why shouldn't the government ban smoking in public places?
815555
Because a business owner should have the right to decide how he wants to run his business. Does he want a smoke free bar or tavern, or a smoking bar or tavern should be his choice, These smoking bans HURT small local bars and taverns and people lose jobs. I know of six right now that stand a good chance of losing their jobs after Ohios smoking ban takes effect.
915447
Really, this is a capitalist country. Competition and the free market are supposed to take care of everything. The point is, if people don't want to deal with smoke at a restaurant or bar, they'll go to a nonsmoking establishment. If the smoking establishment loses business they might consider banning smoking. That's how America works! You're totally right that it should be up to the individual owner. It's his own paycheck he's screwing with so he will make the right decision based on what kind of people patronize his place. It really pisses me off too that towns and states ban smoking.
618180
The reason for the law (and it does not include every public area) is due to the fact that "second hand smoke" is believed to cause cancer.   I don't know where you live, but in Maryland you can still smoke in diners, clubs and bars in designated areas.  You can don't smoke in any government buildings, and most office buildings.   As for its origins in South Africa, I don't know about that.
252944
I don't think so. But they are drugs just like weed and alcohol. They alter your body. I personally don't like where the government draws the line on what is legal, who are they to decide that some drugs are good and some are bad. \n\nMaybe banning smoking in public places is good though because it is infringing on everyone else's right to breathe clean air.\n\nI do think constantly exposing your children to second hand smoke should be considered child abuse! You are doing irreparable harm to their body!
694086
It's happening, but I think it's a violation of free speech.\n\nFurther, I think it is government intrusion into private enterprise.\n\nIt should be up to private businesses to determine their own smoking policy.\n\nThe States are over-stepping its bounds and using their "general welfare" clause to do it.
41806
An automobile puts more toxins into the atmosphere than any tobacco smoker does.  Should cars be banned?  It is always easier to point the finger at someone else and say their behavior is bad for your health than it is to accept one's own faults.\nSmoking is a bad habit.  So is overeating.  Should fat people be banned from public places?\nOur society should spend more time and effort preventing the next generation from smoking tobacco.  It may already be too late to change people who smoke now.
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.....
814947
The objective of taxing cigarettes is to penalize smokers while adding to State and Federal coffers, not to get the smokers to stop.  The very last thing these governments and the anti-smoking crowd wants is for you to quit smoking.  The revenues from cigarette taxes would have to be replaced by taxing some other minority, and the anti-smokers would have to seek out new victims.
63229
Had the same problem at our place.  It's also discrimination to tell someone they can't do something that is NOT illegal.  It is against their rights also.\n\nSo we have smoking areas far away from other people.  If you don't like smoke, don't go there.
431131
2 reasons:  1) History.  2) Momentum.\n\nIn regard to history, we already prohibited alcohol once in this country and it failed miserably.  For that reason, the prohibition was lifted.  Instead, we do have strict laws that greatly restrict when and how we can consume alcohol.  \nThose laws are designed to protect innocent people, even though people don't always follow the laws and people still get hurt.\n\n2)  The anti-tobacco campaign, however, is gaining huge political momentum.  The tobacco companies have lost big law suits because they lied about knowing of the harmful chemicals they were putting in cigarettes.  The tobacco industry had to shell out billions of dollars to states in a settlement and they have very little lobbying power right now to stop the local laws that are going into place.  The laws themselves don't prosecute a person for smoking per se, they only prosecute a person for smoking in a way that jeopardizes someone else's health.  So, if you are in public smoking a cigarette and someone else can breathe in your harmful smoke, you can be prosecuted... just like you can be prosecuted if you ram your car into someone when you are drunk.\n\nThe real question is... if we are holding people legally liable for polluting our air with cigarettes, why aren't we holding manufacturers strictly liable for dangerous smoke that they put into the air when there are things they can do, although more expensive, to lessen that degree of smoke?
243072
There is no right answer for this question...banning smoking and drinking in public is no more or less an infringement of civil liberty than allowing it is.\n\nYou ban it, the people who are bothered by smoke and would rather not see people drinking in public are vindicated, you allow it and those who indulge reap the benefits.\n\nPublic drinking is illegal in most parts of the US where I live and frankly I think that law was put in place for those who would abuse that civil liberty.  Look at Pre-Katrina New Orleans.  Public drinking is legal in the French Quarter...even almost encouraged with the myriad open air bars, take out places serving alcoholic beverages, etc.  As a result, you often have people who have overindulged roaming the streets, disturbing other people and engaging in various kinds of unnacceptable behavior.  The law in that case would have been effected for them...the ones with no control.\n\nThe smoking ban on the other hand was put in place in my opinion because of the connections scientists are making between second hand smoke and various cancers.  If an actual, solid connection can be made, I'm 100% certain that thousands of lawsuits, if not more, will be brought against various venues that once allowed smoking indoors by people afflicted with cancer who frequented those venues...particularly lung.\n\nIn some ways I think the smoking ban was created to help curb some future lawsuits as well as protect public health.
