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City-wide smoking ban

 
blacksmith
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Thomas Paul:

By the way, NYC has a law that prohibits someone without a child from sitting in a park near a children's playgroud.

Do the signs read, "No one over 18 allowed unless accompanied by a minor"?
 
mister krabs
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Originally posted by Warren Dew:
Do the signs read, "No one over 18 allowed unless accompanied by a minor"?

Apparently there are no signs. It's a law and if you don't know about it, too bad.
 
Ranch Hand
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Originally posted by Warren Dew:

That said, I don't think smoking is 'victimless', unlike the other examples in this thread, because second hand smoke does affect people other than the smoker. Some of us are very sensitive to the smell - for example, I can tell if my wife had lunch with someone who smoked, because I can smell it in her hair when she gets home.



It gets worse than you being able to smell it.
If I enter a room where someone has been smoking since it was last aired the smoke starts to affect my eyes.
They grow red and start to seriously hurt, if I stay longer than a few minutes my vision starts to blur.

My tear production is highly insufficient causing dry eyes (thus more sensitive to pollution in the air).
On top of that my eyes are oversensitive to any medication I've tried to alleviate the problem, the least agressive one caused blindness for about 2 minutes after putting in my eyes before relieving my condition for about an hour...

Unless I can have a smoke free environment, I can't stay.
That means that effectively I can't function in a place where people are allowed to smoke at any time (devices to suck away the smoke are not fully effective). When smoking was still allowed on some airlines I could not fly on their aircraft even in the non-smoking section because the airconditioning is never fully effective in filtering out the smoke.

So effectively restaurants and especially bars are places where I can't go in countries where smoking is permitted there unless they are really large and I can find a place on the far opposite side of the place from the smoking section.
 
Jeroen Wenting
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Originally posted by Jessica Sant:

What gives one person the right to do something if by doing so they impose on other people? It's a public space right? everyone should have equal right to enjoy the space -- but if someone is playing their music extremely loud, it imposes on the people around them (who have no choice but to listen to it) and those other people may be forced to leave the area...



Some people feel that anything that prevents them from doing whatever they wish whereever they wish to do it no matter the consequences to themselves or anyone else is a violation of their human rights.
This is especially strong in the US.

When the US banned (as one of the last countries in the world) access to airport departure lounges to people who aren't either passengers or airport/airline staff with actual business in the area there was a massive outcry from people who felt their "rights" were being violated.
Their right that is to cause a safety hazard and overload already straining security checkpoints to the point where they would no longer be able to do a proper job allowing criminals and terrorists to pass through unhindered.
The people screaming like that weren't people bringing granny to the aircraft (if granny is disabled special permission can still be requested and is usually granted on a case by case basis) but people wanting to go to the departure area to nick flight schedules and look at aircraft...

That's just one example of people thinking it is their godgiven right to put others at risk for their personal pleasure.

I call it the violation of the godgiven right to be irresponsibly stupid
 
Jeroen Wenting
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Originally posted by Max Habibi:
[qb]
That would probably be a violation of equal access but, in principal, yes, we have the right to tell people how they must behave in public.


Yes, but there are limits, as there should be. I can't stop you from listening to Sinatra, nor can you stop me from listening to Rage Against The Machine.


But I CAN stop you from listening to it in such a way that it is a public disturbance.
Say you put a CD in a ghetto blaster and turn the volume up to max in a public park, then I can stop you.
If you put that same CD in a portable CD player and use headphones, I can indeed not stop you and I have no reason to (apart maybe from trying to persuade you to try real music for a change ).



So it would be illegal to pass a law that says that women can't use a public park but it would probably not be illegal to say that lawyers can't use a public park since they are not a protected group.

I'm not sure how I feel about "protected groups", but that's probably a door we shouldn't open here.



hmm, let's declare open season on lawyers.
Everyone has fun (except the lawyers), and it reduces both the population problem and everyone's insurance premiums because there will be no more frivolous libility lawsuits from ambulance chasers


Speaking of...

By the way, NYC has a law that prohibits someone without a child from sitting in a park near a children's playgroud.

Interesting how I've changed. Ten years ago, I would have been up in arms about this. Now, I can see it. I guess you really can't trust anyone over thirty :roll:



Such restrictions are quite common and meant to keep paedophiles away from children.
I can sympathise with such regulations, if applied carefully.


By and large, I think this law(smoking ban), as well-intentioned as it is, is designed to protect people from themselves. That, IMO, is inappropriate.



