Do you support a ban on smoking in bars/restaurants/cafés etc.?

[cthom]

I will say it. If you, as a non-smoker, dont want to work in a smoking environment....then dont. Its your choice and no one is forcing you to work there.

i knew i should have added this bit: what do you tell the Job Centre: 'no i don't want to work there, i value my health over an income/benefit'?

 

[nonconformist]

Okay. Let's take another approach. Suppose there are no regulations about smoking. You decide to open a smoke-free pub. Someone comes in and smoke. What can you legally do?

Throw them out. On your private property, you are well within your rights to do so.

i knew i should have added this bit: what do you tell the Job Centre: 'no i don't want to work there, i value my health over an income/benefit'?

All businesses have risks that you accept when you take the job.

When you join the army, you accept the risk that you could be shot. When you work as a builder, you accept the risk that you might fall. When you work as an office worker, you accept the risk of RSI and carpal tunnel syndrome.
Likewise, when you take a job in a pub or a similar establishment, you accept the risk that you might inhale smoke.

 

[AceChilla]

I also wonder why there are so few non-smoking pubs and restaurants.

If the demand for non-smoking restaurants is so high as the result of this poll suggest then why arent there any? Basic economics theory would imply that there simply isnt a big enough demand for non-smoking restaurants and thus that a law isn't necessary.

I am a smoker and I really don't look forward to not being able to smoke in pubs and restaurants anymore.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Throw them out. On your private property, you are well within your rights to do so.


All businesses have risks that you accept when you take the job.

When you join the army, you accept the risk that you could be shot. When you work as a builder, you accept the risk that you might fall. When you work as an office worker, you accept the risk of RSI and carpal tunnel syndrome.
Likewise, when you take a job in a pub or a similar establishment, you accept the risk that you might inhale smoke.

Why have regulations at all? If you have a traffic accident - you knew the risk when you entered the car. If you get robbed as cashier - well, no need for a lawsuit, you accepted the risk when you entered the job. Are you also against hygenie regulations in restaurants? Against limits on hazardous substances in industry?

The only reason smoking in the presence of a non-smoker is no criminal offense is that you can not determine that smoker X caused non-smoker Y to have asthma/ lung cancer. That is why there have to be regulations.

Is the chance to cause cancer for another person not enough to make a smoker step outside a couple of minutes or use a smoker cabin as they are exist in airports? It is entirely possible with little effort to virtually eliminate passive smoking.

 

[nonconformist]

Why have regulations at all? If you have a traffic accident - you knew the risk when you entered the car. If you get robbed as cashier - well, no need for a lawsuit, you accepted the risk when you entered the job. Are you also against hygenie regulations in restaurants? Against limits on hazardous substances in industry?

Because roads are public areas which are used by the population. A far more fitting analogy would be someone driving their Ford Ka onto the track at Silverstone, in which case they probably deserve everything they get.

There is a difference between negigance and laziness, neither of which is a reasonable risk, and going into a pub and inhaling smoke, or going to a live music venue, and getting jostled about.

The only reason smoking in the presence of a non-smoker is no criminal offense is that you can not determine that smoker X caused non-smoker Y to have asthma/ lung cancer. That is why there have to be regulations.

But exactly the same thing applies to builders who contracted cancer and such from sites, yet it is illegal, and there have been lawsuits.

Is the chance to cause cancer for another person not enough to make a smoker step outside a couple of minutes or use a smoker cabin as they are exist in airports? It is entirely possible with little effort to virtually eliminate passive smoking.

No it isn't; exiting a pub after a certain time, usually around 10:30, will bar you from re-entry into the pub at all.

Likewise, a club isn't going to let you nip out, and then back in, especially several hundred people, while people are queueing for entry.

 

[AceChilla]

To put things in perspective. Breathing the air in Oxford equals smoking over 60 cigarettes a day, while the effects of second hand smoking are not even proven behond reasonable doubt.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1292524,00.html

 

[MobBoss]

i knew i should have added this bit: what do you tell the Job Centre: 'no i don't want to work there, i value my health over an income/benefit'?

No, you just be honest with them. Tell them you do no wish to work in a smoking environment. Let them deal with it.

And yes, many people do value their health over an income/benefit and many dont. Its up to you to decide which is more important to you.

 

[Sidhe]

I work in a hospital, and even the company that makes cigarettes has banned smoking in the work place except in certain leper colonies. I certainly support a ban, but I'm a sociable smoker so it would mean less than nothing to me.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

No it isn't; exiting a pub after a certain time, usually around 10:30, will bar you from re-entry into the pub at all.

