Do you think a state wide smoke ban, is infringing on smokers rights?
371497
yes...thats ridiculous...states should ban car exhaust also if theyre going to take that route...
923722
This is the only current information I could find for you.\n\nWhile the bill could still be changed right up until the vote, here is what the latest understanding of the bill is, which was released Friday. \n\nThere would be a policy that would not allow any restaurants to allow patrons under age 18 to smoke.\nThere would be no smoking in any place of employment, retail store, mall, bowling alley, sports arena, or outdoor county park.\nSmoking would be allowed in bars.  Also, any restaurant with a bar inside will be exempt from the ban, as long as the bar is physically separated with walls or doors.\n"That would allow places like Hacienda or Friday’s or whatever restaurant that might have a clearly separated bar and restaurant to allow smoking," explains County Councilman Andy Kostielney.\n\nAside from bars, smoking would also be allowed in any business that only allows patrons 18 and over, which includes tobacco shops, bingo and social halls, as well as private clubs.\n\nPunishment for not following the law \nIf the law is passed, and businesses do not obey, the punishments are as follows. \n\nA first offense gets only a verbal warning. \nThen, there will be a written warning for a second violation.\nBusiness owners will be slapped with a $100 fine for a third violation.\nAfter that, each additional violation would cost businesses $500.  \nLastly, the fourth will cost $200. \nMoney collected would go towards the county's enforcement of the ban.
846545
As a former smoker, nurse, and former restaurant owner, NO.  That should be the right of the business owner.  \n\nOur county has a county-wide ban on smoking in restaurants (not bars) and of course in public places.  \n\nI like going into a restaurant and not smelling like smoke or having to breath second hand smoke.  But I had that choice before the ban too by eating at restaurants which were non-smoking.  Smokers can't smoke inside buildings, but they huddle together at the door and I have to walk through the cloud of smoke to get inside which I wouldn't have been exposed to before the county-wide smoking ban.\n\nSo NO.  That choice should be the business owner's choice and  the consumer's choice to vote with their feet.
706721
I grew up in the 60s and 70s in a family that smoked and none of us, not even one of us has died or gone to hospital for smoking related illness.  There needs to be a compromise on this issue, but when the people with money and nothing better to do than try to force everyone to be like they are set an agenda, the rest of us pay.  Where I live, a ban on smoking was recently passed (by a 7% margin, by the way, out of only 30% of registered voters weighing in), because these whiny, holier-than-thou control freaks couldn't be happy that we already had an ordinance requiring restaurants to have separate smoking sections with separate ventilation systems.  Now all the restaurants that invested all  that money in those separate rooms and vent systems are going to have to give them up to these jerks.  Recent talk shows have aired the voices of business owners saying that their business has suffered from the bans, while cities around them report increases, as those of us who still appreciate the concept of a free country drive to less fascistic communities to dine out.  Restaurants are private businesses and if someone can't stand the chance of smelling cigarette smoke, they most certainly do not have to go into them.  This no compromise attitude is very un-American, in my opinion.  Sadly, people these days usually just roll over when new laws go through and they'll just say, "OK, you took that right from me, at least I can still smoke in my car and house."  I just wonder how long that will be true. Hail Oceania!
807945
Welcome to the world of us New Yorkers.  Puke-taki and Dumberg really FUBAR'D everything and killed the bars with the smoking ban.  We now go to indian reservations and Long Island, costing the city MILLIONS.  While NYC may be able to afford it, I doubt Ohio would.  Good Luck.\n\nTo those non-smokers who don't mind when their freedoms are curtailed, remember, tyranny always starts with the small stuff, and eventually moves on to the important things.  I'd been smoking since 12, and am now 28.  Quit for personal reasons (wife & kids).  Because I  no longer do it, should I not have the right to put into my body what I see fit?
716640
Absolutely 100% legal.  You can tell me I can't smoke in your home and a business owner can tell you not to smoke on his/her property.  No legal violations here.
