer survivors could have been resolved with a simple piece of legisltation. I can’t wait until PA is cancer free!

[Safetgiver]

I can’t wait until PA is cancer free!...It NEVER was, never WILL be. Have a nice wait.

[CSM]

“The Breathe Free Pennsylvania Coalition asked senators for a “no” vote, saying the newly added exemptions will leave too many people, including hospitality-sector employees, at risk of developing cancer, heart disease and lung ailments.”

According to the “Breath Free Pennsylvania Coalition” the ammendments leave to many people at risk of developing cancer. Therefore, remove the ammendments, pass the legislation and make it so the risk of developing cancer is removed!

If the risk is removed, then surely cancer will no longer be an illness in PA. Right?

[Safetgiver]

Wrong. So called tobacco smoke is only one of hundreds (if not thousands) of carcinogens. Did you know there is NOT ONE (1) scientific study that PROVES so-called ‘second hand’ smoke causes cancer? Bet you did not. Show me ONE SCIENTIFIC study, with a control group, that definitively proves this urban myth.

[CSM]

I think you need another cup of coffee. I was pretty much mocking those folks and their position. We are on the same side on this one.....

[Safetgiver]

Oh....Ok....Never mind.

[CSM]

No problem. The sad part is that FReepers do exist that would seriously espouse the BS I was posting.

Have a great day.

[Just another Joe]

Yep, these "health" organizations want it all or nothing.

These "health" organizations apparently don't believe in the 12 step program.
Either that or the first 11 steps have already been completed. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

In addition these "health" organizations are no longer, if they ever were, about "health". They're all about the Benjamins.

[CIDKauf]

Especially the fried chicken!

[chiefqc]

And the murder rate in phila continues to climb while nothing is being done to stop this crime.

People are killed due to drunk drivers and nothing is being done to ban booze.

Accidents continue due to the morons who drive while talking on their cell phone but nothing is being done to stop this action.

What a useless ban. I guess there are not more important things pressing that require action from our elected useless thieves.

[justiceseeker93]

That is not democracy.

Well, the PA legislature is apparently putting in amendments that the "health groups" don't like. So the "health groups" would be getting something they want and something they don't. And other interests would compromise as well. That's the way a democratic system is supposed to work, procedurally.

The only problem in my view is that mandatory restrictions impinge on private property rights, which should, barring compelling circumstances indicating otherwise, remain with the property owner.

[GeorgiaDawg32]

AND loss of teeth if you refuse to pay up after losing..ahem..so I’ve heard..

[elkfersupper]

A fabulous quote by one of my favorite people.

Stolen to be redistributed.

Thanks!