I’ll go on record with this one. I don’t smoke and actually hate it. I also play in a couple of bands that play bars. The smoking ban allowed me to come home from a gig without stinky clothing and equipment.
All that said, I was vehimently opposed to any government imposed smoking ban. If a private business wants to be smoke free, that’s dandy - and I enjoyed playing smoke free clubs.
But this is not the government’s business and the removal of individual rights does far more harm than the damage from second hand smoke it perports to avoid.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
C. S. Lewis
Yep.