PG Smoking Ban Passes

[dcfirefighter]

The Bastards.

The meddling, holier-than-thou, nanny-state, invasive-government, anti-freedom, anti-job, feel-good, ne'er-do-well bastards.

Point 1: A higher proportion of bar & restaraunt workers smoke than in the general population.

Point 2: Because of point 1, non-smoking bar & restaurant workers have a larger proportion of potential patrons to serve. Supply follows demand. Whoops! the hold up? How about not issuing any new liquor licenses. Issue another 50%, and I guarantee you'll see non-smoking bars.

Point 3: Maryland already has worker protection laws, and means for employers to ensure that they provide a safe workplace. This isn't about worker protection. This is about meddling and feel-good legislation.

I won't be voting for incumbents this year.

[we can do it]

1. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Smoking stinks

[GrumpyGreg]

2. As a smoker I sympathise. It was banned in Mass over a year ago.

Now they will start complaining about the folks smoking outside on the sidewalk.

This is only the beginning.

[Fairlyunbalanced]

4. I don't think that anyone should be

able to vote on this or even utter a peep about it unless they ride a bicycle to work every day. Cars are worse for you. So there.

Yeah yeah you have to drive blah blah. Do you really? :P

[TallahasseeGrannie]

5. Now, now...sure cars are bad

but they don't smell bad while you are eating and usually you don't experience them in closed places.

FL banned smoking a while back in anyplace that serves food and a whole lot of us are eating out again.

[dcfirefighter]

7. Most restaraunts are already nonsmoking

prior to bans, because that's what people want.

[dcfirefighter]

6. So is being overweight. but that's more popular

[TallahasseeGrannie]

8. Well, I can speak to this

as I am overweight. But as much as I can figure, my weight doesn't keep folks from breating and shorten their lives. Well, if I bathe correctly, that is! Now, I might break their furniture but I've learned to scope out the chair before I sit on it.

But hey, it's hard. It is hard to be a smoker today.

Here in Tallahassee where we have a lot of mild weather, most bars have solved it by making nice outside screened porches with ceiling fans and folks go out there for a smoke, then back inside to eat. Seems to work.

[dcfirefighter]

9. Externalities

You're right, being overweight doesn't affect anyone else. But being a smoker in a bar doesn't affect anyone who doesn't voluntarily come into the bar.

It is a tenuous harm at best - the second hand smoking deaths that occur each year are almost entirely limited to household members of people who smoke in their home.

If we allow every unpopular activity with some externalities to be banned, we open a wide door for discrimination (and for the record, I don't support banning these either):
We should ban gay relationships, because it cheapens marriage;
We should ban abortions, because it cheapens life;
We should ban automobiles, because they pollute;
We should ban porn, because it demeans women.

The bottom line is that this is exactly the case of 80% of the population telling the other 20% how to live.

[HockeyMom]

3. Welcome to NYC

[Romulus]

10. right with you

I don't get the smoking bans . . . don't want to get smoky? Don't go to the "club" . . . . or the place where you know smokers congregate.

Looking for a job? Plenty of restaurants that don't allow smoking . . . or have separate smoking areas.

Next up - bans on backyard pools because 100x more kids drown there then are killed by firearms accidents (according to the Freakanomics guy). That is a ban worth having . . .BRING IT ON!!!!