Likewise, a club isn't going to let you nip out, and then back in, especially several hundred people, while people are queueing for entry.

You know, you don´t have to smoke at all, you could just pause until you get the opportunity to do so without affecting other´s people health. Are you that addicted you can´t pause for a couple of hours? With the economical argument I would say if smokers would be important as customers for these clubs they will install cabins. That way both sides could live without bad blood between each other.

 

[IglooDame]

So why are so few pubs willing to jump the gap, to the point that a law has to be passed?

Because the poll results here are similar to the poll results regarding who will vote for the Green Party candidate instead of the Democratic Party candidate - sure, they say they'll not go to the smoky pub, and they'll even mean it at the time, but then their friends show up and they don't want to be left out, and some others don't really care about it enough to actually go to an unknown pub anyway, some don't even go to pubs much in the first place, etc. etc. etc. People think Walmart is teh evil, but the vast majority still shop there to save a few pennies.

As I've said before, after the bill failed to pass the legislature in New Hampshire last year, many local bars/restaurants talked to each other and agreed to go smoke-free all at once. And if you can imagine, the bill is expected to show up again this year, and with a newly Dem-controlled legislature, it'll probably pass.

 

[Rossiya]

Because your dirty government won't let them go to any bar and smoke.

Hardly dirty if it is discouraging being dirty (smoking) by banning it in public places.

 

[bhsup]

Dang it, I hate it when the question in the thread title is totally different than the actual poll question. "Public places" could be a boat on the middle of a big lake while fishing or it could be a sports arena owned by the city, or it could be a sidewalk, or a park. That's totally different than asking if we should ban them in bars and restaurants. So which question should I answer, the "public places" or the threat title?

Still need this answered, please. I'd like to vote, but don't know what I am voting on.

 

[Irish Caesar]

Hardly dirty if it is discouraging being dirty (smoking) by banning it in public places.

"Discouraging" and "banning" are two different things.

 

[Rossiya]

"Discouraging" and "banning" are two different things.

Yes, because they are two different words.

 

[Irish Caesar]

Yes, because they are two different words.

Discouraging is telling someone that you would prefer they not do something. Banning is flat-out prohibiting it. Surely you see the difference.

 

[Rossiya]

Discouraging is telling someone that you would prefer they not do something. Banning is flat-out prohibiting it. Surely you see the difference.

Yes, I said they were different things.

 

[Irish Caesar]

Yes, I said they were different things.

You said it was because they were two different words, which I took to mean it was meant in the same way as "jealousy" and "envy" are different because they are two different words. If that's not how you meant it, then I misunderstood.

 

[Masquerouge]

Related:
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3226,36-861804@51-860588,0.html

The article is in French, but it says that 70 to 80% of the French support the ban on smoking.

It also says something interesting, that politicians are usually late to catch these bandwagons, because in their line of work they tend to be overexposed to irate minorities and thus give them too much credit.
So that's why they're really afraid of bans on smoking, or crackdowns on speeding, things that a huge majority of the population support, but that a very vocal minority opposes.

 

[nonconformist]

You know, you don´t have to smoke at all, you could just pause until you get the opportunity to do so without affecting other´s people health. Are you that addicted you can´t pause for a couple of hours? With the economical argument I would say if smokers would be important as customers for these clubs they will install cabins. That way both sides could live without bad blood between each other.

I don't smoke, but I oppose government intervention in social issues (because that's what this is), and I see this as nothing but the government's wish to intervene in peoples' lives, and tell tham what they should and shouldn't do.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

To put things in perspective. Breathing the air in Oxford equals smoking over 60 cigarettes a day, while the effects of second hand smoking are not even proven behond reasonable doubt.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/st...292524,00.html

To put things into perspective: These numbers are only about NOx which are formed at high temperatures and oxygen rich atmosphere (like in diesel engines), smoking means low temperatures/ oxygen poor burning and hardly NOx fromation. NOx do also not cause cancer.


If they would be honest, organic particulate matter is at least a factor 10 higher in restaurants air where smoking is allowed than in city and over 100 times higher in the primary smokestream. The factors for cancerogens like PAHs are around the same factor or even higher because glimming at oxygen poor atmosphere favors the formation of these nasty things.

They als ignored CO which is eliminated by car catalysts, but smoking creates quite an amount of it.

To put it short: sensationalist and dishonest.

I don't smoke, but I oppose government intervention in social issues (because that's what this is), and I see this as nothing but the government's wish to intervene in peoples' lives, and tell tham what they should and shouldn't do.

I would not be sure about that. It is primary about workplace safety and health prevention. Smoking is not banned per se (as it would be IF it was a social issue), only in cases where it affects people not smoking.