BREAKING: Court OKs Smoking Again In Bars, Restaurants

[yasmina27]

Can't believe this hasn't been posted yet! Comments...?

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/health/13235967/detail.html

[asthmaticeog]

1. "The lawsuit is being funded by tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds."

I can't imagine why. People really aren't smoking any less just because they have to go outside. Seems like a waste of money better spent on hooking more kids.

[pnwmom]

2. The lawsuit is being funded by RJ Reynolds, tobacco co.

surprise, surprise

[BlueJazz]

3. Even though I don't smoke, I see no justice in banning smoking...

...in Bars... In Restaurants? ..Yes

[Kolesar]

5. It is presumably so that the employees don't *have* to breathe second-hand smoke

You should have seen the Ohio forum when this was being voted on last November. :hide:

[BlueJazz]

7. What you say, makes good sense. I guess I feel like since...

...Smokers have been banned from smoking everywhere, a compromise would let them smoke in Taverns.

[Kolesar]

8. It seems like a "natural"

Kick back, relax, have a cocktail, take a drag. I'm looking forward to my evening too. If I were addicted and told I could not have my fun, I would be pissed about it.

If you *ever* get a chance to see the film "Thank you for smoking", see it. It's killer--funny.

[demosincebirth]

6. Evidently you have never worked in a bar/restaurant where smoking is allowed.

[goclark]

4. Oh no!

[skids]

9. The whole issue is a smokescreen, pun intended...

...while we fight over smoking bans we completely ignore the regulatory and technological solutions to the problem of indoor air quality in general. There's much more dangerous things than cigarette smoke oozing out of that carpet glue.

[PhishWithLemon99]

11. well short of solid scientific evidence widely publicized...

showing that it poses a health risk to the public, carpet glue isn't going to be banned any time soon.

There's scientific evidence that second-hand smoke is bad for you, so it makes sense for the government to regulate it. Just like it makes sense to regulate lead or MTBE in gasoline, or mercury emissions from power plants, or particulates in auto exhaust. There's hard science to back it up, and they're easy to regulate and enforce. Indoor air quality regulations in general, though, are hard to enforce and can be massively expensive to implement.

I am an infrequent cigar smoker, and it doesn't bother me that I can't smoke those things anywhere I please. If anything, it's a matter of courtesy to smoke outside in order to not risk the health or objections of others.

[skids]

13. It's the "widely publicised" part that's the problem.

There is ample scientific evidence. Just google "VOCs" and "PCBs"


Or choose your poison here:

http://www.healthytomorrow.org/chemicals.htm

(And last time I checked, other "expensive" items included chemotherapy pills, hospital bedtime, and surgery.)

[driver8]

10. My father is battling lung cancer...

the doctor told him his cancer is most likely from second hand smoke. My father played guitar for many years in various bands and they played in mostly very smokey taverns and bars.

I feel for the people who work in bars in PA.

[RamboLiberal]

12. I'm one of those who are pissed at the courts

for this one. And to those two idiot restaurant owners. They are only delaying the inevitable. Wish our pay-raising legislature would get off their pompous asses and bring PA in to the 21st century! I'd like to be able to sit at a bar at a restauraunt and enjoy a beer w/o the smoker next to me who props that burning cigarette at face level next to me.

And I really feel for the workers who have to endure that smoke for an entire work shift. Can't be healthy for their lungs!

I'm old enough to remember when smoking was predominant everywhere, in the workplace, airplanes, malls, and restaurants and grew up with both parents smoking. Glad I saw this change come about.

[PhishWithLemon99]

15. the courts have a good legal point...

The issue isn't about smoking, it's about whether a county has the right to pass and enforce a law that it doesn't have a right to. Local government in PA can only perform the functions the General Assembly explicitly permits through the county or borough or township codes. Banning smoking isn't yet OK by the state law (except in Philly, but they have a complicated home rule system).

Write your legislators. This got bottled up in a House committee last year because the vote was tied 14-14. The Gov will sign it if it comes to his desk.

[RamboLiberal]

16. Well Philadelphia's ban has stood from what I understand

so I don't understand why Allegheny County was singled out!

[PhishWithLemon99]

17. philly's an exception...

Since 1951, Philadelphia's operated under a Home Rule Charter that grants it special, broader powers. It is also governed by the First Class City Code, meaning there's an entire set of laws that apply only to Philadelphia and how it operates.

