Chicago anti-smokers, have you heard of this thing called Freedom?
Unless you live around Chicago you’re probably not familiar with what’s currently going on here. Well, some people are lobbying to make Chicago smoke-free. What this means is they want to outlaw smoking in ALL restaurants and ALL bars.
I’m not a cigarette smoker, and while I do smoke an occasional cigar, this legislation really doesn’t affect me. In fact, I hate inhaling smoke while I’m eating. Even when I DID smoke cigarettes, I never did it with a meal, it just ruined the meal for me. So, I tend to gravitate to smoke-free restaurants anyway.
This whole movement still pisses me off.
Why? Because it comes down to simple freedom. It’s just another step in a long line of freedoms government is taking away. It makes it all that much easier for them to take away something else later.
Here’s what I don’t understand. Why can’t we have smoking restaurants and bars AND non-smoking restaurants and bars? Require that they mark what they are clearly on the outside of the establishment. Then, you can let the market decide. If people REALLY don’t want to go to a smoking establishment, then they don’t have to go. Wow, freedom of CHOICE. What a fucking concept.
I imagine if a smoking establishment sees their clientele drop significantly, then they might make a switch to non-smoking. VOLUNTARILY. No government sticking their damn noses in and requiring adults to conform to another freedom-grab.
My wife even brought up a point that maybe we could require the smoking establishments to get a Smoking license, much like a liquour license. There could be some standards in regards to what type of ventilation they have, and money from those licenses could go to non-smoking programs like TV advertising and things like the American Cancer Society.
Sounds like a good compromise. This would allow me, as a free adult, the CHOICE of which restaurants I wanted to go to. I wouldn’t be forced to go to a smoking establishment, and the smoker likewise would not be forced to a non-smoking restaurant.
But instead we have the whiney bitch-ass non-smokers pushing to take away freedom. Make no mistake, they aren’t simply taking away smoking, they are taking away FREEDOM.
Now one of their arguments is that second-hand smoke really hurts people. They even trot out this waitress girl who got throat cancer despite not being a smoker herself. The doctors say it’s “probably” because of second-hand smoke. It’s not definitive, and I don’t doubt that it’s the case. The message is that second-hand smoke is bad.
No shit? Really? We’ve known that for a really long time, longer than she was a waitress. So, she knowingly worked in that environment, KNOWING that it could harm her health. Freedom of choice once again. She chose to work there despite knowing what could happen. If you boil it down, it’s no different from a contractor in Iraq, or from a construction worker working in heavy machinery, or auto body men in their paint booths. Every once of those people knew that there were risks involved, and yet they do the job anyway.
Am I glad this girl got cancer? Hell no. That being said, it turns my stomach to see her on TV going “If other cities can be smoke-free, why not Chicago?”
Because of freedom.
These people would say they support freedom, but when it comes down to it, they only support the freedoms THEY want. God forbid we try to outlaw their Hummer, they might fight that to the death.
People only want freedom on their terms, and I fucking hate that. We’re not really free, and what freedoms we do have dwindle every single day. Do you really want to support that?
Technorati Tags: smoking, anti-smoking, smoking ban
October 4, 2005 @ 11:26 am
So, would it be logical to conclude that, in the name of Freedom, you would support the right of restaurant owners to put up signs that say “You are welcome to spit and bleed on our employees”? Or how about a sign that says “Just put your used needles on your plate after you shoot up. Our staff will be happy to take care of them for you”?
Freedom has limits. The process of negotiatng those limits is continuously ongoing. Public and employee health and safety are legiitmate grounds for limiting freedom, and always have been. There was a day when restaurants didn’t have to pass health inspections at all. The loss of freedom to eat rat droppings wasn’t all that controversial, but other things are. I can’t even get a decent rare hamburger in most restaurants nowadays, and in some states that’s mandated by law. I’ve lost a bit of freedom, but E. Coli infections may be going down a bit. Or maybe they’re not, but I can still have a raw burger at home.
October 4, 2005 @ 12:26 pm
Shooting up is already illegal. And the spitting and bleeding thing is laughable at best Rich, as is my freedom to eat rat droppings… [sigh]
With all of your comments, you didn’t address why it’s not possible to separate smoking and non-smoking restaurants?
