Power to the “Beer” People
With the Government’s constant attempt to over-reach with the hand of power, it’s good for some of us to bite that hand every once in a while…
Recently, more than 50 owners of local bars and lounges took to the streets of Charleston to voice their disapproval of the recent sweeping smoking ban which includes bars. Although I am a non-smoker and prefer non-smoking establishments, I am first and foremost a person who believes in freedom and the free markets. I also believe in the existence of the potential for a “Nanny State” becoming the norm, and nobody really wants that to happen.
These businesses have banded together to let government know that the ban which was put in place by the non-elected “ministers” of health, has hurt their business.These smoking bans are wrong and an unnecessary encroachment on business owner’s private property rights.
Let me give you my thoughts. Here are 10 logical points that go toward solving this issue that are based on the principles of a free society and a free market.
1. The health department is un-unelected body and should not be given carte-blanche to make regulations. They should only be able to recommend legislation to an elected body. The normal legislative path should be taken and its elected officials should be held accountable at election time.
2. Smoking and cigarettes are legal in the U.S. and are the source of many tax dollars. Government earns more from tobacco than the tobacco companies.
3. Restaurants and bars are private property that is “open” to the public. The public has no particular right to enter. Malls and other large private/public places have gone through urban planning or exist with the blessing of the community. They tacitly agree to operate as a public place. Small businesses such as restaurants are not required to do this.
4. Cigarette smoking is harmful and bothersome to many people, but many people do not mind it.
5. It is in the best interest of the public’s health that regulations exist to limit where smoking can take place. All truly public areas should be smoke free.
6. Restaurants and bars should be required to establish a smoking policy for their business. Either they are a smoking establishment, non-smoking establishment or they have an approved separation of the two areas.
7. Smoking establishments should be required to purchase and display approved signage (before a patron enters) that clearly states their smoking status. The business must pay an additional fee for such inspections to assure they comply. The same for separated areas.
8. Workers in smoking establishments must be made aware and attest to the fact that they are aware of the hazards that may be present in the smoking areas. (After all, they are adults and are responsible for their decisions. Hazards exist in nearly all work environments. Smokers can take on the task with no additional risk)
9. Allow the free market to find a balance of smoking and non-smoking establishments. If the anti-smoking Nazis are correct, the market will show that they were right.
10. Patrons can vote with their feet and private property rights remain somewhat intact! (and I will see you at the non-smoking bar)
Just remember… Today the issue is smoking, tomorrow it could be your favorite vice; drinking, eating fatty foods or any other legal activity that falls out of favor with the public. Put your likes or dis-likes aside when pondering these issues.
August 18th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
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August 19th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Okay…so the people who DON’T want to breathe poisonous gas are “Nazis.”
Without stooping to that level of discourse, your points are all irrelevant or invalid. You might be drinking too liberally at the Libertarian punch bowl, Rich.
1)The Board of Health was chartered BY LAW to govern issues concerning health. Clean air is a health issue. The fact that matters such as this are handled by panels of experts, rather than elected yahoos does not mean that the rules are not legitimate. We elected the people who gave the board of health the power to pass these regulations.
2) Smoking is only still legal due to lobbying efforts from tobacco companies. Smoking in public should not be legal. There is no constitional right to smoke. There are laws against burning trash in city limits, so why should we allow people to carry around little flaming sticks? Sticks that pollute the air, I might add.
3)Restaurants and bars are subject to health regulations, just like any other business. Those regulations come from the same health board that banned smoking. Do you like the fact that restaurants have to serve fresh meat, and that their employees have to wash their hands? Those rules come from the same board that banned smoking.
4)The fact that “some people do not mind smoking” does not make it socially acceptable. Some people don’t mind racism.
5)I agree with your fifth point completely. Smoking should only be legal in the privacy of your own home and in the presence of consenting adults. As I’ve said before, there is no reason that smoking should be more legal than sex. Don’t do it public. Don’t do it front of the kids. And don’t do it with animals.
6) Restaurants are public places. You say all truly public places should be smoke-free, right?
7) Bar owners should have attended the hearings that were held last year to suggest that they be allowed to have smoking sections. Since smoke does not stay in those sections, I think it’s an absurd idea, but when hearings were held, only one bar owner bothered to show up. Protesting now just makes them look clueless.
8)”Breathe smoke or find another job” is not a reasonable ultimatum. It’s a workplace safety issue.
9)How about we let the free market determine the legality of meth, or crack, or heroin? Laws are not passed unless there is a problem. It’s not a free-market issue.