Philly needs these unique tools and special powers because it's unlike any other municipality in PA...it's huge, it tends to get the royal screwjob when it comes to state and federal money, and it's consolidated with its county. Governing it isn't anywhere close to the same as governing any other place in the state.

Without writing a detailed legal brief about this, Philadelphia has had broader authority and autonomy from the state for a long time. Whereas most local governments can only perform the functions specifically permitted by the legislature, Philly can basically do anything not PROHIBITED explicity by the legislature. This can be good, but it can also be bad, since Philly's stuck funding a lot of things that it doesn't really have the money to fund. The fact that it is both a city and county also complicates matters, since the county is a legal nullity and the city must pay for and perform functions that a county normally would (and therefore, would typically be also paid for by wealthier suburban residents outside the central city).

In short, Philly's allowed to because it's allowed to do pretty much whatever it can afford. When questions arise regarding whether the Home Rule Charter defense supercedes state law, things tend to get messy in court and pretty sound legal arguments can be made in support of either side.

[RamboLiberal]

18. So far Scranton's ban has stood

I don't think they are under Philly's situation.

[bleedingheart]

14. our family avoids the smoking establishments...

with three asthmatics and a husband who doesn't like smoke in the air...
the places that want to keep smoking never have had and won't have my business.

[Toasterlad]

19. Sorry to Revive This Thread, But I Feel Strongly About This Issue

I quit smoking in January because I just flat-out couldn't afford it anymore. But I will never become one of those obnoxious ex-smokers who rival Christian Fundamentalists with their self-righteousness and judgmental attitudes. When I was a smoker, I was always considerate; I always went outside to smoke at other people's house, I never lit up while people were eating, I was always careful to blow my smoke away from other people's faces. And yet, many times I was regarded as vulgar and inconsiderate - just for HOLDING a cigarette - by high-horse anti-smoking bigots, who were some of the rudest and most intolerant peoples I have ever met. And I am sick to death about hearing about the health risks of second-hand smoke in bars. Here's a flash, people: NO ONE GOES TO BARS FOR THEIR HEALTH. What a treat it is to sit in a bar and be lectured on the evils of smoking from some pious asshole on his fourth beer and second liver (who hopefully won't wipe out a family of four when he's driving home that night).

Should smoking be banned from office buildings? Absolutely. Hospitals? Well, certainly. Court houses? Schools? Libraries? Yes, yes, yes. Even restaurants with no bar area can ban smoking all they want, and it wouldn't bother me in the least. But smoking and drinking are INTRINSICALLY linked (if you're a smoker). And it's just hypocritical to ban cigarettes from places that serve alcohol, which is just as insidious a poison in it's own way as nicotine.

Bottom line: if there was really a consumer demand for smoke-free bars, someone would have opened up a non-smoking chain 10 years ago and retired a multi-billionaire by now. There is no need to legislate smoking in bars when the market would presumably take care of itself. If people don't like smoking in bars, let them go to a bar that doesn't allow it. There is no call to discriminate against an entire class of people just because some silly bints hate getting the smell of smoke in their hair. If cigarette smoking is so almighty bad for you, it should be made flat-out illegal*. Until it is, it's discriminatory to deny smokers their right to smoke in bars.

*of course, it never will be...not because of the all-powerful tobacco lobby, but because of the 400% tax rate on cigarettes; money that goes to pay for all sorts of things that no one would ever thank a smoker for.

[dropkickpa]

20. I agree

Seriously, I am a smoker and have no problem with restaurants, hospitals, offices, schools, etc being smoke free. But leave the damn bars alone.

There are many bar/restaurants and even a couple of straight-up bars in Pittsburgh (hard to be lieve, know) that are non-smoking. If you want to go to a dive bar where everybody smokes so badly, deal with the smoke ya big baby. And the whole "We're protecting the employees" crap just doesn't apply to bars. I mean, who sits there and thinks "I'm gonna get a job at Dee's as a bartender and the air will just be soooo fresh, I'll smell like a daisy at the end of my shift!" C'mon now. Not to mention I HATE the paternalistic attitude that this law conveys.

I am violently allergic to most perfumes and cologne's. Sets off sneezing, vomitting, wheezing, coughing, hives, loads of fun. I avoid going to high-end bars and nightclubs and such because the clientele there are much more likely to be soaked in that crap. It bugs me, so I just don't go there (hard concept for some to grasp, I know). Give me my smokey dive bars filled with sweaty people where deodorant is most often the closest I'll get to perfumes. Hell, even the clubs where I go to see bands are pretty much just dive bars.