Goverment laws

I think banning it from the bars is a little bit much, but from the other places is pretty reasonable....I don't go bars nore do I smoke, but I use to when I was younger and not married.....

They have a similar law in London, ON.

I think banning smoking from public establishments is a good idea, but with the exception of bars. I don't believe smoking should be allowed in family restaurants, school, etc... but I think banning it in the bars is a little overboard. I understand the concerns about the employees, but still... if people go to a bar to drink, chances are they'll be smoke.

I'm not a smoker, so my views are going to be different than some who does smoke

I'm all for banning smoking in public places, even bars. Where I live, that's the law already. I love going into someplace and knowing I don't have to breathe cigarette smoke. In my job I sometimes have to go bars and clubs, not by my choice and I am so glad that I don't have to take in second hand smoke. When we go down to DC that's not the case and I always spend the evening in a cloud and I come home and stink to high heaven of smoke. I have to throw my clothes directly into the washing machine because they reek and I have to jump in the shower and wash my hair. It's not good to breathe in cigarette smoke for 3 hours.

I'm sure if I was a smoker I'd feel differently about it

I also am a non-smoker, and I will second the statement of hating to have to come home and throw my clothes in the wash and jump in the shower to wash the smell of smoke from my hair as soon as I get in from a bar or club. My boyfriend is severely asthmatic, so non-smoking laws mean we can go more places together without fear of him having an asthma attack. There are a lot of great restaurants and bars in NYC I can take him now, where I couldn't before. (I love Burp Castle in the Village, where the waiters dress as monks and the place is decorated like a monastery. They play soothing music and it has a great atmosphere.)

I think there should be a happy medium, perhaps have some "smoking clubs" and some non smoking. This way, people have the choice, both in where they want to work and where they want to play.

Another non-smoker stating her opinion here

I had a job when I was pregnant with my first child where I was exposed to second-hand smoke all day. It wasn't feasible for me to just go get another job (who hires pregnant women? and especially in a one horse town like this one where jobs aren't a dime a dozen) so i was forced to deal with it.

My answer to the no smoking in clubs/bars is this- designate an area outside for smokers. Thats how it generally works in my town. That way the non smokers don't have to avoid the place and risk lung cancer, while the smokers have an option.

Speaking as a mother here too, I'm thankful that my kids don't have to breathe in smoke when we take them out to eat , all the restuarants here are smoke free.

I guess in short I'm trying to say that I reserve the right to have the ultimate say in what goes into my body, that shouldn't be somebody elses decision and I shouldn't have to avoid places that I like going to to make sure that happens.


Also- going WAY out on a limb here, but I believe it would be a great idea to fine people who are caught smoking in a car with kids in. The kids don't have a choice. Theres nothing that makes me more angry than seeing a person with the windows rolled up, puffing away with a baby in the back seat

I smoke, but can definitely understand the people who would like to protect nonsmokers. Germany doesn't have strict laws about smoking - smoking and nonsmoking sections are just catching on here. I can't smoke at work, though we smokers can go outside to catch a smoke, like I do at home (if it's bitter cold I smoke in front of the open kitchen window). I think bars should be able to offer a separate room with extra ventilation or an outdoor patio for smokers - too much government control isn't the answer, either - just think of Prohibition. Maybe we'll see a return of the speakeasies.

I feel that the law is a good one! Even smoking at home will increase your pets chances of developing lung desease and stomach cancer. (Cats grrom the tar and nicotine from their fur and swallow it.) Why would anyone want to stink up a place that others go to to have fun? Why should someone have to find another job because a person cares so little for thier own health that they smoke? Smoking is not something people have to do to have fun. It is totally a gross and discusting habit that just drains your pocketbook of money and your body of it's health. The people that work at bars need the money they get from tips. They often make minimum wage or less. The late shift is sometimes needed to have both parents working and save on childcare costs. These people are not out to ruin your good time, they are trying to support themselves or their families. If you found that you enjoyed shooting a gun should you be allowed to shoot one anywhere? Some people are more suseptable to cancer than others, just because you don't have it doesn't mean that you didn't cause someone else to suffer and die from it.

Sorry this is a sore subject for me.

Hi Tybalt!!!
It's so nice to have you join us here at TCS! Please feel free to introduce yourself in the New Cats On The Block forum and get a proper cat site welcome from other members!

These same laws have passed in Ontario. The only way a restuaraunt or bar can have a smoking area is if the build a totally separated vented room. All the restaurant have to follow it now and the bars have until 2004 to comply!

I am an ex-smoker. I think it is ridiculous to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. I can see having a separate area, but it is a legal act, and banning it is just eating away at personal freedom. What's next after smoking in public places? I read about a lawsuit where a woman does not want her neighbors to smoke in their apartment, because her kid has asthma, and she thinks she has more rights than her neighbors. I have gone into restaurants and sat in the smoking section because my s/o smokes. This couple came in with 5 kids, sat in the smoking section because it had a big table, then proceeded to tell everyone around her that she could not believe that they could be so inconsiderate of her screaming brats by smoking in the room with them. When I pointed out the they were in the smoking section, she said "it doesn't matter, these are children and they deserve to have clean air." Everybody in the smoking section lit up, including me, and left cigarettes burning during the whole meal. She screamed at the manager, who finally asked her to leave and stop harrassing his customers. He got a standing ovation from the whole place.

I feel really sorry for the bars in Toronto. Back in a 1999 agreement, bars were allowed to have smoking if they built a separate ventilated smoking area. Most of them did this at a considerable expense. Now, Toronto Council has voted to bann all smoking in bars and restaurants in 2004.

This is horrible for the small businesses who went out of their way back in 1999 to build smoking rooms and now won't even be able to use them.

I'm all for a smoking ban, but the above flip flopping by Toronto City Council is disgraceful.

