COACH!!!!!
Posted on 01/10/2003 7:41:00 PM PST by Max McGarrity
Secondhand smoke "might make your hair smell," but it's not a proven health risk, Bears-coach-turned-restaurant-owner Mike Ditka said Thursday, leading the charge against a proposed restaurant smoking ban in Chicago.
With a cigar in one hand and a drink in the other, Ditka said his steelworker father was living proof that it's baloney for medical experts to claim that exposing a restaurant employee to an eight-hour shift's worth of secondhand smoke is the equivalent of smoking a half a pack of cigarettes.
"My dad smoked four packs of Luckies from the time he was 12 until the time he was 60. He lived to 80. He died of hardening of the arteries. He didn't die from what smoking caused. He worked in the steel mill where every morning, you woke up and there was half an inch of soot on the cars," Ditka said.
"People who have survived in industrial areas of our country late into their 80s and 90s have inhaled more smoke than all the smoking in the world can give you. I find it hard to believe that people try to shove the secondhand smoke theory down your throat because I don't believe it. I don't believe it even hurts you. It might make your hair smell a little bit, but that's about it."
Ditka said he has nothing against Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th), the City Council's leading anti-smoking crusader. He simply believes the restaurant business would "suffer tremendously" if Burke and Health Committee Chairman Ed Smith (28th) persuaded their colleagues to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.
"These people who are popping off and throwing their weight around better open up their eyes and understand that you've got freedoms in America. If you don't want to come in this restaurant, don't come in. If you don't want to go where people smoke, don't go. They run the City Council. Let the people down here run the restaurants," Da Coach said.
Reminded that smoking has been banned for years in California restaurants and bars, Ditka said: "That's fruits and nuts. That's what they are. A lot of liberals. . .. All the do-gooders in the world. The people in California who abolished smoking are the same people who want to legalize marijuana. Come on. Give me a break."
At a Health Committee meeting earlier this week, restaurant owners attempted to slow the anti-smoking steamroller.
They warned that a Chicago-only restaurant smoking ban would send customers fleeing to the suburbs and prompt conventions to move elsewhere. They argued the ban would create an enforcement nightmare, with confrontations between tip-seeking servers and their customers.
Mayor Daley sympathized, called for more City Council hearings on the controversy and backed away from his earlier endorsement of a restaurant smoking ban.
On Thursday, restaurant employees held a news conference at Ditka's Restaurant, 100 E. Chestnut, to reiterate those arguments and pile on a few more.
"This city is rich in character--full of taverns, neighborhood joints, steakhouses and family restaurants. A smoking ban would completely expunge that character. It would absolutely reduce this city to another generic, dime-a-dozen, two-bit town," said Glenn Garlisch, a waiter at the Chicago Chop House, 60 W. Ontario.
Really? Because there isn’t one, none, zero, zip, nada….study printed in a per reviewed scientific publication that has found any, at all, statistically even in the smallest amounts of correlation, let alone causation between SHS and cancer.
Now if your are lazy or stupid enough to believe the mass media, well then this is news to you…
If only it was true. Darn.
http://www.forces.org/evidence/evid/second.htm
And you sir, are sick.
Ummm Football. I was being humorous. You see Mike Ditka was a Hall of Fame Tight End for the Chicago Bears (that would be a football team) he was also a coach for the Chicago Bears leading the Bears in 1985 to a 15-1 season the best in our history. And the Green Bay Packers are our rivals. So when I said "you must be a mean spirited packer fan" I was being facicious.
If this means, "You're mistaken," then I say maybe I am wrong. My cousin, who did not smoke, although her husband did, died from lung cancer in her 30's. The family's assumption was that her husband's smoking was the cause. I admit this falls far short of being proven, and I'll be more careful in the future about making categorical statements like this.
I don't believe you.
If this means, "You're making this up," then I say, "What an odd thing to say!"
Care to post your height/weight on here? I've seen to many ex-smokers who quit, become NicoNazis, and balloon to twice their weight. I had a brother who quit smoking cold turkey (about 3 packs a day), and thought that gave him permission to eat what he wanted, when he wanted. He is now dead, at the age of 45 (and he only smoked a few years, in his late teens/early twenties). I remember us getting off an airplane at O'Hare airport one time, me "jonesing" for a cigarette after an international flight, and he scarfing down 2 Big Macs in rapid succession. He told me, "those things are going to kill you", and I replied "those things are going to kill you first". He died about a year later.
I am not trying to scold anyone (I loved my brother very much), but I would like to give fair warning to NicoNazis: there is more than one way to die young. Everything in moderation.
COACH!!!!!
Surprised to see how many Freepers believe in mob rule.
Funny but yet in all my years of smoking on this planet, reading all the articles produced by the antis, all the arguments relevant to the merits of bar/restaurant owners banning smoking, I HAVE NEVER READ ONE ARTICLE ABOUT ANY RESTAURANT OR BAR COMPLAINING OF A LACK OF BUSINESS DUE TO A SMOKING ENVIRONMENT!
The only articles I am reading now are about the restaurants going out of business due to city mandated smoking bans! So where is the restaurant/bar owner support from the nico-nazis to help him stay in business????? Certainly inquiring minds want to know........
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