357264
YES!  Smokers are discriminated against daily.\n\nBen Franklin once said : "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."\n\nSo, all you people who belive it is right to restrict the rights of others are out in left field.  If you do not like smoke, you should exercise YOUR freedom and choose an establishment that does not allow smoking.....the gov't shouldn't enact laws that make a business owner be non-smoking.  Where is the freedom in that?\n\nIn the words of HL Mencken:\n"I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave."\n\nAlso, I am sure that most of you are familiar with the last part of this quote....the front of it is equally important.  Patrick Henry: "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"\n\nAnd I think most importantly, Clarence Darrow stated it quite well..."You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free."  In other words....watch out.  If you let the gov't restrict my freedom, it will be knocking on your front door tomorrow - taking away your ability to do something that is dear to you!
770192
First of all I am a smoker....Doing things like that will only make things worse....I think that every privatily owned buisness should have the right to decide wether smoking should be allowed.  Publicly owned places like schools, libraries, and such you could ban smoking, but privately owned bars and resteraunts should be allowed to make that decision for themselves.....would want someone coming into you place and telling you how to run it and make rules for you......I don't think so....then it will be each persons decision to choose wether or not they want to be around smoke....if you are a smoker and a resteraunt does not allow smoking, either don't smoke or go somewhere else....if you don't smoke and the place you want to eat allows smoking either deal with it or go somewhere that does not allow smoking....each group will have to decide that for themselves....I don't feel that a private buisness should be told the can't allow something that is legal like smoking.....
976461
I think it was a trick question to older people ...for instant one women voted no to both opinion, thinking that she was voting for people to have the right to smoke in certain areas.The wording in the question throwed them off. So yes , I think if they got a petition people would sign it. And yes some would sign it that don't smoke, 2 people I know told me that they didn't want anymore Rights taken away from them.
1072997
I Recently stopped smoking,it doesn't give me the right to tell you where you can or can not smoke. You have the right to enjoy yourself.
79077
Well where I live you can smoke in public, and in some restraunts, but, in other states/cities you can't. We are supposed to have this thing called freedom, and the government is starting to take it away. If people don't like second hand smoke, then ask the person to blow the smoke the other way, or move. Not very hard. I am my own person and just because someone says they don't like it doesn't mean i am going to quit!
207139
Yes. Very much so. And I'm a smoker. I do not smoke in public, around children, or around pregnant women. It is MY choice alone to die of cancer. Not theirs. I do not defend smokers in ANY way. Smoking is a dangerous habit that I wish I could control and quit. Unfortunately, I can't seem to stop. I've been a smoker for 18 yrs. and I will NEVER tell another human being to deal with MY habit in public because I have the right to smoke. They have more of a right to breath and to live with out being wrongly affected by me. I smoke in the privacy of my own home. I apologize for those smokers who do not get it, that WE are the offenders. Keep it up guys...maybe smoking will be banned.
818161
None. don't want to litter. I thought the best protest would be purchasing cigarettes from a state which doesn't have a smoking ban. Have to travel about an hour but gee at least that other state without smoking bans will be getting my cigarette taxes. Imagine if every smoker did that? Might have to purchase a few cartons at a time but let the state feel the lack of smoking dollars.
942181
The government will always controll us-there's no getting away from that.  I have been living in scotland for 3 months now, and have been working in a pub for the duration, and i've yet to make up my mind whether its a good thing or not.  As a non smoker, i can see the benifits of not stinking of smoke or inhaling second hand smoke all night.  However on the flip side, if i really hated stinking of ciggeretts and inhaling second hand smoke, i wouldn't work in a smokey enviroment, and i would stay away from similar enviroments.  What i DON'T think is a good thing is crowds of 20 to 30 people gathering outside a pub/club for a smoke-in the pouring rain. I think proper ventilation and/or a beer garden.  They are fantastic. especially with BBQs.