If you have a smoking establishment, everyone coming there and working there will know before they enter that they will be in a place where there will be smoke. Why can’t it be up to THEM whether or not they go in? Why should my government protect me from the big bad smoke?
How is a smoking restaurant infringing on the rights of non-smokers or endangering them in any way IF they post it and warn them ahead of time. They simply aren’t at that point. If you are a non-smoker, or don’t want to be subject to second hand smoke. Simply don’t go to the restaurant. Seems easy enough to me.
And IF smokers aren’t allowed to smoke in restaurants and bars, then they will smoke outside on the sidewalk, where people pass by on their way in and out. It’s stupidity.
We are a nation that was built on tobacco. Is it bad for us? Yes, should we have the ability to use it if we want. Absolutely.
FYI, I feel the same about natural drugs too. Marijuana should be legalized and regulated. But that is a whole other debate.
-Grey
October 4, 2005 @ 2:34 pm
I deliberately used the phrase “shooting up” for emphasis, but self-injecting a drug isn’t always illegal. Diabetics take their insulin injections whereever and whenever they need to. A restaurant with a diabetic-friendly menu, however, wouldn’t allow their patrons to subject their employees to the hazard of a used needle. One that did would surely get either a visit from the health department, an employee law suit, or an outrageous premium bill from their insurer… or probably all three.
Of course the spitting and bleeding example is ridiculous. That’s kind of the point though. Where’s the line between a ridiculous hazard to employee health that can’t be allowed, versus a reasonable one that should be left to the choice of the employer and take-it-or-quit for the employees? Who gets to make that decision? Even a strict libertarian has to admit that a point comes where the employer’s right to make that decision on his own comes to an end — but a strict libertarian would probably prefer that the insurance companies do the dirty work by raising premiums for smoking restaurants through the roof rather than having the government step in. What’s at issue is whether or not smoking is beyond that point or not.
And really, what makes smoking less ridiculous than spitting? We may consider spitting a ridiculous example knowing what we know today, but it hasn’t always been that way. One used to find spittoons in some public places. Today we understand about germs, and so we think allowing spitting in a restaurant is ridiculous, but then again there’s no direct transmission of germs involved, and an awful lot of saliva gets voluntarily exchanged by a lot of people every day, and most of the time that happens nobody get sick! If I own a restaurant and want to allow customers to spit on the floor, why shouldn’t I be allowed, as long as I post a sign?
Here’s a thought… Let’s change the term from “smoking” to “sucking in the addictive, noxious, and carcinogenic fumes of burning vegetation along with a wide variety of chemical additives, and then blowing the detritus that even my own body wouldn’t absorb back into the air”. Allowing that in restaurants sounds quite ridiculous to me.
As for why not just separate smoking and non-smoking restaurants, I thought I addressed it implicitly by concentrating on the employees in both my examples. If it were all about the patrons, I’d agree with you. But it’s not that simple. Full-out bans are really only about the rights of employees to a smoke-free work environment. They wouldn’t pass in any jurisdiction, and wouldn’t be likely to hold up in court either, if that weren’t the case. Employees don’t have unfettered choices, and there are lot of laws on the books that protect employee health and safetly precisely because we recognize that this is the case. Where should the balance between employee rights, owner rights, and patron rights be? That’s a good question. That’s what’s being played out right now.
Government regulation, like it or not, is one way that such things get resolved, sometimes in favor of the employee, and sometimes not. As long as the process that imposes that regulation is open and democratic, I don’t have a big problem with it. In fact, I somewhat prefer it to letting the insurance companies make the decisions, and in this case if the government doesn’t I think that eventually the insurers will.
October 4, 2005 @ 3:25 pm
If it really boils completely down to employee rights, then why not give them the choice without pissing on the rights of patrons and the owners?
If I want to open a restaurant that is smoking only, and I state that up front, the person applying for the job has the ability NOT to come to work there.
And I’m sorry, it’s not like their aren’t hundreds of opportunities for waitresses, bartenders, and all of their ilk to get jobs elsewhere in the city of Chicago. Most places I know of are understaffed, so it’s not like we would be forcing people to unemployment.
I figure that it would actually shake out that smokers would work at smoking establishments and non-smokers would work elsewhere. Since smokers are already smoking on their own, then it wouldn’t be a huge deal.