453978
I know, I know!  Pick me, pick me!\nWhat needs to happen is that restaurants (and other businesses) must be made to comply with health codes.  That is to say, that the smoking area should be well-ventilated, and separate from the non-smoking areas.  Any restaurant (or business) that doesn't comply must either A) Shut down.  or B) Not allow smoking.  If they decide to go with B, and then violate it, it would be treated the same as any other health code violation, e.g. HUGE fines.\nUnfortunately, the current political climate in our country is all-or-nothing, instead of focusing on compromise.  And instead of eating somewhere that doesn't allow smoking, many non-smokers want NO restaurants or businesses to allow smoking.  Completely unfair.  Everyone is entitled to the pursuit of liberty and happiness, not just the non-smokers.
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. :-)
665568
Pretty imaterial\n\nConsumers have had the choice of non-smoking restaurants and bars for sometime; whilst non-smoking in restaurants has steadily increased, there has been gradual change in pubs and bars with the use of set aside areas. Left to itself, the drift to non-smoking would have happened naturally over 5-8 years.\n\nThere are more important areas where the government should be taking action (pension reform, power supplies, transport infrastructure, reform of lords, withdrawl from Iraq, etc) that confer much more important long term benefits to the community\n\nSo instead the government has chosen smoking reform as this years 'fox hunting bill' to display some sort of progress whilst it dithers and delays on the really important stuff.\n\nTo be fair, it has been caught slightly on the hop by the Welsh and Scots regional assemblies, who in turn don't have that much power and have chosen smoking in public places as a way of demonstrating their relevance to their electrorates.\n\nWhilst smoking is an undeniable public health issue, it is an issue for smokers themselves; passive smoking in public places is a trivial risk compared to other environmental risk factors (eg traffic accidents). Studies are contradictory and point to passive smoke at home as the only significant issue\n\nThe ban just adds to yet more rules and regulations and will probably make smoking cool to a younger generation as a way to be distinctive from their elders
863856
I don't think that it should be a Gov't choice...It should be the owner of the property choice....I have yet to be somewhere where smoke bothered me because most places are non smoking...bars here in Ohio aren't most anyway...and that doesn't bother me at all...maybe the next day after smelling my clothes and hair but my breath probably stinks just as bad after a night of drinks.  This is just a way of people controlling and getting money...one of the issues on the ballot if you read closely says money for the "clean air fund"...if they band smoking why would you need a clean air fund...and what on earth are you going to do with that money?  I prefer my money to go to my child's college fund...but If this passes I won't have a choice will I?
1021575
I can't stand them people! as long as we don't blow it in their freaking face they should mind their own business. there is a town close to us that banned smoking even in bars! yeah, you can be a public drunk there but you can't smoke a dang cigarette.
784205
If it is anything like the law here in Massachusetts, It SUCKS. It is another step in our DICTATORSHIP government in becoming COMMUNIST. Please don't misunderstand me. To ban smoking in a restaurant is one thing. I say this as smoking CAN affect the taste of food and for a NON-smoker to have to sit there and try to enjoy a meal and be forced to breath the smoke from my cigar, well it isn't right. BUT Cigaretts and Cigars, and Pipes go with coffee or drinks. And to tell a person YOU can't SMOKE when you are in this bar is NOT RIGHT. I say put this question on a ballot and let the voters decide. WE the PEOPLE, should be able to say WE want smoking or WE don't want smoking. If WE the people decide what WE want or don't want then I could except the law if it passed. BUT for our DICTATORSHIP government to just make these laws and FORCE them down OUR throats I say again it is WRONG. Oh I don't even want to hear that the BAR-tender is being forced to breath second hand smoke. Thats is a BIG CROCK of chit. I mean if you are bothered by fire, then why would you become a fire-man. If you are bothered by guns, then why would you become a police man. The same applys to bar tending. If you are bothered by second hand smoke WHY become a bar tender? Sorry to have run off so long but this issue goes right up my backside.