10)That’s the same argument as your ninth point. However, it doesn’t hold water. The bar scene shriveled in this city long before the smoking ban went into effect. Smokers drove out the non-smokers, who simply quit going to bars. It’ll take them a while to find their way back.
Since the ban went into effect, every time I set foot in The Empty Glass or The Blue Parrot I see friends that haven’t been out to bars in years. They were driven away by the smoke. They are trickling back.
As someone who has to go to bars to hear the music that I bring my viewers on Radio Free Charleston, I have to thank the Kanawha County Board Of Health for drastically improving the quality of my life. I can stay for entire shows by bands now and not have to be sick for three days afterwards.
Once the bar owners realize how much money they’re saving in cleaning bills, and how many more customers are coming to their bars (after the slump in business that happens EVERY SINGLE JULY) they’ll quit whining about the new regulations.
Now what we need is for the city of Charleston to start enforcing the rule about smoking within 25 feet of an entrance to a business. It’s sort of strange walking down Capitol Street at night, and having to duck INTO a bar to get a gulp of clean air.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Thanks for your comments Rudy. Yes, I do value personal property rights. Restaurants and bars are not public property, they are private businesses.
I did not say that the Health Department should be out of the picture here (though I do challenge the fact that they be allowed to enact laws without a roll call of elected officials- (Don’t sublease my rights to an unelected board))The Health Dept. has a responsibility within a certain scope; my beleif is that that they have over-reached. What is the problem with a bar that clearly states that smoking is allowed? You don’t have to go in there or work there! What if the board decides that red meat is unhealthy and restaurants can no longer serve it?
As for your drugs (meth) argument, those are illegal substances, tobacco is not. At least if tobacco was banned as a substance, it would go through an exhaustive legislative process where the legislators had to go “on the record” with their vote.
Do you know how your legislator stands on the smoking issue vs private business issue? I don’t because he/she has insulated themselves behind the Board of Health.
If the State legislature voted down smoking in bars, I may disagree, but at least I have specific recourse in the voting booth.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
I agree with Rich, it all about chipping our rights away. The Board role shoule be to enforce thr rules, codes & laws promulgated by an elected body. Not made up on a whim by someone. Also, there is a thing called freedom of choice. It appears Rudy doesn’t belief in it. It appears he beleifs govt should rule every aspect of our lives.
Oh, I guess we should put Stars of David & ship those evil smokers to the concentration camps or Gulags. Right Rudy!!!
Oh, look at how much money smokers tax puts in to our infrastucture. Where is the loss of revenue going to come from??? Thin air??
August 19th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Tim, I take the blame for using the word “Nazi” in my posting. Maybe I should have just said “anti smoking zealots”.
I don’t see where Rudy is going too extreme against smokers. He has every expectation and right to be free from smoke while in a public place. I want the same freedom. We simply have a disagreement on what constitutes a public place and also worker protections within smoking establishments.
I have tried to reason with the health department a long-time ago just as they were carving out this slippery slope. They had a stacked house of speakers from every anti-smoking org. in the US, but did not even touch on the real issue of the rights of business owners. All I heard was how terrible smoking is and how someone had an aunt in an iron lung etc. They would not let me speak because I did not call ahead and get on a speakers list, OK… But then they would not let me speak even after all listed speakers were finished and there was still alotted time for speakers as per the agenda. They did not want to hear opposing views. I was there to represent the views of my in-laws who own and operate a restaurant in the area, so I was not just a rabble rouser (though there is nothing wrong with that̷
August 19th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Maybe the Nazi thing is a little extreme. But, I do see some similarities. What about the smoker’s right not to be castigated, scapegoated & demonized? Smokers have the right to be treated like humans.
Parks are public areas. Thousands of acres of woodlands off limits. Sounds a little extreme.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:35 pm
“Just remember… Today the issue is smoking, tomorrow it could be your favorite vice; drinking, eating fatty foods or any other legal activity that falls out of favor with the public. Put your likes or dis-likes aside when pondering these issues.”
Rich, the smoking ban isn’t intended to protect the smokers, it’s intended to protect the non-smokers (and employees). Unless scientists discover that it’s possible to transfer second-hand fat from a Big Mac eater to a non-Big Mac eater, your comparison doesn’t hold water. A person eating a cheeseburger isn’t affecting anyone else’s health. A person drinking himself into a stupor isn’t affecting anyone else’s health. The smoking ban isn’t intended to protect the smokers’ health.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:38 pm
“Oh, look at how much money smokers tax puts in to our infrastucture. Where is the loss of revenue going to come from??? Thin air??”