804367
It's a great idea... it's already happened in Scotland, and I found it incredibly liberating to enter bars and restaurants there and not have to walk through clouds of smelly smoke for once. It's so nice to be able to go along and spend time with my smoker friends and actually enjoy my time with them - to feel like part of the group again. And I no longer have to keep going outside on my own for some fresh air in the freezing cold. It's actually a very nice feeling. \n\nSmoking is a right, yes I agree.. but I feel it's more of a right not to be forced to breathe in others second-hand smoke. It's just nasty full stop. If people want to enjoy a smoke, I'm very happy for them to do it in the privacy of their own homes. :-)
740868
Boy this forum just got polluted by anti-smokers, offering "words of encouragement", but they are just veiled statements of their preference.\n\nBar business really does hurt when bans are forced and nonsmoking is not the choice of the owner. Owners do make choices to be nonsmoking when they know their clientele demands it. It just depends on your clientele. However, at this time, there is NO CHOICE for the private business owner in this land of supposed liberty.\n\n"Studies" showing business improvement when a ban is FORCED on a business are full of cherry picked data including everything from CARRY OUT receipts to McDonald's to 5 star restaurants. There has never been a study for stand alone bars.\n\nSmokefree lobbyists offer hollow promises of "business improvement", but that is all they are. Promises. Columbus bars have taken such a hit and made many cutbacks including reduced hours and waitstaff, cutting out live entertainment, etc.. to just survive.\n\nColumbus bars also immediately built patios.What does that tell you? The clientele they want to keep INCLUDE the smokers. However, smokers resent having to go outside in the cold and being treated like some neo Jim Crow experiment and generally do not patronize bars in the winter months.\n\nIf you serve food, you may be able to salvage something concerning all of this.\n\nI am SO sorry I cannot be more positive about this, especially since you seem like a very nice person who is new to the bar business. I simply cannot and will not sugar coat the situation, though as that would not be kind either.\n\nI have seen my business drop ever since the Columbus ban went into effect, it was immediate and it has not recovered. I took my bands out of town and did well in the bars, but now that option looks very bleak also.\n\nYou will have to be creative on this one until another repeal comes up, just as I was forced to do and will have to think through yet another plan with this statewide antismoking wrench thrown in the mix. \n\nPerhaps you should consider even "going underground". The reason why not many bars have closed in Columbus is many are not following the ban and are just paying the fines. I am sure Smokefree Ohio being the fanatics they are have put in some stiffer fines knowing that a good deal of Columbus bars told Smokefree Columbus to rightfully go directly to hell.\n\nThe ones that have closed generally do not make the local papers as the media is biased toward the antismoking side.\n\nBars must join together again to get some exemptions. Don't worry antis, you will have many smokefree choices as you do now with a partial repeal of this draconian law. Forcing your will on ALL the businesses in Ohio was not wanted and was not appreciated.\n\nI hope you were aware before of this possibility of Issue 5 passing and promoted Issue 4. If not, please be informed when the next repeal vote comes up. It is your business.\nI am not assuming you didn't know, but I have run into bar owners and bowling alley owners in different areas of the state that ignored this thinking it could never happen.\n\nIt did, but with only 8%+ of the votes needed to pass. Plus the election turnout wasn't 100%. There is still hope. Get busy, talk to your alcohol vendors and see if they have a plan in place yet to help you weather the storm until Ohio wakes up and says "no" to fascism and social engineering of people who choose to use a legal product.\n\nBut you will never see an antismoking lobbyist in favor of what would really solve the problem. Making tobacco illegal would "level the playing field". As it is now, the antismoking cartel are just playing with private business owners livelihoods while gathering a comfortable paycheck. They will never favor tobacco prohibition as they would have to find an honest job.
834897
It doesn't matter.  The law only affect indoor public places and workplaces:\n\nFor the 14% of Garden State residents who're zippo-flipping, match-striking daily smokers and the thousands more who love to puff away at their favorite bars, restaurants or lounges, the coming of the 'New Jersey Smoke-Free Air Act' signals a big change.\n\nWhat Is It? The Smoke-Free Air Act is a measure to halt the smoking of tobacco within establishments accessible to the public in New Jersey. The ban took effect on April 15, 2006 at 12:01 AM. Jersey is the 11th state in the nation to prohibit smoking in bars and restaurants.\n\nChewing Gum, Please: The Smoke-Free Air Act notes 'smoking is prohibited in an indoor public place or workplace.' What does this mean, exactly? It means anytime you go to a restaurant, bar, mall, lounge, club and yes, even a bowling alley, you had better leave the pack of cigs at home, or pack your bags if you think of lighting up.\n\nSmoke 'em If You Got 'em: You can still stroll through the park, the street or your front lawn and enjoy a drag. And, according to the new bill, provisions are made for cigar bars, cigar lounges, hotels and motels and the almighty casinos down in Atlantic City to have the luxury of smoke, smoke, smoke!