Surgeon general: No safe level of secondhand smoke

This reminds me of a funny incident a couple of weeks ago. I was returning from my trip to South Texas and had stopped in Austin to see some friends. I wasn't hooking up with them until the evening and this was about 2pm. So I went to Casino El Camino for a burger (great burgers) but forgot they didn't open until 4pm. Argh! I saw this other place I had not noticed previously that was a 'Cigar Bar and Coffee Shop' (can't remember the name) right next door. So I go inside and get a cup of coffee, take out my paper to read and ask for an ashtray.

Coffee guy: 'You can't smoke in here.'

Me: 'Lol. Right. Can I get an ashtray?'

Coffee guy: 'No, I'm serious. Because of the ordance you can't smoke in here until 5 o'clock.'

A cigar bar where you can't smoke. That's just plain stupid (I didn't say that of course because it wasn't his fault). That's the problem with bans. Even places specifically designed and opened for the pleasure of smoking are not allowed to have smoking. It's just silly and it presupposes that a non-smokers right to 'not have to put up with the smell of smoke' means they have the right to go into any establishment and proactively project that 'right' on someone else. While many portray smokers as doing that same thing, they don't. They smoke with the express permission of the owner who owns and operates their own private establishment.

 

I don't think it's presumptuous at all. In fact I think it's natural and logical, and probably not specific to me. The reason? There is nothing to judge it by.

The first 7 years of my drinking "career" - the ONLY drinking I did was in smoke permeated bars.

I did not do ANY drinking in non-smoking bars - why not? Because as far as I knew in chicago and new york and the other places I lived -- there weren't any.

So how am I supposed to accurately gauge how I would value a non-smoking bar vs. a smoking bar when I have never been in a non-smoking bar? Answer: I can't. I mean, I can guess what it's like, but not that accurately, it turned out, in my case. I think the same goes for a lot of people who grew up (basically everybody born before the early 80's ) in default smoking areas. Perhaps they don't undervalue it as much as me, but I think they're faced with the same problem of trying to value something they haven't experienced.

Perhaps, but maybe they don't see the benefits accurately enough, which is still not the ideal outcome. Perhaps the voting public is motivated by other factors (like you said, lobbying groups like the AMA), or perhaps their in favor of it vaguely but don't know exactly how much their in favor of it. (i.e., like me, pre-ban, they'd vote for a ban, but post-ban, they'd act on the ban, such as in my own example.

Private business owners support it but a lot of them do it out of an inaccurate perception that their own welfare will be negatively impacted whereas most of the data is mixed at best on that front, often showing that they're not worse off and sometimes better off.

 

The issue is, why do people have an inherent right to frequent a bar on their own terms? They passed the ban a while back in Austin, and it's great - but legally, it makes no sense to me. It's a private business that non-smokers have the right to not frequent.

There are plenty of places people can choose to frequent that have inherent dangers. NASCAR races have a possibility of a car crashing into the stands. Baseball stadiums have a possibility of being hit by a foul ball. When you go to those places, you understand the risks you are taking. And in those cases, there aren't even alternatives and they are on publicly funded property - with bars, there are hundreds in any given city, all privately owned. You have the choice of where and when you frequent them. How does it make sense to ban smoking in them?

It makes sense to ban dangerous things in places where people have no choice (drunk driving on the roads, for example). It also makes sense to ban smoking in workplaces unrelated to smoking. But its also reasonable to expect to breathe in smoke at a bar, just like its reasonable to be exposed to dangerous tools working at a construction site, or possible infections working at a hospital.

 

Well, when I was in New York there was an oxygen bar and you couldn't smoke. Also, whether or not there is a ban there are a lot of corporate run restaurant/bars that have moved non-smoking. So more options are coming from the market itself. I'm not sure why you think you don't have anything to compare it to - other than the rest of your daily life where you can't smoke. Surely you've been in a non-smoking restaurant. If not I'm willing to bet you've been in a stadium or office or theatre where you can't smoke. Further, for every experience similar to yours there is someone who already knows they would prefer to drink in a nonsmoking establishment. I know you're not claiming your own personal experience and inability to 'see' the externalized benefits are representative of the greater population. And while the voting public may be motivated by other factors they are nonetheless in support of a legislated ban. That indicates a fairly decided opinion. To suggest that it is beyond the general publics ability to vote with their feet seems pretty spurious to me. Again, I am not doubting your own personal experience.

I agree the data is skewed on the economic impact. However, I am speaking more of the independent bar owner who has a more libertarian view on this particular subject.

 

What is all this BAN sh*t?
I'm sick of it

You can smoke here. . but not there
what the h*ll is that
why not do the same for weed. . for crack

STOP BEATING AROUND THE FRICKING BUSH!!
OutLaw Smoking!!!

They act like they wanna outlaw it
but
don't have the b*lls to do it

so they will BAN it from happening anywhere

Rocket River

 

Amen. The studies are so biased it's like they set out with the intention of proving something that they already believed to be true, then rearranged the data to fit that model. Terrible science, and it's be exposed.

