jesus, don't try and nickel and dime me. a bar would not be a desirable place to go if not for the peripheral attractions, like chicks, and people getting drunk and carrying on and even...SMOKIN'
I agree with Nolen - Hayes I know you dispute the evidence but why? It seems undeniable (based on personal experience) that secondhand smoke has SOME negative effect on non-smoking individuals. I have a scratchy throat and a tougher time breathing after being in a smoke filled room for a prolonged period (I am not asthmatic or allergic or anything). Even without the scientific evidence - it's pretty obvious that the human body isn't designed for such a thing. The natural counter is to say the same thing about alcohol -however alcohol has been shown to have positive health effects as well in moderation. In excess the effects turn negative - which is why drinking to excess is technically illegal (though rarely enforced). I have yet to see one bit of evidence indicating that smoking, whether first hand or second hand, has any positive health benefits.
If they had a smoking section, sure I'm ok with that. No, I don't want to sit on a toilet, but smoking sections are not new, Sam. Everyone who fits in your categorization already has the option not to. I think you'll have a hard time finding anyone who wants to sit in a room with others urine or vomit, and at best they are a statistically insignificant portion of the population, which smokers are not. In addition there are many nonsmokers who simply don't care about the issue. I'm fairly comfortable projecting 99.9% of the population does not want to sit around others vomit and urine. I don't have a problem with it. There probably are some fetish clubs that would address your need already though. Now why don't you answer my question: you assert urination and vomit are the same as smoke, so should cigar bars be required to allow urination and vomit at the tables?
I'm not talking about a smoking section, I'm talking about a small room for excreting stuff - I don't think you'd go for that woudl you? They have an option not to NOW because there are laws against it and because social norms changed. Centuries ago, excreting in bars was a lot more common. "Required" to allow it? That's a differnt animal than banning it. But no, I don't see why a cigar bar should also become a urine bar but I don't see the consequence of that. I didn't say that urine was "the same" as smoke. Obviously they are different activities. However, I AM saying that they are very similar insofar as they impose costs on the many by allowing excretion of noxious substances for the convenience of the few, and that they are activities that are traditionally associated with bars.
You're smart enough to know that your personal experience does not translate to scientific evidence. However, addressing that: you shouldn't mistake discomfort with a health hazard. If I cut an onion my eyes water but that doesn't make an onion a health hazard. The basics of it are that to be a health hazard something has to meet a threshold of risk to the general populace. Second hand smoke doesn't. ETS is just an end around solution for the antismoking lobby to force through restrictions they had previously been unable to do because both the courts and the legislatures have recognized an individuals right to smoke if they so choose and a property owners right to allow smoking if they choose. After decades of failing they 'SUPRISE' come up with the perfect counter. Your smoking hurts ME! But a close examination of the 'science' beings up all kinds of problems. There isn't a study out there that can prove ETS caused a disease. Hell, its damn near impossible to prove first hand smoking does. For example, in Western Europe the rates of smoking and the harshness of the tobacco are both more significant that in the US. Yet across the board the diseases typically associated with smoking are much lower. Why? Mainly because of cofounding factors in these diseases. If you eat fish and fresh vegetables, work 30 hours a week and smoke you are much less likely to get cancer than if you eat beef and fries, work 80 hours a week, and smoke. The ETS 'studies' are psuedo-science engaging in everything from changing confidence variables from the norms to get a predetermined outcome to outright fraud (for example the EPA was determined to have fabricated its 'science' by a federal court). The EPA's much ballyhoo'd findings on ETS were released before they'd conducted the studies, which seems a bit odd to me. I could go on and on but you can search for other ETS threads. Over the years I've cut and pasted everything from Congressional Hearings to court transcripts detailing the problems with these declarations that ETS being harmful is accepted science. If anything it's scientific consensus by fear similar to what happened with mar1juana. The disconnect between was you intuitively know to not be 'good' for you and what consititutes a health hazard is that the standard is not 'zero+.' If it were then we'd have to outright ban three fourths of the materials used in our civilization. Then I don't think you have looked at too much data on the subject. Smoking, psychologically, is a negative pleasure, pathway to memories and time passed. It has verifiable positive effects as a stress reliever (the number one killer in the US, btw). It has been shown to effectively combat Alheimer's and Parkinsons. It has long been known as a digestive aid. There is a long list of benefits. But that's a red herring on your part anyway. People, at least Americans, don't go to bars for the medicinal benefit.
Why can't I have a smoking section? Why must you try to shove us in a little toilet room? They had the option before the ban. There is no cost other than inconvenience. Allowing smoking and non smoking bars gives room for both. An ordinance requiring state of the art ventilation systems would take care of that. A ban is draconian and unnecessary. It's majority tyranny over the minority. Sam, I'll say it again. I am not unsympathetic to those who don't want to be around it. I am all for a compromise. Even one that leaves me far fewer places to frequent and enjoy my smoke. But I am unsympathetic to an opponent who wants it all and gleefully trumpets the banning of something I and others enjoy. I'll take a smoking area, or a restricted portion of the market for smoking establishments. A ban isn't necessary. You've pointed out the market hasn't self corrected but it would seem apparent that is because those opposed to smoking establishments haven't mobilized. That isn't my fault.
Let me get this straight, you are doubting that smoking cigarretes, even first hand, is bad for one's health at all?
because you were mad that urinators at least got to stay in the bar, so I'm giving you equal treatment. did they? State of the art ventilation systems might even prove more wasteful on a net basis than either alternative scenario. And as far as "inconvenience" being the only cost - that's right, but that's the point. In the non-ban scneario, there's a lot less utility since as is pretty apparent, the minority dominates the majority due to the race to the bottom effect. Now is there room for a compromise? yes, of course, in fact many public smoking bans allow for specific exceptions including New Yorks's, which is among the most stringent in the country. In fact there's several specific exceptions (owner operated bars, cigar bars, bars with outdoor spaces) in which smoking is allowed. It's not your fault, but it is your problem. The market is correcting itself, that's why the ban is in place.
