The Era of Jackbooted Nags

[TXNavy]

<big>The Era of Jackbooted Nags</big>

by Gene Healy

Gene Healy is senior editor at the Cato Institute and editor of the new book Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything.

On Tuesday, June 14 the D.C. City Council heard testimony on a bill that would make it illegal to smoke in a bar, even if the owner, the employees and the customers all agree that smoking should be permitted.

The pro-ban forces have packaged their message in the rhetoric of workers' rights. It's an effective strategy, one that draws on the insights of smoking-ban pioneer Stanton Glantz. At a 1986 conference of antismoking activists, Glantz advised that "the issue should be framed in the rhetoric of the environment, toxic chemicals, and public health rather than the rhetoric of saving smokers from themselves." Yet "saving smokers from themselves" is a key goal of the banners. David Satcher, the former surgeon general, echoed this theme in his testimony before the D.C. City Council the last time a smoking ban was on the table, arguing that the ban would "be effective in creating a new social norm that discourages people from smoking." Indeed, at Tuesday's hearing, a common theme sounded by many of the ban's proponents was that forbidding public smoking would benefit smokers by making it inconvenient for them to indulge.

Full article here:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3972

[Sgt. Rock]

Originally posted by TXNavy:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /><big>The Era of Jackbooted Nags</big>

by Gene Healy

Gene Healy is senior editor at the Cato Institute and editor of the new book Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything.

On Tuesday, June 14 the D.C. City Council heard testimony on a bill that would make it illegal to smoke in a bar, even if the owner, the employees and the customers all agree that smoking should be permitted.

The pro-ban forces have packaged their message in the rhetoric of workers' rights. It's an effective strategy, one that draws on the insights of smoking-ban pioneer Stanton Glantz. At a 1986 conference of antismoking activists, Glantz advised that "the issue should be framed in the rhetoric of the environment, toxic chemicals, and public health rather than the rhetoric of saving smokers from themselves." Yet "saving smokers from themselves" is a key goal of the banners. David Satcher, the former surgeon general, echoed this theme in his testimony before the D.C. City Council the last time a smoking ban was on the table, arguing that the ban would "be effective in creating a new social norm that discourages people from smoking." Indeed, at Tuesday's hearing, a common theme sounded by many of the ban's proponents was that forbidding public smoking would benefit smokers by making it inconvenient for them to indulge.

Full article here:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3972 </font>[/quote]Yep. This is EXACTLY the strategy used to pass a smoking ban here in Lincoln, Nebraska. When bar owners protested, they were told that other cities that had passed a similar ban actually saw INCREASED business, which was a bald faced lie. To date, at least one pool hall has closed because of the smoking ban and business at other bars is off 28%.

The suggestion from the anti smoking forces was, 'Bar owners will simply have to come up with creative solutions to compensate for lost business.' Well, bar owners have done so by offerring penny pitchers and penny shots and NOW the nags are whining about THAT. AND they're sniveling because they can't walk around downtown without smelling smoke because all the smokers have been forced outside.

Our state legislature attempted to address the issue by saying that no community could have a smoking ban more strict than the state smoking ban, in essence returning the decision to the hands of business owners. They also tacked a rider onto the bill saying that if a community DID have a stricter smoking ban, it would NOT receive state/federal tobacco tax money or revenue from the castigation of the tobacco industry. Well, Lincoln went bonkers over that because our tax and spend mayor and city council are spending that tax revenue as fast as they can get their greasy little mitts on it.


Bottom line: More sniveling, whining hippies weenies dressing up their dislike of a certain behavior in a pretty package to make it legitimate. This should be the decision of the business owner, PERIOD. Further, if a smoking ban is passed, then that city should forfeit any tax revenue derived in that state from tobacco taxes. If it's REALLY that bad, you don't want that dirty money, do you? What utter hypocrisy.

[img]graemlins/salute.gif[/img]

[RandomNY]

The smoking ban in bars has passed here in NY a couple of years ago.

IT started with NYC then out here on the island(my county was going to wait 3 years before the law too effect.)Nassau county at first allowed bar owners to build separate "SMOKING ROOMS" with ventilation systems... then about 6 months later the NASSAU county gov't, made the smoking ban cover everything, so you have bar owners who built these SMOKING ROOMS, waisting their money.

Then NY state just created a state-wide ban which trumped all local laws.

Funny thing is, here in SUFFOLK, where they just raised the age to buy tobacco to 19 the ban is ignored because with the writing of the AGE 19 law, it dictated that only the SUFFOLK HEALTH DEPT. can enforce the law(That includes the smoking ban in bars), so since the health dept only works till 5pm, there is noone to enforce the law, in the bars, after 5.