It's designed to protect people from other people (or more correctly the irresponsible acts of other people), which is the function of the government.
 
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My city just passed a non-smoking by-law, and I agree with it. Although as a former smoker ( and I really, really enjoyed it ), I can empathize with those who will be more restricted in their habit. The argument that the city used was that the workers rights had been violated according to the Occupation Health and Safety Act(Ontario) that all workplaces must follow. The environment that the workers have with smoking allowed, violated their long-term safety/health. Most of the lobbying was done by Anti-Smoking and Government, but I believe this is good for the workers in this environment.

I know some bars have put in a roof-top patio where there is a sign that reads NO EMPLOYEES BEYOND THIS POINT to get around this. As a non-smoker now, I enjoy the benefits of my Tim Hortons donut and coffee not tasting like a pack of cigarettes anymore!

Jamie
 
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I am not a smoker, and I hate being in crowed smoke filled rooms.

But the law should not be involved in determinig what I can and cannot put into my body. if a resteraunt want to allow smoking, I for one will go some where else. The resteraunt will either choose my money or the smokers money. If I really really want to eat as a smoking resteraunt because of some famous review, well that is my choice.
 
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I heard on the news the other day that a nearby city of mine (I forget wich city it was) was trying to pass a law that prohibited smoking in a car with a baby in it. I thought to myself: "Thats so stupid, fine you can't smoke with a kid in the car, yet you can go home and smoke in the same room, bathroom, or closet with the baby." Its laws like those that make no sense, but if they absolutly must have a law such as that, the law should be written like so: "From now on it is prohibited to smoke within an enclosed area with a child under 12." Or something along those lines. I myself am a non-smoker, but I firmly disagree with any nonsmoking law, because I beleive it is somebody's right to smoke and it is my right to leave. Also if somebody doesn't want to wear a seatbelt, helmet, or any other safety device, it is their own stupid right not too.
 
Thomas Paul
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Originally posted by peter cooke:
But the law should not be involved in determinig what I can and cannot put into my body. if a resteraunt want to allow smoking, I for one will go some where else.

And what if there are no other choices? This may work great in a big city but if the next closest donut shop is 50 miles away, do you buy a donut or go home and sulk?
 
peter cooke
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50 miles. Hell i went to college in L.A. 50 Miles is right around the corner. Sure I've driven 50 miles for a Tommie's burger in North HollyWood.
You've was contemplating driving from SF to LA for one.


Let the average customer demand indicate what the seller want.
You don't like not having a smoke free resteraunt next door. Open one.
Except for fast food resteraunts want repeat customers. I as a buisness owner would want what ever environment that would lead to the greatest amount of repeat customers (smokers or not)

Now onto laudnum.
 
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Why can't the bars and restaurants that want smokers simply reorganize as private clubs, with annual dues of $1, membership applications and membership cards available at the door?

Or do the anti-smoking ordinances also ban smoking in private clubs that are too open to new members?
 
Sheriff
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different cities have different laws. In Salt Lake a lot of bars have done the private club thing.
 
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"The very variety arising from the union of numbers of individuals is the highest good which social life can confer, and this variety is undoubtedly lost in proportion to the degree of State interference."

"If it were possible to make an accurate calculation of the evils which police regulations occasion, and of those which they prevent, the number of the former would, in all cases, exceed that of the latter."

'[W]hatever labour "does not spring from a man's free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness"; when the labourer works under external control, "we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is."

From a Review of a review at
The Limits of State Action by Wilhelm Von Humboldt

[Aside]In the Wikipedia entry, Humboldt is credited with being the first linguist to "identify human language as a rule-governed system, rather than just a collection of words and phrases paired with meanings. This idea is one of the foundations of Noam Chomsky's theory of language (transformational grammar). Chomsky frequently quotes Humboldt's description of language as a system which "makes infinite use of finite means", meaning that an infinite number of sentences can be created using a finite number of words."
[/Aside]
Panini
may have got there first with Sanskrit.
[ July 19, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]
 
Thomas Paul
mister krabs
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Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
Why can't the bars and restaurants that want smokers simply reorganize as private clubs, with annual dues of $1, membership applications and membership cards available at the door?

They could in NYC but the laws for advertising, size of street signs, eligibility for a liquor license, etc are all different. It is unlikely that you would think a private club was somewhere you could drink if you didn't know about it already.
 
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