DWI

 

they don't wanna ban it. they tax it. they make tons of money off of it. and by they, of course, i mean the Pentavaret....led by Colonel Sanders.

 

No. It's not. It's reasonable to expect to get drunk in a bar. It's reasonable to expect to breathe in smoke in a smoke factory.

It's not reasonable to expect to breathe in smoke at a bar, unless you're conditioned to think that way. But it's a bar - where people are there to drink. A minority are there to drink and then puke. An (unfortunately smaller) minority are there to f-ck. They're associated with it, but they are not nearly as part of it the experience as you would believe unless you're conditioned to accept it that way.

Once you're not, you're not. Like I said, 500 years ago it was reasonable to expect to see people expectorate or to vomit or take a sh-t in a bar. Times change. Now it's not, and soon (and by soon, I mean NOW in most places where the ban has been in effect) it will not be reasonable to expect people to smoke in one either. And I don't see anything wrong with that and neither will people in the future.

 

sounds good to me, I'll just avoid it like a normal pu$$y seeking man would.

Tookie and crew who want to do a drive by on the Rollin' 60's can go to their own fiestas and kill each other.

Let the owner's decide.

 

I think it really depends. Which 1% gets to remain smoke friendly and why? I can't imagine an ordinance that allowed only a tiny percentage of bars to remain smoke friendly indoors would work since every other bar would get pissed at the idea.

I seriously worry about my health when I play in bars and I spend a LOT of my time outside before and after sets to avoid the exposure. I can't imagine what it would be like to work in one on a consistent basis.

 

I'm defintely doubting the general publics opinion to vote with their feet.

Most economists would too. If not, there wouldn't be such a thing as economics and everything would be far more easily explainable.

You said it yourself - if 90% of people don't like smoking, and 10% do like smoking, then why is it that (granted we are speaking in rough estimates) 99% of bars, excepting the oxygen bar that you spoke of, are smoking bars in a no-background rule scenario? If people were able to "vote with their feet" and we arrived at an efficient outcome, then 90% of bars would be non-smoking bars, and 10% of bars would be smoking bars -- at least intuitively that's what we would expect to happen.

Instead, we get the exact opposite scenario in which the 10% get 99% of bars, and the 90% get 1%, which indicates to me, at least that the market is not functioning that efficiently. That's to be expected with respect to an activity as fraught with externalities as smoking is, at least that's what I would guess.

I should clarify that beforehand, when I was saying that I undervalued having non-smoking bars, you know that is just one of the many externalies (and at heart, all externalities should result in instances of over- or undervaluation, at least to my knowledge) that are involved with smoking. As Batman Jones indicated, even smokers aren't able to make a rational (in economic terms) choice as to smoking, which I would suspect is due to the physically addictive nature of smoking.

I just think that presuming an efficient outcome in a neutral background here is the wrong thing to do.



I agree the data is skewed on the economic impact. However, I am speaking more of the independent bar owner who has a more libertarian view on this particular subject.[/QUOTE]

 

First, I appreciate that you worry about your health playing in smoking bars and I think you are probably right to do that. My suggestion: no live music player should ever have to do that again. I will never complain that when I go hear live music in a bar smoking is banned, if....

You just give me one public place to smoke and drink at the same time. As long as smoking is legal (and taxed to the tune of well over double what the cigarettes actually cost), would that be okay?

You ask how that would work. I don't know. If somebody wanted to hire me to work it out, I'd be happy to think on it. Meanwhile I'm just interested to know if it would be okay with non-smokers if smokers smoked together in a public place, allowing for the vast majority of public places to be non-smoking. If you're okay with that in theory, please just say so. We can work out the details later.

I am interested though in the idea that all bar owners would want that. After all the talk about how the smoking ban's been good for business, how it's not been a problem at all, why would most bar owners want that? And, if they do, then the smoking ban is not the unabashed success it's been made out to be.

We're talking about a legal substance. And not only that, but one that is totally addictive. So this country has said it is okay to smoke these things, even while they are totally addictive. It is okay to smoke them, it is okay to be charged twice as much as they cost a couple years ago, but the smoking of them will be banned in all public places, even while people are totally addicted to them. That is crazytown.

Make them illegal (and I will quit if they do that) or give us one bar (or one hundred bars) to smoke in. The bans right now, coupled with the exorbitant taxes, are abitrary bull****. If they're legal, we should be allowed to smoke them in controlled situations. If they're too dangerous to be legal, they should be banned. One or the other. They're bleeding us for money and then telling us we can't smoke in public. Decide. That's all I ask.

 

I'm about as anti-smoking as you can get. My mom was a heavy smoker from the time she was 18 until she died. Smoking contributed to her death. It broke my heart to see how much her addiction controlled her, as she would decide where she would go and what she would do based on whether or not she could smoke. After her first operation for an aortic aneurysm she still would not stop smoking, even after she was strongly warned by her doctors how dangerous it was for her.