I am also an asthmatic non-smoker, Tybalt. (Welcome, BTW!!!) I have some weird kind of asthma, though. I don't get asthma attacks; I am prone to lung infections. After having to go to the emergency room a couple times from lung infections, I am VERY protective over what I breathe in.

I'm all for banning smoking . . . just about everywhere. I do think bars might be a bit excessive, but it's really gross when you're in a restaurant trying to eat and someone five feet away is smoking. The whole "No Smoking" section never seems to work very well; different areas aren't partitioned off from each other effectively, so the smoke gets everywhere, anyway.

IMO, smoking cigarettes should be as illegal as smoking marijuana is. I personally can't see much difference. They both smell bad and hurt your lungs, and bother everyone else around you who isn't smoking. At least marijuana has been proven to have some medicinal benefits, and it's illegal. Cigarettes don't even have that! I don't see why they're legal at all.

Besides, isn't it annoying to have to "light up" every hour or something? It would get on my nerves, personally.

The government will never ban smoking. Do you have any idea, how much revenue is generated, from tobacco taxes? I pay pay more in taxes, than I do for the product.

Besides, remember Prohibition? People, who did not ordinarily drink, did so because of the thrill of doing something illegal.

Well, someone has to say something about the rights of smokers. As an asthmatic who cannot smoke without risking more lung damage than I already have (scar tissue from pneumonia), I am not a likely candidate. However, the people who drink in bars usually drive home, regardless of the law. They are far more likely to kill someone than the person in the smoking section with an air cleaning system or a large exhaust fan. I don't drink, so I imagine the smell of a drinker's breath is just about as intolerable to me as the smell of smoke is to the drinker. And the smoker does not throw up, get vulgar, or make moves on others in the bar because of his or her habit.

I have an air cleaner on my furnace. My sister's husband-at his house- insisted he could not tolerate being in the basement while she smoked out her bedroom window. He was a reformed smoker, who had smoked his entire life. However, when he came here he admitted that he could not tell if someone was smoking two rooms away. Smokers don't want to offend people, unless they are extemely rude. They just want a place to smoke where their habit does not bother others.

Now that I have damaged lungs, I cannot tolerate fumes from the lawn mower. But if someone smokes on the other side of the house and closes the door, I don't notice it. Should I ask the neighbors to avoid mowing the grass to protect my health?

If anyone asks, I highly recommend that smokers stop--for their own sakes, and that they be considerate of other people. However, if people are allowed to drink, people should be allowed to smoke. It is not as dangerous to others. I also recommend that anyone hooked on alcohol stop drinking before he ruins his liver or kills someone in a car accident. Isn't it strange that a habit that kills again and again is considered a sacred cow?

It seems like everything is bad for you, these days: cholesterol, carbs, sugar, caffeine, etc. Just about anything that you put into your body is bad.

To heck with it! I'm going to enjoy myself!

I don't do drugs and I don't drink and drive. If I've taken my migraine meds, I don't go anywhere. Otherwise, I pretty much eat and drink, what I want.

Mesa, AZ has a no-smoking ban in restaurants, and I almost want to say Tempe, does, too, but I am not sure? I dont have a problem with it. I personally cannot stand the smell of smoke.

Tucson has a ban, too unless the restaurant has a separately ventilated area. We eat at a lot of places that have patio dining.

Smoking is so much worse for you then anything else you mentioned. It's much more related to heart disease and cancer - more than obesity and certainly more than alchohol. Even if you throw in the stats for alchohol related car accidents - smoking kills about ten times more people then all car accidents put together (alchohol related or not). These are the yearly stats in Israel, and I'm sure they're the same all over the world. I'm sorry if this stings any of you smokers - but smoking is by far the worst thing for your health! In a league of its own - the no.1 killer!

And to top it all, second hand smoking is just as bad. So, while smokers may choose to put their health at risk - I think any law that stops them from inflicting that damage on non-smokers is welcome. I don't think having seperate areas is that helpful. Some people are always too close to the smoking area and are exposed to smoking. I would let business owners decide whether their establishment is smoking or non-smoking and let the public judge which they prefer. I'm sure there will be clients for both types. I would however make every visitor to the smoking bars aware of the danger - to make sure that the non-smokers among them are aware of the danger they're exposed to. As for restaurants - I think smoking should only be allowed outside in a well ventilated place far away from the door. Nothing puts me off my food more than the smell of cigarrettes smoke and the knowledge of what it carries with it.

A bouncer in a NYC bar was stabbed to death after asking two brothers to put out their cigarettes - the latest from CNN.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A bouncer at a trendy Manhattan nightclub was stabbed to death after he tried to enforce New York's tough new anti-smoking law, officials said Monday.

Police said the bouncer was stabbed in the early hours of Sunday morning in the Guernica club on the Lower East Side after asking one of two brothers in the club to put out a cigarette.

After an argument with the men, the bouncer tried to eject them and was stabbed in the stomach "with an unknown sharp object," police said.

The bouncer, 6-foot-6 Dana "Shazam" Blake, 32, died of his injuries.

The two brothers, Jonathan Chan, 29, and Ching Chan, 31, of Manhattan's Chinatown face charges of assault, criminal possession of a weapon and resisting arrest, police and prosecutors said.

New York's tough new law banning smoking in bars and restaurants, with very few exceptions, was pushed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former smoker who has turned into an anti-smoking zealot. The law, which went into effect on March 30 and penalizes first-time offenders with a $200 fine, was designed to protect workers in the city's 13,000 bars and restaurants that have allowed smoking.

Businesses caught repeatedly allowing smoking run the risk of being shut down.

Bouquets of flowers and photographs in tribute to Blake were displayed outside the Guernica club, which serves Spanish tapas and cocktails and has a dance floor.