Infinite_Loser

Yes, and restaraunt owners shouldn't be forced to meat any health regulations as people don't have to eat there.

The fact is that all establishments have the duty to provide a clean and safe environment for their patrons.

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I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

filtherton

I think it's reasonable for the people to not want to be around smoke in enclosed places that are open to the general public. I don't think it's reasonable to ban smoking on private property that isn't open to the general public.

I'd probably go out less, save some money. It doesn't really seem like things would be that different from how they were pre-ban when maybe 5% of the restaurants and .1% of the bars were smoke free. As it stands now, if i really want to smoke and drink, i go to the liquor store and get a 12-box for the same price as three beers would cost at a bar. Then i drink and smoke wherever i end up. The nice thing about this setup is that you generally don't have to yell to make conversation.

Where i draw the line isn't a tangible thing; it really depends on the issue. I can tell you that the rights of business rank lower than the rights of people in my particular hierarchy.

FoolThemAll

Agreed.

Of course that's reasonable. What's unreasonable is using the threat of government's gun to achieve this want.

Fair enough.

They rank equally in my book. It's a good thing this thread only involves the former.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

hagatha

I was watching the news last night and apparently there is a court challenge by local bar owners in Quebec, Canada re: no smoking law. According to reports, if this challenge makes it to the Supreme Court of Canada, it could unravel all smoking bans previously instituted by the provincial governments.
Here in Canada, you can't smoke in any public buildings and where I live, you can't even smoke on the patio of a bar. Its actually more draconian than other provinces.
So I will be curious to see if anything comes of this court challenge.

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Thats the last time I trust the strangest people I ever met....H. Simpson

filtherton

I think that it's plenty reasonable.

DaElf

I mean socialism as in socialism as in the dictionary definition as in any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy. What are you talking about?

Oh well for your evidence.

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I'm sitting at my desk right now waiting for you to reply to the above message.

filtherton

Oh, i guess i thought that when you mentioned socialism in reference to what i was saying you actually meant it in reference to what i was saying. Silly me. I guess i should have assumed that it was a non sequitur.

beavstrokinoff

When was the last time a fat person invaded your space and made you want to vomit from across the room. Smoke stinks ego smokers stink. I shuold not have to enjoy your addiction with you if I don't want to. If you're in your car I don't car if you hotbox it just don't sit up wind of me and light up.

Kalnaur

I am going to be perfectly honest. I don't give a damn if you feel as if you have the right to smoke. I don't care if the money you spend makes you feel entitled to smoke. I don't care if you hold the position that you are only ruining your health, and aren't doing a grand load ofdamage to mine with your habit. I don't care if you live in the US of A and think you get to have what you want if you have the ability to obtain it.

I do not go to restaurants that have smoking sections. I ask smokers to move away from doors so the smoke doesn't waft into places I go. I inform the people standing 3 inches from the open bus doors that smoking is currently banned at most of the transit stations where I live, and what they are doing is rude.

I do this because regardless of your "rights" what you are doing is annoying and uneeded. We do not allow others to be harrassed unduly nor for people to urinate on others, there is nothing saying you "get" to smoke, only laws telling you where you may not.

Ultimately, you are, in America, allowed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Pursue all you want, but if your annoying, smelly, unhealthy habit happens to obstruct a crowd of people, nay even two people and their pursuit of happiness expect to be told to do it elsewhere or nowhere at all.

If this is all too long for some: You may pursue your habit until it becomes an annoyance of mine.

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PC: Can you help me out here HK?
HK-47: I'm 98% percent sure this miniature organic meatbag wants you to help find his fellow miniature organic meatbags.
PC: And the other 2 percent?
HK-47: The other 2 percent is that he is just looking for trouble and needs to be blasted, but that might be wishful thinking on my part.

matthew330

Your one of those people that will launch into a hacking cough when you walk within 100 feet of someone smoking on a windy day aren't you? This effort to regulate smoking has transformed a population of people that could once effectively deal with any dislike they had for smoke by avoiding it, into rabid, pavlovian pets that have will have deathly ill allergic reactions to the sight of some lighting a smoke in the car next to them.

