Anyone seeing an uptick in efforts to overturn state smoking bans?

[Cirque du So-What]

I live in a small city in Ohio with a daily newspaper published by Gannett. I'm fairly active in the online forums that are available for news stories as well as opinion pieces. A story came out the other day about an effort to overturn the state ban on smoking in bars & restaurants, and shortly afterward a spammer named 'harleyrider1978' appeared and posted some pro-smoking claptrap that was discredited years ago (Big Tobacco is even too embarrassed to push this garbage any longer).

A cursory Google search revealed literally THOUSANDS of similar cut'n'paste jobs strung from one end of the internet to the other - all with the same username, 'harleyrider1978.' Some of the locals were quite enamored of this fellow (one woman was even flirting with the guy). I'm currently posting everything I can find on the guy - including some racist comments made about our President, some conspiracy-theory stuff, and some boilerplate libertarian mumbo-jumbo. He's a bit paranoid, accusing me of being some fellow named 'Gene Boros,' who he imagines is following him around the internet like the Flying Dutchman. Anyway, he's a nasty piece of work, and now he's got a 'wingman' - 'brogers' - who isn't quite as prolific but is trying hard to catapult the propaganda as well.

I'm not sure how to go about it, but I'd like to find ties between this spam artist and Big Tobacco in order to inform state legislatures - as well as the public - about this effort to manipulate the law in order to favor the tobacco companies. I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who may have experience with this issue or similar instances where wall-to-wall spamming is concerned.

Here's a link to the article in my local Gannett fishwrap:

http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/article/20091114/NEWS01/911140304?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:a3bbf8f6-f6b5-4244-bb98-c625ccb29cca

and the comments:

http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=pluckcomments&key=20091114.zanesvilletimesrecorder.BA911140304.article.NEWS01&s=d&art_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com%2Farticle%2F20091114%2FNEWS01%2F911140304&art_title=Bar%20owners%20seek%20federal%20help%20in%20overturning%20smoking%20ban

[Taverner]

1. Why can't anti-smokers and smokers reach a comprimise?

A VERY well ventilated Smoking section, and a VERY well ventilated non smoking section. Air comes into the non, and goes out the smoking section.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. That's really not the thrust of my concern in this thread

seeing that I posted it in the Activist forum and not GD, but thanks for reading.

[rd_kent]

3. There is a compromise.

Smokers go outside so as not to subject non-smokers to the hazards of second hand smoke. Having a separate area is pointless unless it is sealed off from the rest of the rooms, hardly a practical application.

[Taverner]

22. And when its blizarrd conditions this is a real ethical solution....NOT

[rd_kent]

24. Sorry....

Perhaps you should think about quitting.......it will save your life you know......

[Indydem]

4. We had that here.

In Allen County, IN.

Businesses spent thousands on partitions, automatic doors, ventilation and remodeling to make it all work.

A few years later the city came in and crammed a smoking ban into effect that has so far, killed 25% of the bars in town and several restaurants.

There is no "compromise" to be had with anti-smoking nazis who's sole pleasure is robbing others of their liberties.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. "Anti-Smoking Nazis"

Michele? Rep. Bachmann? Is that you?

--d!

[Cirque du So-What]

20. While researching this 'harleyrider1978' assclown

I've actually found freepers who at least recognize that second-hand smoke is bad for you. If we had a game show and called it 'Are You Less Obtuse Than a Freeper?', some of DU's registered users wouldn't make the cut. And, yes, 'harleyrider1978' is a freeper. I just had a feeling.

[Taverner]

23. The Anti Smoking lobby has behaved in recent times like mad scared children

The name applies

[Cirque du So-What]

16. The correct word in this instance is 'whose' - not 'who's'

I guess that makes makes me a grammar nazi too. This place is becoming a fucking joke. Does anyone know where I can get a SERIOUS reply to this question?

[Warpy]

5. Any ventilation system capable of doing that would be

hideously expensive and would likely make the interior a bit too windy to be pleasant.

You might as well duck outside to set fire to those things.

We'll all get along fine that way.

[BR_Parkway]

12. They could make really nice smoking patios out of all the parking

lots so that no one has to breathe car exhaust - seems like a win/win to me

[Warpy]

13. Agreed, sacrificing a few parking spots

covering them, and putting in a few heat lamps to turn on in cool weather would be a very nice idea.

[BR_Parkway]

14. I meant all the parking - I find it interesting everyone's so worried about 2nd hand smoke

from a 20 mm cigarette, but few seem interested in making the same logical jump to a 455 V-8 (or 1.3L) internal combustion engine emitting toxic fumes.