Also, health insurance already charges a premium for smokers, so it’s not like insurance would change much.
AND, if I want to go to a place where people “suck in the addictive, noxious, and carcinogenic fumes of burning vegetation along with a wide variety of chemical additives, and then blow the detritus that even their own body wouldn’t absorb back into the air” then that should be MY CHOICE, not the government’s.
Once again, you, as a non-smoker would never be forced to eat, drink, or work at one of those establishments. Ever. So why should you force every smoker to not do something they’ve been able to do all of our lives? Just because it’s bad for them? Please.
If we’re really concerned about the welfare of all of the employees at these places, why don’t we work on universal health care instead of wasting time taking away the rights of adults?
October 4, 2005 @ 4:56 pm
Once again, I’m not looking at it from the point of view of a patron. I said previously that if all that was at stake was patron’s rights, I’d agree with you. Furthermore, I’m not trying to “force every smoker to not do something they’ve been doing all their lives”. All that’s at stake is where and when they can do it. It’s no different from the fact that I’m currently forced by several states to eat rare hamburgers at home even though I had been eating them that way in reastaurants all my life.
And you’re right about the fact that new employees will always have a choice, but that’s not the full story. There are people who have more limited choice — namely the current employees who may have some seniority which translates into a better choice of shifts, assignments to tables where regular big-tipping customers are seated, etc., who don’t want to give that up but have passed the age where they don’t care about what they’re breathing. They’re looking for the right to keep their current job but lose the smoke.
Maybe the employees will win this round, maybe they won’t. Not living in Chicago, and never actually having been in downtown Chicago (sad to say), I don’t much care about what the outcome is. I do care, however, that it is arrived at in a free and open democratic fashion, and I do care — the reason I butted in here — about it being mis-characterized as a simple matter of Freedom for smokers. It isn’t that simple. Smokers’ freedom isn’t absolute. Freedom never is. It’s a balance of one group’s freedom versus another, and over time that balance sometimes changes.
Sometimes a change in the balance of freedoms means that people who have been doing something all their lives will have to adjust to some new limits. If an open and democratic process decides that the balance has changed in this case in favor of the restaurant employees, then smokers will have to adjust.
P.S. I’m wasn’t talking about health insurance. I was talking about liability, and what I’m predicting is that if it goes the way you want — with restaurants divided into smoking and non-smoking estabilishments — then the next round will be in the courts, with long-time restaurant employees filing lawsuits against their employers for failing to protect them from second-hand smoke, and if the courts rule in favor of the employee even once, business liability insurance companies will raise premiums for smoking restaurants to the point where they won’t be able to stay in business.
October 4, 2005 @ 5:51 pm
I guess I should add one more thing…. Chicago doesn’t exactly have a spotless record when it comes to open and democratic processes, so suppose I can understand your concern from that perspective
-rich
October 4, 2005 @ 6:54 pm
Heh… True about that.
Here’s the problem I have with your argument though. It’s the one quote. “Smokers freedom isn’t absolute.” I agree. But neither is non-smokers. Why should non-smokers get their way completely?
My suggestion makes it good for everyone. The suggestion on the table makes it good for non-smokers only.
I was a waiter and a busboy when I was in high school, and dated waitresses in college and lived with a restaurant cook in college, and I know some bartenders now. Growing up, my two best friends parents owned restaurant/bars. In every case, at least a half to three quarters of those employees smoked themselves. That’s one point.
The other thing that was pretty constant, is that restaurants and bars (at least in my experience) are like retail. People don’t stay at those jobs for long. They tend to hop from one to another.
SO given the propensity for people in that profession to smoke and to be mobile, I don’t really feel THAT badly for a long-timer having to make that choice.
As for the insurance debate, until someone DOES successfully sue, those rates won’t go up, and I would have to think that if you were a smoking restaurant and someone worked there, you could have them sign some sort of waiver not holding them liable. Dunno.
We’re a sue happy bunch anyway, and for the record, I think smokers sueing the tobacco companies is ludicrous too. Oh boo hoo, I smoked and got sick. What, did you think these things were made of vitamins and minerals?
Lastly, to me this is just another step in limiting freedom across the board. You could replace this with a myriad of things and it would make me just as upset.
