Michigan lawmakers discuss differences on smoking ban

[Truth Teller]

Source: Detroit Free Press

Lawmakers trying to reach a compromise to ban smoking in public places adjourned until Wednesday, as negotiations continued today.

A House and Senate conference committee met briefly to air out differences between the two chambers. A Senate-approved bill would ban smoking in all public places with no exceptions, while a House version would allow exemptions to the ban for Detroit’s three casinos, horse race tracks, bingo halls and cigar shops.


Committee chairperson Rep. Brenda Clack, D-Flint, said she believed a deal would be struck in time for the full Legislature to vote on it Thursday. She said the six-member committee would probably meet again Wednesday morning.


“I’m totally optimistic,” Clack said. “There was at least in the conversation a willingness to yield some and to reach an agreement, one way or the other. I think there will be an agreement both sides can live with.”


...

Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20081216/NEWS06/81216067

[WriteDown]

1. Just what Detroit truly needs right now...

A ban on something that many people enjoy.

[Truth Teller]

2. We'll have to differ here

I'd prefer cancer causing smoke be enjoyed outside the range of my lungs!

[WriteDown]

4. Then open a non-smoking bar...

Its pretty simple, if there is such a demand for non-smoking areas then a business like that should do unbelievably well.

[Mari333]

5. I live in Michigan

every restaurant in this small tourist town, except for one, has chosen, on its own, to be non smoking. thats about 7 of them.
the one thats for smokers is on the outskirts of town and is a truck stop. only truckers and a few locals go there.
if they were forced to go non smoking, they would shut down. they are a very small local business. they have 2 sections there.
I think every place should be able to decide for themselves, and the govt needs to keep its nose out of it.
:popcorn:

[WriteDown]

6. Very cool....

That's the way it should be. I was in Wilmington, NC a # of years back and they tried to open a non-smoking bar but it closed due to lack of patrons, but if enough people want it, sure to succeed.

[Mari333]

3. .....

:popcorn:

[Truth Teller]

7. Drop the popcorn

This thread is dying.

:rofl:

[SlicerDicer-]

8. laws are so insane across the nation...

I cant walk on sidewalks and smoke in Albuquerque.. Seattle something about Exhaust vents?

The laws are so crazy and different smokers will be hammered for smoking outside by the police.. Its wrong (yes I smoke)

[blue_onyx]

9. I hope they finally pass the smoking ban

I hate the smell and prefer not having my lungs filled with smoke because I want to go out to dinner. I don't buy that it will hurt business, as proven by the fact that so many other states (38, I think) have already done so. Some places already don't allow smoking such as Olga's (a restaurant I love) which is nice.

[maddogesq]

10. Doggie has a better idea for bars: Tax incentives!

OK, I think I have a pretty unique perspective on all of this. I am not a bartender or a restaurant worker, but I do have some understanding and experience.

First, up until the last couple years, I have worked a lot in smoky bars as a musician over the past few decades. I am not a smoker, and have experienced clubs that were so smoky my eyes would burn. Yet, I have always understood that smoking is something that goes with the territory, as does the consumption of alcohol, which leads me to my second point:

Many of you who know me personally know I was one of the victims in a very well-known drunk driving incident on I-69 six years ago involving a WMU student that had been drinking at a frat party. That incident changed my life both financially and in terms of my political involvement. It did not, however, make me think that alcohol should be outlawed. I like a Bell’s Best Brown Ale or Guinness Extra Stout as much as the next person.

Sooner or later, we have to come to some realizations that so many things are bad for us (including such things as every day stress), yet to just have some blanket law to eliminate smoking in bars in a down economy is not the way to go. I’d love to outlaw the stress I feel every day in this life, but it won’t happen. And, I know first hand from a musician friend that played in Windsor when their ban went into effect, it initially put a dent in the crowds that came out to the club he played at.

I have no problem with smoking bans in government buildings, workplaces, Big Boys, etc. Remember that alcohol isn’t allowed in those places either!

My idea is to offer tax incentives. The bars and casinos where the patronage has a high percentage of smokers makes their money, and the piano bar with the hanging plants in the burbs might benefit from a little tax break.

Just an idea that no one has suggested…at least I haven’t heard anyone suggest it.

[CarolT]

11. The anti-smokers' frauds!

The anti-smokers are guilty of flagrant scientific fraud for ignoring more than 50 studies, which show that human papillomaviruses cause over ten times more lung cancers than they pretend are caused by secondhand smoke. Passive smokers are more likely to have been exposed to this virus, so the anti-smokers' studies, because they are all based on nothing but lifestyle questionnaires, have been cynically DESIGNED to falsely blame passive smoking for all those extra lung cancers that are really caused by HPV.

http://www.smokershistory.com/hpvlungc.htm

The anti-smokers have committed the same type of fraud with every disease they blame on smoking and passive smoking, as well as ignoring other types of evidence that proves they are lying, such as the fact that the death rates from asthma have more than doubled since the anti-smoking movement began.

http://www.smokershistory.com/newviews.htm

[noamnety]

12. Well. That site sounds totally credible.

Quote from home page:

"THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IS A NAZI DICTATORSHIP USING NAZI PSEUDO-SCIENCE TO PERSECUTE INNOCENT PEOPLE!
... There is only ONE gang of criminals that has lied in the public's faces about the health risks of tobacco: That is the anti-smokers and their corrupt government puppets! Their crimes have had one purpose: to outlaw tobacco.

...The annihilation of these psychopathic lie-spewers is the solution to humanity's problems!

...Morally, the anti-smokers deserve to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, and hanged like the loathsome criminals that they are."

Heh.

Welcome to DU.