I'm coming to late to this thread and just skimmed through it but I want to follow up on Hayes point. If there are so many non-smokers there who want to go out but don't like smoky bars why didn't they just lobby some bars to voluntarily go smoke free? If there is such a huge demand for no smoking bars then a smart bar owner listening to customers would've gone voluntarily smoke free or a entrepenueral non-smoker who likes to go bars should've started a smoke free bar and reaped in the huge amounts of business from non-smokers looking for a place to drink socialize and play some foozeball. So if there is such a demand among those who like the nightlife to have non-smoking venues why didn't someone start one?
Because the market is not operating efficiently - most nonsmokers don't accurately value how much better a nonsmoking bar is than a smoking one, I know I didn't - they're stuck on the misconception that smoking is "integral" to a bar even though it does not appear to be so, given that most bars have been able to maintain their character (and clientele) in post- ban environments. Meanwhile we get the race to the bottom, in which all bars allow smoking because they overvalue the effects of converting to a non-smoking bar. The "it's a free market" argument just does not fly here - the end result of the free market here is an inefficient outcome. That's the point of having a free market, so you get to the optimal outcome. When you don't then a free market isn't worth jack.
So then rather than have someone show some market vision and try to actually make a no smoking bar lets go to government regulation instead? So the majority now runs roughshod over the minority when their is a feasible market based solution right there for the taking. It just takes market vision rather than regulation. OTOH how is that getting to an optimal outcome when now bars that actually want to cater to smokers can't? You're forcing bars to cut out part of their market. Rather than criticize though how about this as a solution. Now that the smoking ban(s) have been in effect for a few years and we know the economic affects of it lets remove it and let bars decide on their own. Any bar that feels that they are doing economically successful enough and attracting a good clientele can choose to remain smoke free while bars that feel their bottom line is hurting can go back to smoking. If everyone is so happy about the smoking ban and bars don't feel they will take an economic hit then they will won't to remain smoke free.
Do you think smoking (firsthand) causes disease? If you do, why? After all, it's difficult to "prove." The same reasoning you use to condemn proof of the harmful effects of secondhand smoke is the same reasoning you can use to claim that smoking doesn't cause disease at all. So why not go all the way? Why not just claim that smoking isn't harmful at all? You're halfway there.
Yes. I just explained why the market was leading to an inefficient outcome - go back and read the thread. Every place where bans were implemented, bars usually see increased revenues, or no change. Forcing smokers to step outside is not "cutting out part of the market" - most empirical evidence shows that market is either unaffected (that is, they undertake the HUGE TREMENDOUS BURDEN of stepping outside and smoking a cigarrette) or is replaced and then some. ANd essentially, your proposition of a "feasible market based solution" disproves itself - if there were a feasible market based solution leading to a more efficient outcome it would have been implemented by the market, but because by definition, that's what an efficient market DOES. I could take your laissez faire logic and apply it to any number of regulations based on liquor sales - age restrictions, closing hours, and scream "YOU'RE INTERFERING WITH THE FREE MARKET". I could do the same for any number of initiatives like child labor laws, occupational safety regulations,environmental laws - whatever. The reason why weh have these laws though, because, like smoking, there are externalities that aren't being accounted for and the outcomes . Smokers force others to bear the cost of their actions, just like polluting factories. However when we have such externalities we have to regulate them to try to achieve a better outcome - we don't say " hey why don't we put the onus on consumers to demand green factories " because we know that hte barriers to doing so are too high, so we do the next best thing. The empirical evidence with respect to smoking bans indicates that a total ban does a pretty decent job of finding an optimal outcome - and that in the absence of the ban, the nonsmokers lose out or are unable to effectively compete with the "race to the bottom" among bar owners, who seem to collectively perceive financial advantage to allow smoking even though it might not be. I'd leave it in place for 25 years until the idea becomes socially unacceptable permanently, just like taking a sh-t in public is unacceptable, then you could remove it.
There is no justifiable reason for banning smoking in all bars. If you like it, fine, but stop trying to craft a rational argument in favor of the ban - there isn't one. The same arguments used in favor of the smoking ban would all necessarily entail a ban on many other things - SUVs, drinking, etc.,. This ban is not about rationality. It's about the fact that local governments and public opinion have all tipped in favor of anti-smoking (for whatever reason), so, purely by a statistical majority, one group gets to enforce their will over another. It ain't about right and wrong, it's about who's got the power. So, if you're in favor, then you win - but don't try and make it look justifiable by any other standard than an arbitrary shift in public opinion.
Rationality goes many ways - given the expense and health hazard it's not rational to smoke at all and the only reason why many do it is physical addiction which cases them to make an unrational choice - why do you think "i'm trying to quit" is such a commn refrain? I don't think the pro-smoking side has any claim to some sort of rational high ground in this instance.
Again though if those economic benefits seemed so obvious then why didn't anyone see that prior to the smoking bans? What you're arguing is that well the market doesn't work so we're going to force a solution that will make optimize the market. The problem with that is at the time that wasn't proven since prior to smoking bans no one was arguing that bars might make more money in fact the even proponents of smoking bans were admitting that they might economically impact bars. You're using hind sight reasoning to say that smoking bans improve the market. Well now we can say that smoking bans don't hurt bars economically so why keep them in place when without it the market should induce bars to keep the smoking ban on their own. So in other words you waiting for tobacco to be declared illegal. Instead of pushing for a smoking ban in bars why not push for making tobacco illegal?