That said, I don't think smoking should be illegal, but I do think it should be banned in most public indoor spaces. Cigarette smoke is incredibly noxious and I should not have to pay the price of a smokers addiction if I want to enjoy public venues.

Here is how this could be worked out. As it is now, if you ban smoking in most bars, but allow it in only a few, most bar owners are going to want to be one of those few, because they are going to have a guaranteed customer base of addicted smokers that will be funneled into this small subset of bars/restaurants. You need a fair way of determining who gets to serve this highly motivated population of customers. Set up a lottery system where a certain small % of liquor licenses come with a smoking license at an additional fee. If a bar owner wants to have a smoking establishment they can enter the lottery.

 

All the shows at the Mucky Duck are now smoke-free.

 

I get what you are saying. I think the problem is that, yes, they are legal, but they aren't healthy for those who choose not to smoke them and the laws are trying to protect people who would be adversely effected by the presence of them.

It's really difficult to compare laws, but it is kind of like drivers and pedestrians. The only way to protect children from cars is to force people to change how they drive when they are near kids. There are even some areas - parks, for example - where driving is just completely prohibited to protect pedestrians. When they do have to share a space, the burden is ALWAYS on the driver no matter how moronic the person on foot and/or bicycle may be. You hit them, your fault.

In this instance, the burden is on those who smoke because they are creating the health risk through their perfectly legal behavior.

And I would be fine with a few designated smoking places if that could be worked out.

By the way, you mention that you would quit if it were illegal. Well, you know it is bad for you despite what others may think about the science of how it impacts others, why do you still do it?

gwayneco: I know that is true of Mucky Duck and also Ovations. Too bad you can't play loud music in either place or the owners get pissed.

 

I don't know where to begin, but it's things like these that come up and make me realize why the world laughs at us.

People who quit smoking or don't smoke don't want to be around it. People who do smoke want to be able to. Blah Blah.

Except for some reason, a bar, you know, a place where people put toxins in their bodies and purposely dehydrate themsleves and kill brain cells, ought to ban smoking?

And what about the health of those people who work in bars? Will a law be written to protect them from beligerent drunks? That sure is a hell of a lot more dangerous than a Marlboro light.

I lived in LA when the ban went into effect. It sucked then and it still sucks. I hear they've even outlawed it on beaches!

I live in Tel Aviv now, and people complain if they can't smoke *hash* in a bar. No one cares if a sign says "no smoking." People light up wherever they want. If it pisses someone off, then they ask you to put the cigarette out. That's it.

That's pretty much the way it works I think, outside the US and UK. Seems pretty civilized to me. I think people talking on cell phones in a bar or restaurant is way more irritating to me.

Bars are supposed to be smokey. They are places to get drunk in and listen to blues music. They are places to pick up girls who aren't marraige material. It isn't a freaking church. It's a place to go and indulge in all those things the Southern Baptists told my momma she couldn't do.

These arguments are pretty weak. If smoking in a bar is of serious concern to your health, don't go. To me it's like saying "Yeah, I like gay clubs, 'cause I'm really into electronic music, but I can't stand all those gay people hitting on me. Just who do those guys think they are?" or "I sure like your songs Mr. Mick Jagger, but I think these fans are little rowdy and should be forced to stay in their seats and refrain from yelling so loud. I mean, my hearing is sensitive. And while you are at it, could you turn down the music a little? Thanks."

If I owned a bar and someone complained about smoke, I would say, "The sissy bar is down the street, sir."

If I ever move back to the US, I think my only options will be Vegas or New Orleans.

And Texx, you are a hypocrite. I think you've just compromised any credibility you have on civil liberties arguments. By your same point-of-view, the government has the right to do what they want to your property and your gun collection, ban gambling, force you to wear a seatbelt in the back seat, ban fried foods, ban motorcycles, and censor the internet. They could tax you for your capital gains, and use that money to fund a national healthcare program and fund poor artists and inner-city youth. And why not? Those things are certainly in the better interests of the common good than whether or not people smoke in a damn bar.

Maybe the next time someone lights a cigarette, instead of being a passive aggressive weenie, and asking the government to make them stop, you should politely ask them to wait until you are gone to smoke. I would do it for you. I do it all the time.

 

Or, just do it like pollution credits. You auction off x number of licenses and bars can bid on them. Then, they can be traded on the open market, so demand determines the value of the license.

 

1. the argument of "the rest of the world is lauging at us" is soooo tired. i'm soooo tired of people assuming that we should care what they think about domestic policy issues. or cultural issues. seriously, who the hell cares?

2. are you aware that most of Europe has had smoking bans in place for quite some time? think you can smoke in bars in the "oh, so progressive" Scandanavian countries?? How about Italy? Spain? or the UK?? you can't smoke in public bars/restaurants in any of those countries.

 

France is about to pass legislation as well. Much to the chagrin of their citizens because I believe they have one of the highest percentages of smokers per capita of any country in the world.

 

Awesome.