They didn’t ban cigarettes. How does the smoking ban affect the cigarette tax?
And smokers still have freedom of choice. They can choose to walk outside and smoke.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:27 am
Red, I understand the reasoning that has been used to force these bans. A few years ago, the original reasoning was “public health”, that was when the regulations only applied to restaurants (worker protection was never raised). I thought it was kind of funny that the health dept. didn’t give a crap about those heathen bar patrons at that time (using their reasoning). They finally figured out an angle to go after bars. “Protect the Workers”, yeah that’s it, lets go with that… Tell me how much more risk does a smoker take-on when they work in an establishment that allows smoking? Can you even quantify how much risk a non-smoker takes-on? The science is not exactly carved in stone, though I would agree that there is some risk. There is risk in nearly every job, just ask a nidnight clerk at a convenience store in downtown Detroit, or a cab driver in any major US city.
Look… The point I am trying to make is that these “zero tolerance” bans are an unnecessary over reach by un-elected bureaucrats. There is a way to allow the entity of “smoking lounges” or even “smoking restaurants”. The current ban extends to private clubs like the Moose Lodge. If smoking were allowed to exist by permit, they would generate even more tax revenue and fill an obvious demand in the marketplace and we would never have to go inside of one…
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:32 am
By the way… Your last comment about the smokers walking outside to smoke. That should not be allowed if “outside” means along a sidewalk or other public thorofare. We should keep them indoors at the “smoking lounge”
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I appreciate that you acknowledge that the use of Nazi imagery is beyond the pale. It does nothing but undercut your argument.
What we have here is a conflict among the Libertarian philosophies at work.
My take is that the owner of a private business, who wants to do business in the public sector, must abide by public codes and bylaws. We do not allow a bar to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, or color, nor do we allow them to operate in buildings that are not up to code or sanitary.
No one is forcing a bar owner to operate a public business, but in the best interest of the public, those that choose to do so must observe the laws of the land.
Smokers are not entitled to indulge in their habit anywhere they please. Cigarettes cannot be used properly without spewing harmful chemicals into the air. You simply cannot subject innocent people to that. Your right to smoke in public ends at MY NOSE.
I should be at liberty to go anywhere open to the public and breathe clean air (or at least tobacco-free air, if it’s a blue haze day).
It’s common knowledge that the whole “private club” thing is a ruse to get around archaic blue laws. So-called “private clubs” are still conducting business in the public sector and are subject to the law like anyone else. That point is a non-issue.
Anyone has the freedom to start a smoking establishment–they just can’t do it as a commercial endeavor. Going back to my “smoking should be no more legal than sex” bit, you can screw anyone you want–you just can’t charge for it. Smokers should gather at their houses and smoke like fiends if they want. I don’t have any problem with that.
But I should be able to walk into any public place without beind subjected to tobacco fumes.
My personal take is that I have been to the mountaintop and I have seen the (smoke-free) other side. If the smoking ban is overturned, I will stop shooting segments for Radio Free Charleston in bars that allow smoking, and I won’t publicize shows in those bars in PopCult. I’ve had seven weeks of freedom, now. I can go to the Blue Parrot or The Empty Glass and not have to spend the next three days mainlining allergy medicine. I will NOT go back to the way things were before the ban.
As for smoking outdoors–that should be banned next.
The slippery-slope argument is also bogus. This will not lead to a ban on junk food. You can eat junk food without getting the person next to you fat. That’s another smokescreen to divert from the main issue–there is not one valid reason why smoking should be legal!
Some day in the future, people will look back at the way people smoked in public and consider it barbaric.
That day can’t get here soon enough for me.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:50 pm
We will have to agree to dis-agree… I think if the substance remains legal and there is a desire to have smoking clubs, then it should be allowed in the way I propose. Nobody gets hurt that doesnt want to be…
Getting to the slippery slope argument, the reasoning that will be used to ban fatty foods (and it’s already been tried, and I beleive “in force” in NYC in the way of a trans-fat ban) is the “Nanny State”, public health argument.
God help us if we start depending on the Government for our health care, then it truly will be in the public interest as to what I do, what I ingest and how much I do it… I have already seen quite a bit of movement by neo-prohibitionists against my favorite vice. I am glad a few folks are making some sense in discussing lowering the 21 year old drinking age.