Posted on 11/19/2013 1:19:52 PM PST by Kaslin
Berkeley, Calif., City Councilman Jesse Arreguin has recommended that the city ban smoking in single-family homes. Councilwoman Susan Wengraf, who supports an ordinance to ban smoking in multiunit dwellings, is appalled.
"The whole point is to protect people who live in multiunit buildings from secondhand smoke," Wengraf said. Locals have told her they find the notion of a ban in single-family homes scary. "I hope he wakes up and pulls it," she said.
Actually, I think Wengraf should want Arreguin's recommendation to stick around. After all, his proposal makes the multiunit ordinance seem reasonable.
Arreguin aide Anthony Sanchez tells me that the recommendation is really just a "footnote," "a non-actionable topic of future consideration."
Or call it the next logical step. Berkeley already has banned smoking outdoors -- in commercial districts, in parks and at bus stops, where nonsmokers are free to walk away from smokers or ask them to move. With that ordinance on top of California laws banning smoking in the workplace, at restaurants and in bars, have advocates of nonsmokers' rights determined that their work is done? Never!
The job is never done in the nanny state. Hence the Berkeley proposal, hardly the first in the Bay Area, to ban smoking in multiunit dwellings. Wengraf tells me that smoke can get into ventilation systems and spread through a building.
But what if it doesn't? What if you live in a building where secondhand smoke doesn't leach? There is no burden of proof that your smoke bothers others. If you smoke in an apartment, you're guilty.
Enter Arreguin, who fears that the multiunit ordinance would fall "disproportionately and unfairly on the backs of tenants." It's not fair. So if the city is going to tell renters what they can do in their own lodgings, he writes, it should pass a ban "in any dwelling (including single-family dwellings)." In deference to the secondhand smoke rationale, Arreguin suggests that the ban apply if a minor lives in the home, "a non-smoking elder (62 or older) is present" or any other "non-smoking lodger is present."
Walter Olson of the libertarian Cato Institute compares the Berkeley nanny ordinance to secondhand smoke itself: "They are seeping under our doors now to get into places where they're not wanted."
He faults "ever more ambitious smoking bans" that rework the definition of private space. "Now they're really just saying it doesn't matter if you have the consent of everyone in the room." Olson savored Arreguin's suggestion that 62-year-olds cannot consent to being near a smoker.
When I asked Cynthia Hallett of the Berkeley-based Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights whether she supports the Arreguin recommendation, she answered, "Right now, the policy trend is really for multiunit housing."
The left always likes to say that the government shouldn't tell people what they can and cannot do in their own bedrooms. Yet here is progressive Berkeley about to pass a law that tells people they cannot smoke in their own bedrooms.
Of course, there is an exemption for medical marijuana. City Hall wouldn't dare to tell pot smokers not to exhale. After all, they have rights.
Oh man, you are really asking for it now.
does this also mean marijuana?
LOL ... I’ve been here ... Just not posting a lot (doing other things, doncha know).
Sorry ... I’m not an environmentalist. Kill the birds for all I care.
I just don’t want to be poisoned right in front of my face. If that smoker stands off about a hundred yards, then it will sufficiently dissipate before it gets to me.
No hard feelings, doncha know....
but what about all the ‘medicinal marijuana’ users?
Buzzerkely, there ya go again..
We all have fun on Free Republic ... :-)
I think I’d want to go downscale, Phillies or Muniemakers, something old school, American and cheap.
Oh ... As an addendum to my precious answer, I should say I’ve managed to squeeze out some extra time to post now and again because I got an iPad (which goes with me everywhere). Now any “down time” I have, I can just go to the iPad ... :-)
A hundred yards?! Seriously... you have been completely brainwashed.
You can do a scientific study - if you want - on the distance required to dissipate it sufficiently. But since it’s my face I’m talking about, I’m saying a hundred yards.
Six to ten inches would be sufficient. Less if there's a breeze. It's proven science, and the deniers and haters need to just suck it up and deal with it.
I would say the same thing about your choice of deodorant, or lack of, because both have as much deliterious effects on one's health as second hand smoke.......
But then once again, it's all about YOU..........
As a side note, your carbon producing vehicle offends me and makes me cough.
Your consumption of hamburgers will lead to your premature death and I'm going to have to help pay for your healthcare.
Your consumption of alcohol, if not you, the rest of the alcohol drinkers pose more of a threat to both you and I than all the second hand smoke would ever product........But then again, alcohol is still an acceptable product isn't it?
Finally, just about everything you say or do offends me so I want laws passed to protect myself against YOU........
There ARE LAWS to protect people in the instances of harming people. For instance - another person drinking alcohol does not impact me directly. But if that person drinks and then is incapable of driving his vehicle and harms me or my property in an accident caused by him — you will find laws AGAINST that.
And as far as the car is concerned - I’ve already said that I’m not an environmentalist, so I don’t care if everyone on the planet decides to drive a car. I don’t say that this action of driving a car tramples on my rights one bit. Now, if you get drunk and mishandle that car, and damage me or my property - then you’ve got a problem.
As far as eating hamburgers, I don’t care who eats hamburgers. Even if it ends up costing more in medical payouts. All I’ll do, if I think I’m being adversely affected (monetarily speaking) - I’ll just go with an insurance company who excludes hamburger eaters or who makes them pay a higher premium.
However since I doubt the affect of hamburgers on the health insurance system - I think that’s just something where you’re grasping at straws.
AND THEN ... the issue is not about who is offended. It’s specifically not wanting to be directly poisoned against my will. Another person’s rights stop exactly where it tramples on another person’s rights.
“Not being offended” is not one of those rights. In fact, in the US Constitution, in the area of speech, there is NO RIGHT, to “not be offended”. In fact, the US Constitution protects OFFENSIVE SPEECH.
SO ... you’re barking up the wrong tree, if you’re insisting on “not being offended”.
I would like to see those studies that say six to ten inches is sufficient. If that’s the case, then those medical facilities that have signs about not smoking next to their building - should not be able to enforce that if the person is ten inches away from the building ... LOL ...
and your a conservative?
Yep, a conservative who believes your rights stop right where mine begin.
AFTER THE FACT!
There is absolutely no evidence of second hand smoke causing any health concerns for non smokers......NONE!
It’s specifically not wanting to be directly poisoned against my will.
I will repeat myself: There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that second hand smoke cause deadly health concerns to non smokers......NONE!
You're the one barking up the wrong tree dog!
But I digress, alcohol consumption has caused more deaths, more family break ups, more spousal abuse, more child abuse and more highway tragedies and more murders in a single year than second hand smoke has done in it's lifetime..........
I would suggest you take your own self righteousness and direct it towards a legitimate societal concern than focus on the smokers who have done everything in their power, suffered every indignity you pius bastards have thrown at us in order to not offend you.....
If you're so concerned about health and safety, then I would suggest you get your priorities straight bro........but then again, you like your beer and/or wine don't you? No sense in goring that oxen is there?
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/secondhand-smoke-charade
I have found that the anti-smoking Nazis are most uncompromising when it comes to letting others smoke. They’re like the woman who protested a neighbor smoking in his own house 300 yards away because she could smell second hand smoke from inside her house. Either the woman has a nose better than a bloodhound or she suffers from some mental illness. I’m betting on the latter case. If I smoke in my own home or vehicle, it’s none of your damn business! Screw you nanny anti-smoking fascists.
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