If my lighting a cigarette is obstructing your pursuit of happiness, furthermore, if my smoking in a pool hall on the other side of the city that you will never set foot in is obstructing your pursuit of happiness....that's just fucked up.

"I inform the people standing 3 inches from the open bus doors..." I would put money on the fact that whenever this happened, it was probably more like 10 feet and you went way out of your way, probably subjecting even longer to second hand smoke, to let that man know how disgusted you were.

Nonsmokers are a crazy bunch.

FoolThemAll

Sure you wanna go down that road? Cuz I'm starting to feel a bit annoyed.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Xera

No sir. I get to pursue my habit as long as it does not harm you. annoying you plays no part in it. People who pick their nose annoy me. People who wear perfume annoy me, people who wear flip flops and then don't know how to walk in them to keep them from making that racket annoy me. People who think they have the right to tell me to stop any damn thing I'm doing for no reason other than it annoys them that I do it annoy me. If I'm smoking outside and you tell me to stop because it's rude, expect to get my smoke right in your face.

You want me to take my smoking outside so you don't die from it, fine, willing to go to the safety issue. Wanna make it about being annoying to you that I'm a smoker- you have far more to loose than me.

According to Judith Martin in Miss Manners Basic Training, sorry it's a book and thats all I can do to quote a source here, the single rudest thing a person can do is to tell another person they are being rude.

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~~^~<@Xera @>~^~~

Lizra

Sorry if my coughing at your smoke annoys you! Really! I just can help it though.....nothing personal.

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Happy atheist

Scorps

Im a smoker and have quit 3 times hopefully next time will be the last. Ontario is tring to ban smokeing everywhere the only thing that piss's me off is the By-law Kingston has, can;t even smoke on a patio or if are workplace put a shelter over top are out door eating/smokers spot we get a 2000 dollar fine. we used to use a room inside upstairs to smoke in, it was only smokers in there and no one cared, are wearhouse is not Public but we still can't smoke in side which is bullshit. But on another note, I smoke and drive everyday and have never had a close call or an accident. I just wish when you buy smokes the person behind the counter would just shut there mouths on how bad smoking is...you think I didn't know.



(well I feel better now)

Infinite_Loser

I guess it's just me, but I can't believe that some smokers are still arguing for their "Right" to endanger another person's health. It boggles my mind.

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I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

FoolThemAll

They aren't. The choice is in the hands of the nonsmoker - they decide whether or not their health is endangered.

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I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

shakran

This is exactly what we're pushing for. Smoke outside, away from me and the rest of the people in the restaurant, and we have no problem.


Leave it to Miss Manners to cause a logical paradox. After all, she's telling us that we're being rude to tell others that they're being rude, and therefore she's being rude

Xera

it was in the context of an anecdote. She was expaining that her kids friends hated coming to her house to eat because they were always afraid she would point out all the lapses in manners. She explained that she would never have done that because no matter what offense they comitted, telling another person they are rude is always the greater ettiquete offense.

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~~^~<@Xera @>~^~~

Scorps

I don't smoke inside even at home I go outside, but the Patio at a restraunt(sp) is what piss's me off, Your sitting eating what would hurt your lung more exhaust from an idling car(s) or one small cigrette

Xera

Exactly Pain Train, I don't mind the parts of the bans and attitudes and such that are there for the protection of others. I know that smoke trapped inside a building is just going to stick around and force carcinogens into the lungs of everyone regardless of their choice to smoke or not, so I don't argue with that.

I'm going to take this to the other side where as Infinite Loser can't understand why smokers are still arguing for their right to smoke, I can't believe that non-smokers, after winning the part of the argument that pertains to their own health, are fighting for the right to legislate behavior based on no other criteria other than I find it annoying. If we're gonna go there, I want a 'you can't pick your nose in you car law' I mean really, lets talk disgusting to look at for a bit here why don't we?

Get it non-smokers? You've convinced many of us that we need to take it outside. YOU WON THE SAFETY ISSUE. There is no need to keep going on about safety. Please try to actually defend the restrictions on us smoking OUTSIDE, where the second hand smoke killing you argument is really quite moot. I would really like to see a reasonable deffense on this one, I need that to understand why it seems no matter what ground I'm willing to give I'm being asked for more.

