Looks like we're going to have another fight this session on a statewide smoking ban. The Charlotte-O has a new article looking at its eventual revival.
When it was defeated in 2007, it was key that the argument was not about smoking — smoking is disgusting and unhealthy, but the argument is about property rights. The rights of private business owners to decide for themselves what their policy regarding smoking will be.
More and more restaurants are going smoke-free without a law. You need look no further that the newly-opened (and ironically named) Tobacco Road Sports Cafe in swanky Glenwood South of Raleigh. Brand new sports bar, and totally non-smoking. The Bar's owners didn't need a bunch of lawmakers to tell them how best to run their business — they decided the policy best for them, their customers and their bottom line. They obviously feel they can be profitable as a sports bar that is non-smoking. Good for them.
It is disappointing to read the House Republican Leader Skip Stam's comments — a supposed free-market advocate who seems to have missed the point on this issue — say that he would support the ban in bars and restaurants.
thinks the state shouldn't make all workplaces off-limits for lighting
up. But he says he would consider a smoking ban for restaurants and
bars.
Stam somehow thinks there is a difference between "private" workplaces and "public" bars and restaurants. Fortunately, there isn't. They are both private enterprises open to the public, but are first and foremost private institutions that should be able to operate their businesses without the interference of government.
So we'll have the same argument we had two years ago — advocates for the ban will play the emotional card with heartwrenching stories of cancer and the harmful effects of smoking. Claiming that "public health" is at stake.
Nobody is debating that smoking is a health risk. Where we are drawing a line though, as we did before, is who gets to decide who takes that risk. Goverment or individual consumers making market decisions about which establishments they frequent? I say let the market decide smoking policy — as it already is at Tobacco Road Sports Bar and many, many other restaurants, bars and workplaces that are going smoke-free without government edict.
Thank you for standing up for free enterprise. Take a look at states with smoking bans and the REAL stories of how those bans have destroyed business and even the very entities charged with their enforcement. In Ohio, there have been over 30,000 violations. Over 1/3 of the counties have turned enforcement back to the state which has two enforcement officers. A 100 fine costs the state 350 in appeals, and almost every fine results in an appeal. Over 2000 jobs have been lost in the hospitality industry as over 350 bars have closed. Private veterans clubs have shut down or chosen simply to defy the ban. Neighbor turns against neighbor using a SNITCH line to turn in violators. NO lives have been saved in Ohio because frankly those places that allow smoking both employ smokers and serve smokers. All that is accomplished through a smoking ban in private businesses is a giant mess.
Is it possible to interview Stam about his support? I would like to hear him explain his support for paternalism in this instance. What about the rights of the smoking minority? What about businesses and employees willing to serve the smoking public?
Now that the new year is starting, the “new push” is returning to every state or community that has no ban, or a ban with ANY exemptions. Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, and their Robert J. Wood Foundation and it’s many tax exempt political action committees (charites) have endless funding to keep armies of lobbyists throughout the nation employed for years to come. They will be forever badgering lawmakers for years to come, disrupting important local issues (they have ABSOLUTLY NO CONCERN about local issues, only promoting Chantix and their other products). After disrupting local meetings, some communities have booted them from their meetings and telling them not to return next year.. Their instructions are to keep returning EVERY YEAR until ALL exemptions are gone. They made the print of their book smaller to keep people from reading it, but you can CTRL and scroll to enlarge it. Here it is. http://www.no-smoke.org/pdf/CIA_Fundamentals.pdf
A copy of my letter to Paul Stam
Dear Representative Stam:
I am wild about this proposed cigarette ban in North Carolina.
First let’s discard the refuse with which some legislators are polluting the media. This isn’t about health. If the North Carolina legislature really cared one whit about health they would outlaw cell phone use in cars tomorrow. That happens to be a documented health hazard – every bit as significant as drunk driving. Cell phones in cars present a risk which, unlike the second-hand smoke rubbish, is based on fact. Of course the legislative crowd will never seriously consider a phone ban because they themselves use phones while driving and because they are afraid of political backlash. Prove it to yourself by telling one of your legislative friends that you’ll support the tobacco ban if they support a cell phone ban. They’ll run for cover. To conclude, health “issues”, even real ones, are topics legislature can and does ignore whenever it’s politically convenient to do so.
Two, about eighty percent of the seats in bars and restaurants are smoke-free right now. Where I come from, 80 percent of a loaf is as good a compromise as any sane person could want. But then, nanny-state fascists are neither sane nor interested in compromise. Domination is the only objective here.
Three, about sixty or seventy percent of places don’t allow smoking _at all_ even in separate portions of the establishment. With a seventy percent ban, no sane person can argue that they are being shunted out of public places by smoke. Please pass my heartfelt sentiments to any citizen who makes such a bogus claim before a legislative committee. They are delusional.
Four, the federal government and the states are asking smokers (most of who don’t fall into the “richest five percent” rubric) to pick ever-larger chunks of tax subsidy for what most cynics would see as runaway government waste. How does it make sense to treat the people who pay the freight to stand in the rain so anti-smoking Nazi’s can dictate how others live?
I am going to start getting real active about this and I am going to write to everyone I know who (like me) enjoys tobacco either occasionally or on a regular basis . I’m going to urge my friends to pass this letter on to other smokers, and to urge them to keep a close eye on and vote out _anyone_ who supports this insanity. I may be just one guy, but as you have probably guessed by now, I know how to be a major-league loudmouth.
Thanks for reading.
Michael XXXXX