Chicago Tribune: Smoking ban talk fires up Oak Park

[Tweed]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0501180318jan18,1,2445245.story?coll=chi-newslocal-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

"If people in Skokie and Italy can snub out their smokes in public places, then Oak Park residents should, too, clean-air advocates say.

On Tuesday, the village's Board of Health is expected to ask policymakers to consider an ordinance that would prohibit smoking in all public places in the village, including restaurants. The Board of Health, an advisory commission to the Village Board, wants approval to conduct public hearings on the issue, a move that would mark the first step toward enacting a comprehensive ban.

Oak Park is among the few communities in Illinois with the authority to supersede the state's clean-air law, which only requires designated smoking areas in public places, excluding factories and warehouses. Communities are not allowed to enact policies more stringent than the state law unless they had smoking regulations in place before Oct. 1, 1989.

In Oak Park an ordinance regulating smoking was enacted in March 1989, but it does not include public places such as bars, restaurants, theater lobbies and health facilities."

I personally think smoking bans are absurd. Business owners should be able to decide themselves whether or not they want their establishment to be smoking or smoke free. If you don't want go to a smoky bar, DON'T! I don't smoke myself and I for the most part avoid bars that do have smoking. No bar is SO great that it becomes an injustice for someone if there is smoking inside.

[sui generis]

1. some power mad twit is just salivating at the possibility

will probably run for president some day on that platform.

[Romulus]

2. I agree with you

but "it's for the good of society, y'understand." :eyes:

Next up: government mandated "wiping" methods, under the rubric of "public health" . . .:eyes:

[Withywindle]

3. I agree

Particularly for bars. (Full disclosure: I'm a smoker.) I don't find it unreasonable to step outside at work, at nonsmoking friends' and relatives' places, in public buildings, etc., at all, and I always try to be polite with it--but for chrissakes, what is someone so obsessed with health doing in a bar in the first place?

I do know enough nonsmokers who like to go out and drink that I think a nonsmoking bar could do good business, and also provide employment for those few people who want to work in a bar but can't deal with cigarette smoke (?!?). I think there should be both kinds available.

The smoking ban in bars in, say, NYC, is ridiculous. What happens there is the bar owners who break the law get the business--just like Prohibition, didn't we learn anything from that?

[Rainbowreflect]

4. Totally disagree.

I have horrible allergies to cigarette smoke so unable to go to a bar to hear a band or even have a drink with friends.
My city has a smoking ban as of 1/1/05 and I went out to a bar last Friday night for the first time in years and was able to breath and go home not stinking of smoke.
The bar was also packed, so the ban was not hurting their business.

[Withywindle]

6. It might depend on where you are

I'm in Chicago, which could definitely support separate smoking and nonsmoking bars both. Also there are so many options for places to go that people can and will make other choices, I think. If smoking were banned in bars across the board here, I'm pretty sure I'd only bother going to the ones that have live music and that a lot less often. I think a lot of the smaller neighborhood taverns would either really be hurting, or they would not enforce the law.

[DrGonzoLives]

5. Exactly

If the owner wants the place to be non-smoking, so be it. This is not something that needs to be legislated.

[Rainbowreflect]

7. And if the owner does not want to make his/her business

handicap accessible that is ok? What about the business owner choosing to follow health codes or not?
I think smoking in public is a health issue, pure & simple.

[DrGonzoLives]

8. OK, let's regulate how much sugar

any person can eat during the day. After all, I'm diabetic and can't have as much as everyone else, so no one should be able to have that much. After all, it's a public health issue.

Drunk drivers kill thousands every year. We need to ban drinking in public too. It's a health issue.

[Rainbowreflect]

10. Your eating sugar does not hurt me, only you.

That is the difference.
Drinking & driving is illegal already and it is a perfect comparison. Someone else drinking in their home or in public does not infringe on my health, but if they get behind the wheel after they have been drinking they put others health & lives at risk.
Your right to smoke ends at my right to breath.

[DrGonzoLives]

11. Three hours

of exposure to secondhand smoke in a bar is going to kill you? Give you cancer?

I have an idea, how about we brand smokers in the forehead so as to permanently identify them so that you and other pious, holier-than-thou non-smokers can righteously berate them for their addiction?

While we're at it, let's ban cars, factories, farting, volcanos, and fire, since they all can infringe on your right to "breath."

[Rainbowreflect]

13. Actually 3 hours of secondhand smoke probably would kill me.

See my earlier post #3. You don't seem to care how your actions hurt others as long as you can smoke wherever, whenever you want the rest of us should just STFU.

With a smoking ban you can still go to any business you want to, you just cannot smoke while you are there.
Without the smoking ban, I & others with serious health problems do not have the option of going anywhere that allow smoking.

Who is infringing on who's rights?

I think communities have every right to vote for allowing or not allowing smoking as the community see fit.

[Southsideirish]

9. Smoking is an obscene, filthy habit. It hurts everyone involved.

My best friend took care of her smoker mom when she died of lung cancer and my smoker dad died of emphysema.
My husband is allergic to smoke and is sick for days if he is around just a tiny amount of it - is he supposed to hide in the house so smokers can indulge their preference?

[DrGonzoLives]

12. Sick for days?

For a tiny exposure to cigarette smoke? I find that very hard to believe. For an hour or two, maybe, but days?

Just curious, how often would you go out if smoking were banned and all smokers were locked up far away so as not to offend you?