CALIFORNIA: 5-year-old ban in bars leaves owners, customers fuming

Appeal-Democrat.com ^ | 5 January 2003 | Scott Bransford

[Lurker]

Yea, that whole 'private property rights' thing was overrated anyway.

Of course you should be able to dictate what a business owner can allow his patrons to do in his own place...

L

[stylin_geek]

Tell you what, you open a business, I will wander in, take what I want, and leave. When you complain that I didn't pay, I will tell you "it is my right."

[realpatriot71]

While I find it quite pleasant to be able to go to the bar and not have to deal with smoke and the smell it leave behind on my clothes, the decision to be smoke free or not shoud be left to the owner. I've only found one place where I live that allows smoking - legal loophole of some kind - and I still go in. My smoking friends love it.

[SheLion]

but it's the economy stupid, not the smoking ban

The economy my arse. You liberals are all alike! Try reading some research once-in-awhile!

Smoking Bans Bad For Business

[saminfl]

And I don't see why I should have to put up with it.

I can't get away from them unless I completely give up eating out, going to a bar or dancing in public.

You don't have to put up with it. You don't have to go where you are so easily offended by smoke. I have never heard someone who has to shower and shampoo after being exposed to cigarette smoke. What do you do about automobile exhaust? Your second statement is almost a lie. I am certain there are many places you can go to that are non-smoking. It appears you just want everyone to conform to your desires and to not offend you.

By the way, I am a non-smoker.

[SheLion]

and I still go in. My smoking friends love it.

There should be room for all legal activities in the world.

[metesky]

Geez, D1, of all people backing the coercive power of the state, I never figured on you.

Why couldn't we have "choice" where the owner gets to set the perameters for behavior in his establishment? I truly believe that non-smoking bars and restaurants could succeed by establishing a clientele of like minds and the rest of us old butt-smoking drunks could have our places and never the twain shall meet.

Could it be that despite people who don't like smoking, such as yourself, that non-smoking bars and restaurants probably would not survive without coercion from goobermint type repressives?

[TheBattman]

How hard is it to understand???

1. If I don't want to smell smoke, be around smoke, or see smoke, I don't go to a business that allows smoking.

2. I certainly appreciate businesses dividing the resteraunt into smoking and non-smoking sections. Of course, any smart business owner would do such without a law to require it - I am a non-smoker who will not go in a resteraunt if I can't get away from the smoke - MY CHOICE.

3. If you don't want to smell, breath, be around smoke - don't get a job where smoking is allowed - duh..IT's a CHOICE.

In a truly free-market system, the consumer makes the rules. If a business does not allow smoking and they don't have enough business to stay afloat - that was their decision to make. If a business does allow smoking and they don't get enough business to stay afloat - that was still their decision to make.

The market will direct a business owner's decision making. If it doesn't then they deserve to be out of business. The government has no right or obligation to make these sorts of decisions for business owners.

[stylin_geek]

My biggest problem with the issues involved here is people do not make a distinction between rights and a transaction. Somewhere, consensual transactions involving buyer and seller became confused with "rights."

When transactions and rights became synonymous, it created a lot of the current confusion and certainly muddied the waters when it came to what a business owner can and cannot do.

And, not to defend business owners to much, there are a lot of owners that willingly abrogated the right to run their business as they see fit to government dictate.

[metesky]

By the way, so much for being united against that moron from this morning, eh? Now it's back to the old FR we know and love:

"You're one!"
"No, I'm not! You are!"
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah!"

Gotta love it!

[stylin_geek]

I too, am a non-smoker

[philosofy123]

When I used to smoke, and the airlines allowed smoking in certain section of the planes, I used to sit in the NON-SMOKING section. The reason was, the minute the pilot says you may smoke, every one in the smoking section lights up in the same second. Even then, as a smoker, it was unbearable!

Now, I am off this STUPID habit for years, and every time I go to a bar, I encounter the same experience as I did on the flights of early years. Simply all these stupid youngsters, especially the girls, typically do not smoke, and they just puff on a cigarette IN BARS, just to look COOL? The idea that after the hostile campaign against smokers and smoking for several decades, youngsters are still starting in this addictive STUPID habit is very puzzling.

Yes it is intrusive for the government to tell a business what to do, however, if the nonsmoking public has no way of protecting themselves from second hand smoke. The government intrusion is the only thing left.

Say for example that there are certain people who are happy to take their infant with them to a bar/restaurant, and the baby has a diaper loaded with crap that stinks the room? Do you think the other people in that room have a right to expect that parent to clean the baby? Suppose, the parent says, well, I am happy with that smell! If you don't like it leave. Then you leave and encounter the same type of parent/stink in the next bar/restaurant! Do you think that would be offensive?

Smoking is addictive, and the smokers crave that nicotine in their blood periodically during the day. It was acceptable for the nonsmokers to share the room or even the car with smokers, and now it is not acceptable. Smokers should live with that fact; that they stink, and their presence stink the room. They need to smoke outside, and spray deodorant on themselves as they renter the room-not to offend others. Self-consciousness is a good idea for them to be acceptable in the society. If you have lots of gas, you do not impose yourself on everyone in the room?

[AppyPappy]

Open a business and post a sign that says "No Blacks Allowed". Let me know what happens.

[stylin_geek]

You forgot "So are you, but what am I?"

[tubebender]

Indian Casinos still allow smoking and I am glad there is a place for smokers to go. We are not or have ever been smokers and I hate the smell but we still go to the casinos including those in the Redding-Corning area.

[stylin_geek]

So, you do not have the freedom to set up your own non-smoking bar? Is going into a bar a right, or is there a consensual transaction involved?

[stylin_geek]

You still continue to be obtuse about the difference between rights and "consensual transactions." Obviously you stopped learning and thinking, and nothing I say is going to make you stop and think about the underlying philosophy involved here.

[TaZ]

"Geez, D1, of all people backing the coercive power of the state, I never figured on you."

Being an ex-Kalifornian, I think ol' D1 has started to be effected by the ever increasing brain-washing maelstrom that he is being subjected to in LA...

[Gabz]

Sure, receipts are off $2,000 a weekend (%?), but it's the economy stupid, not the smoking ban.

That may be partially true for a state the size of California - but it is far from the reality of what has been happening in the past 6 weeks in Delaware.

At the most it is only a 35 mile drive to a another state that does not have the onerous ban that Delaware has.

I stopped in a tavern just over the state line in Maryland on Friday afternoon. We were talking with some of the regulars and the owner/bartender. There weekend business has more than doubled since Thanksgiving, when the ban went into effect in Delaware.

I've heard similar stories from bars and restaurants all along the Maryland Delaware line.

[Lexington Green]

Freedom for me but not for thee
Freedom for thee but not for me
But thee and me will never be free
Until there is freedom for me and for thee
- Lexington Green