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~~^~<@Xera @>~^~~

Infinite_Loser

Read this and this. Cigarettes are more dangerous than your average car emissions.

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I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

matthew330

non-smokers really need to be honest with themselves and who their fighting with. Is your argument really motivated by a realistic concern for your own health when you come in contact with second hand smoke, even briefly, or is it something you just dont like and for that reason swallow articles like the ones linked above and feed it to your fellow non-smokers to get all bent about?

I've worked on multple lung cancer trials, among other cancers, read thousands of pages of medical histories on these patients and not once have I ever read a doctors note even hinting that second hand smoke might have played a factor in their illness. Sure...the majority of the lung cancer patients did smoke. In fact, most of them were well over 70 and had been smoking since they were 15. Now that's some potent shit.

Obviously this approach has been working, so you'll continue with it. It just amazes me that this is the world you want to live in. If smoking were as dangerous as you suggest, you'd be fighting tooth and nail to make it illegal. As it is, you've gotten to a point where you have to almost look for ways to be inconvenienced by it, but still it's not enough. Somewhat pathological (though entertaining at times) in my opinion.

StanT

Take it outside, use an ashtray, not the sidewalk, and don't make me walk through a gauntlet of smokers on entering a building and we'll get along just fine.

Scorps

Does someone walking inside then blowing out the smoke bother you too?

I do that a lot

StanT

Not unless you can hold your breath for the minute or so that it takes to walk to my desk.

splck

Let's see now, an evening out without having to breath in a cigarette smoke and waking up not stinking like an old ashtray...sounds pretty good to me, I'll take it.
I could care less about making tobacco illegal, smoke all you want, no one's telling you can't enjoy your smokes, just don't make me a part of your addiction.
Smoke free is the way of the future, you can squeal like a stuck pig all you want, but you better get used to it.

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nice line eh?

matthew330

Sitting in a non-smoking area of a resteraunt that has a smoking area isn't going to make you stink like an old ashtray the next morning. The world you evidently want to live in that amazes me.... is having drama queens write laws for the sole purpose of passifying their (or yours as the case may be) dramatic reality.

Scorps

Ohh I meant that for the people that stand by the door and talk and get in the way...I do that for them

splck

Maybe, but that's not what I was thinking of. I was thinking more in the bar sense than a restaurant.

LOL, drama queens. Funny how that can go both ways eh?

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nice line eh?

hagatha

That is the first time I have laughed outloud while on this site. Thanks.

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Thats the last time I trust the strangest people I ever met....H. Simpson

Sorcha

Well...I have asthma. I was in a restaurant with surprisingly poor ventilation, and there was a smoker on the other side of the restaurant. I've been congested for a few days because of that. I mean it'll wear off soon, but this happens every time, and often involves a migraine headache. My uncle used to smoke, and one still does, and I always come away from their houses feeling terrible, and I feel like I have a cold for days. Someone I know (not a friend per se) has asthma so bad that she could die if she comes in contact with enough cigarette smoke, because she's very allergic and her lungs close up. She and her BF don't go out, except in restaurants they know are non smoking, because they will have to leave if someone smokes.

So as much as I know nonsmokers don't always have an excuse, I happen to.

What really gets to me is when people, my younger sister in particular, think I'm making it up. She treats me like dirt for the rest of the time we're together if I request to move tables, because she thinks it's insulting to the people who do smoke. So smokers are treated like pariahs, but people like me are also. I wish I could handle it, because I'm not terribly worried about cancer and all of that. If it happens, it'll happen, treating someone like crap isn't going to save my life. But I can't, and I'm made to feel like a jerk because of it.

Well again, speaking for me personally, just walking through a cloud of smoke sends me into attack, and probably have me sneezing. It's sad, but true. That variety will pass, but if I'm continually exposed to it, like I was in the restaurant, or walking down the streets of NY at lunchtime (when everyone is taking a smoke break) then there's a bigger issue, especially if I'm hurrying. Depending on weather conditions (especially humidity) and other factors, I'm already out of breath from walking really quickly. So my reasonable defense is that one face full of smoke and I'm coughing for at least an hour.

I'd feel bad for those people with cigarette addictions if it was outlawed outside, because to me that seems a little extreme, and boxes them into a corner, but you asked for a defense. *shrug*