I just don’t understand why people shouldn’t have the choice in this case. My suggestion gives non-smokers what they want and smokers what they want. And save for a few employees that would have to move places of employment, it doesn’t infringe on anyones rights.
FYI, Illiniois is a right to work state, which means you can be fired for anything with no cause necessary. Doesn’t make it right, but people having to lose their jobs like that isn’t abnormal here.
Also, you should have the right to eat your rare burger, and I’m pissed that you can’t, Damn commies!
-John
October 5, 2005 @ 1:50 pm
Well, as an asthmatic, allergic to smoke, can’t breath, cough til I puke, non-smoker, I like the idea. Of course, I don’t expect it to happen either. I don’t go out to most places. I sometimes am forced hold my breath getting in and out of the office building in order to not have an attack because of smokers. I suffer every day because of smokers “rights” to smoke wherever they want since- just because it’s posted doesn’t mean anyone can enforce it.
But saying that, I just don’t go out to most restaurants, I’ve never been in a bar. If I go in a restaurant and smell smoke, I leave – quickly. I’ve never gone to the get togethers with co-workers, holiday parties, I don’t participate in the work bowling tornaments, I just don’t socialize. Sure, I have the RIGHT/FREEDOM to do that….if I want to be sick. And don’t give me the ‘you have an inhaler’ speech. If I wanted to pump myself full of drugs to stop from being sick just to be around people that are knowingly harming themselves and others, I may as well just skip the drugs and let the smoke kill me, it’d be faster.
I would rather they just post at the doors of places SMOKING ALLOWED INSIDE, and enforce NO SMOKING AROUND ENTRANCES TO ANY BUILDING OR ANYWHERE PEOPLE WALK instead of outlawing it in all bars and restaurants. It does me no good to have to dodge people at the doors to get in and out. I don’t care if people want to smoke inside – as long as I don’t have to go there for some reason. More and more restaurants are becoming smoke free. Those are the ones I go to.
So, Grey, I agree it’s a bad idea, but not because of freedoms. I think my freedom to not be sick trumps a smoker’s freedom to smoke. I’d rather have people drink beer on the streets than smoke on them. At least the beer isn’t being forced down my throat by a necessary function such as breathing.
October 5, 2005 @ 2:46 pm
Debbie, we agree way more than you think. I think that forcing everything to be smoke free simply does force the smokers outside, and that DOES impact people walking by.
If people were allowed to smoke in certain establishments, there would be less people on the street causing people to have to walk through the smoke.
And as an asthmatic that does have an inhaler, I can sympathize. I’m not allergic to smoke thankfully. But wouldn’t you like it if places were clearly labelled as smoking or non-smoking? It would probably make your life easier. Now granted, it would make your life a LOT easier if they simply outlawed smoking in these places, but then you still have to deal with people standing outside. And to me that’s way more of an issue than having two separate types of restaurants…
And true, your right to not be sick does trump a smokers right to smoke in my opinion. That’s why I want them to have their own place where they won’t infringe upon you.
Thats why I think my idea is the most fair for all involved. Smokers can still smoke in smoking restaurants and non-smokers can enjoy clean air in the non-smoking establishments.
My gut feeling is that we would really see smoking establishments start to dwindle anyway, but at least then it would be a free market determining it rather than the government telling us so.
FYI, I like my albuterol
Take Care,
Grey
October 11, 2005 @ 10:32 am
The biggest problem with your idea about smoking vs non-smoking establishments is that some may not be able to operate business successfully. Not sure that is a good reason not to do it, but it is a possible reality.
The fact of the matter is that I think the ban should be anywhere food is sold. I have no problem with cigar bars, lounges, dance clubs etc that want to let people smoke. But remove their food license. Limit it to booze and smoking. I hate smoking but understand people have the right to do it. But the smoking section in a restraunt does not stop the smoke from getting to me in the non. And smoke + food is disgusting.
The other piece of this is that private clubs can allow for smoking, even with food and liquor licenses. But I do know that even some of the higher end places that allow smoking and are private might get rid of that.
What it comes down to is that democracy is about the majority winning. IF i have 10 people and 4 want to smoke and 6 dont, the 6 can stop the other 4 from smoking. Yes, its limiting a person’s right to do something, but its also the only fair way to have government. We could live in other places where your taxes are 50% of your salary to deal with national health costs or they shoot you cause you broke the law.