Only in gov't and the libs wonder why CONSERVATIVES hate gov't.

All this money waisted for no other reason but to make a few busybodies happy.

I do not smoke myself, so this ban doesn't effect me.

[andophiroxia]

"They're banning smoking in bars, and pretty much there will be no drinking and no talking."

Eddie Izzard

[La Chevelure]

I'm not entirely opposed to the banning smoking indoors thing. I'm not a smoker, and now that I live in Cali, I really appreciate not having to be constantly inundated with someone else's habit whenever I walk into a bar, club, or restaurant. If you want to do that to yourself, that's fine. But I shouldn't have to breathe it/smell like it just because I want to get a drink somewhere.

[MathGirl]

Originally posted by La Chevelure:
I'm not entirely opposed to the banning smoking indoors thing. I'm not a smoker, and now that I live in Cali, I really appreciate not having to be constantly inundated with someone else's habit whenever I walk into a bar, club, or restaurant. If you want to do that to yourself, that's fine. But I shouldn't have to breathe it/smell like it just because I want to get a drink somewhere.

Amen....I was hoping I wasn't the only one! [img]embarrased.gif[/img] My husband has bad allergies and cigarette smoke is REALLY bad for him. We're not big on bars--and I can understand smoking being allowed in a bar--but it sucks to be enjoying a nice dinner out and have someone else's smoke in my face. Smoke tends to disobey the "non-smoking" section, and kind of just goes where it pleases....

[andophiroxia]

Don't get me wrong, I don't approve of smoking either. However, I do agree with Sgt. Rock on that they shouldn't have to lie in order to get what they want. I think that premise itself is wrong.

[RandomNY]

Restaurant and bar business has increased 3 or 4 years after the ban went into affect here in NY. LA saw increased business also,which is where they proponents of this bill got their data. The main problem here is that now people who smoke run outside and dirty up thier sidewalks and the noise created outside annoys people in residences near the bars.

[TXNavy]

I wouldn't draw a straight correlation over the last three or four years between increased business and the smoking ban. Recall that four years ago, we were in a recession All businesses, particularly restaurants and other entertainment or food venues in the service industry, should have seen a rise in revenues. So this fact presented by itself is rather unremarkable...don't let them use it in a statistically meaningless context.

If a smoking ban is truly profitable, then there is a natural incentive for restaurants and bars to adopt it on their own, in order to provide an alternative on the market. I myself would consider such a venue...however, to be successful, it would require more than just myself to be interested.

The problem with the law is that its forcing the market to unnaturally recognize a minority and heretofore unrecognized market interest in smokeless bars over a much greater majority interest in the alternative. I would argue that you won't see an increase or decrease attributable to a smoking ban because all of these smokers are still going to go to the bars, they just won't smoke in them...and they'll be less happy.

The fact that you or I may want the market to produce a certain product is irrelevant when the vast majority of consumers want something else. I would no more impose my principles regarding smoking on someone else than I want to see liberals impose their principles upon me.

Laws like this are propagated with the lie that we're giving consumers what they "really" want, i.e., all those millions of people who wanted smokeless bars all along. In fact, an unregulated market would have produced this if that were the case. (Check your local news for history of various smokeless, alcohol-less, or other "alternative" venues that have generally faired poorly.) The consumer always wins with deregulation...its the special interests that suffer.

[La Chevelure]

Originally posted by TXNavy:
Laws like this are propagated with the lie that we're giving consumers what they "really" want, i.e., all those millions of people who wanted smokeless bars all along. In fact, an unregulated market would have produced this if that were the case. (Check your local news for history of various smokeless, alcohol-less, or other "alternative" venues that have generally faired poorly.) The consumer always wins with deregulation...its the special interests that suffer.

While I agree with you in economic principle, I have to argue that that's not necessarily the case in this situation. "alternative" venues are more likely to have faired poorly because they were new, unhip, etc. I know (at least in LA) that a new alternative bar would have been much less likely to be successful if it didn't get a good write-up, or didn't get celebs going there, etc. Which, let's face it, an alternative bar probably wouldn't get those things. I guess in that case, non-smokers chose fashion over personal air-quality preference. But that doesn't mean it's not a good idea to make bars smokeless because the market would have made them so anyway. I don't really believe that people who need to smoke are in the majority of bar-goers. Certainly, I see a lot of people smoking outside or in patios, but I also know that a lot of those folks aren't frequent smokers, and probably wouldn't be that put out even if they were given NOWHERE to light up at the bar.