I've read before that approximately 20% of Americans smoke (60 million?) but that there are 247 registered vehicles - seems like we're ignoring the forest for the trees - I never see folks advocating so passionately for banning cars

The answer for 2007 is 136 million cars, 110 million trucks, about 1 million buses for a total of 247 million registered vehicles.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_cars_are_currently_in_the_US

[Warpy]

17. Cars are transportation

Cigarettes are death. You can choose death if you like, but you can't choose it for me.

There is no comparison, sorry.

[BR_Parkway]

18. You're just as poisoned whether you got a benefit (transport) from it

or not

As a non-smoker, would you choose to go to a place that didn't allow parking over one that did for the benefit of not being harmed by the fumes? If so, why aren't people advocating for those types of bans as well?

[Warpy]

19. Other people get no benefit from your tobacco smoke

However, we all benefit from transportation and many of us have long been motivated to keep it as clean as possible.

[Ozymanithrax]

6. A very well ventelated smoking section can lead to a ventalator.

Your right to ingest tobacco can not trample on my right to live in a poison free environment.

Smoking, like sex, should be in the privacy of your own home.

[noamnety]

8. That doesn't address workers' safety.

Even for a server who personally smokes, there's a huge difference between what they'd inhale as an individual smoker vs. being enclosed in a smoke filled room for an 8 hour shift.

OSHA laws are built on the principle that even if an employee is willing to accept health risks in return for getting a job, an employer is responsible for taking all reasonable precautions for ensuring their safety and well being.

[Sukie]

9. Yikes, that guy, harleyrider is loco. His claims that smoking is

a right because our forefathers smoked is ludicrous. I can't stand people who use the term, "nobama", either. He sure is taking a particular interest in the smoking issue to be wasting hours of time on line worrying about it so much. Good luck in your fight with him. Virginia's ban takes affect in December and I am excited about it. There is no ventilation system that can adequately get rid of the toxins that are in second hand smoke. Life is number one in the list of rights, and we know beyond the shadow of the doubt that smoking can take life away, so I don't see how anyone can argue that smoking is a right above the basic right to breathe clean, healthy air.

[Sukie]

10. I find it unbelievable that the OP is asking a very good question

and is getting Unrec's. Obviously, people are not reading the post. sigh

[noamnety]

11. There was an issue a while back

where some fundie group had instructed their members to send it LTTE - the group provided the text, members were supposed to sign their name and get it published in their local papers.

An internet search revealed the opposite sort of problem as what you have - identical letters "written" by many different authors. I sent off my own LTTE, identifying the person who sent it in, the date they sent it in, and the original source of their letter. It's usually against newspaper policy to publish spam letters like that, I got a number of the authors banned from any future LTTE in those papers. The editors don't like being had like that. I think in a couple cases they also published my letters - one of them was about the decline of thinking and ethics, and how if one of my students had turned in someone else's work and put their name on it claiming it as their own, I'd have given them a zero for plagiarizing.

Anyway ... it might be worth seeing if you can get this guy's comments blocked as spam if he's posting cut and paste jobs. Most editors don't appreciate becoming a vehicle for that sort of thing.

[Cirque du So-What]

21. Yes, I've already alerted on this guy 'till I'm blue in the face

but I didn't notice it until Saturday night. I hope it's dealt with tomorrow.

[timeforpeace]

15. Having a smoker as President makes it likely that smoking will make a comeback.

[Noseyaboutpollution]

25. Strict here

Seems like the public likes bans around us.

Strange since IL seems fine with pollution:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP0PIzs-YVE

[jwhite]

26. When did we progresives become so ban happy?

This is my first post and I'd like to make it clear that I am no troll and I'm certainly not in the buisness of posting disinformation. I also have no love for big tobacco and their chemically modified reconstituted tobaccos. I am a pipe smoker and have been for years. In most of my experience the progressive movement has been about expanding the rights and civil liberties of our fellows and it was the argument of the right that those who existed in a state of power would somehow be diminished if that were allowed to pass. Yet now it seems my fellows are just fine with advancing regressive tax structures that affect those least able to afford them the most, as long as it's relative to tobacco. Bans in many communities have reached the point to where even outdoor smoking is no longer acceptable. I have had first hand knowledge of gentlemen being harassed for smoking their pipes in a park. Have we become that intolerant? Now I would no more put forth the idea that my pipe is healthy than I would promote a good single-malt scotch as a health drink. I would classify the moderate use of both as a quality of life issue. Bans smack of zero tolerance policies, mandatory sentencing, and the moral majority; a means for others to easily define the individual and mandate their lifestyle choices.