As an allergy and asthma sufferer, I would love a world without cigarette smoke. Of a population of 300 million in this country, only about 46 million smoke (roughly 16% of the population), so why we have to cater to a noxious and disgusting addiction is beyond me, but I have to say, an outright ban on smoking in Erie establishments is not the cure-all everyone thinks it’s going to be. So before y’all start revoking my subscription to Allergy Buyers Direct, hear me out:
1. The smoking ban won’t solve the problem as much as it shifts the location of the problem: I moved to Maine in 2004 when the state-wide smoking ban went into effect, and while it was blissfully smoke free inside of all the establishments, it meant you had to run the gauntlet of smokers out side the front doors and all the way to the parking lots of such places, which didn’t make entering or exiting a very pleasant experience. You still had to cough your way through, and sidestep the litter. You still reeked upon entering the establishment and you (I anyway) still had to wash my hair and leave my clothes in the laundry room before going to bed.
and
2. It opens a whole new can of worms: Let’s face it, smokers are also litterers. They leave their cigarette butts everywhere. If a person doesn’t have enough respect for their own body to give up smoking and respect the rights of others who have chosen not to smoke, what makes you think they’ll respect public property? What occurred in Maine is that cigarette butts are now everywhere on the sidewalks. No matter how many receptacles a business will purchase for the containment of that nastiness, smokers continue to throw their butts on the ground in complete disregard of anyone or anything. Local businesses there have gone to tremendous expense of cleaning up after these people and their filth. Of course an excellent revenue generator for Erie would be to have a night time patrol person who tickets smokers for public littering when they toss their butts anywhere other than in a trash can, but then Erie is not known for its inventiveness.
Weird fact: Bhutan, the country, went completely smoke free in 2004. Although an extremely low percentage of the public smoked, the government recognized it was an addiction of the poor and proverbially nipped the problem in the butt. It’s illegal to smoke in public and it’s illegal to sell tobacco. A resident could import tobacco but also pay a 200% tax for their troubles.
It’d be great for the Erie County government officials to get on the ball once and for all, but as we all know, they are a waste of tax payer money who can not get their heads out their asses: given that, as a non-smoker, I seek out establishments that offer a complete smoke-free environment. Places I would not have gone to otherwise, I now make sure I frequent because of that environment. Panos, Latinos, The Park Tavern, Bertrand’s, Petra, etc, all wonderful places I make sure I support because of their new policy. Business owners who wised up to the fact that it makes better business sense to cater to the majority rather than the minority. And now that Colao’s is smoke free, I’m making a point of getting a reservation for my father-in-law’s birthday dinner next week. And the bonus to all this? Smokers don’t go there. They tend to stick to where they can smoke, hence, I can traipse in the door odor free. It’s a win-win. I don’t have to see them, smell them, or sidestep the crap they leave on the ground. And they get the “benefit” of killing themselves in peace.
Yes, smoking is a public health issue and any smoker who argues against that is a complete and utter moron. But it is pretty clear that the smokers aren’t going to go away and the ban isn’t going to solve the problem in the way you might think. I’m perfectly content to let the business owners of this town figure out who they would rather have as a clientele: the nasty smoker who has a limited lifespan and less disposable income as their health tanks and the price of their addiction goes up, or the non-smokers.
12 comments
January 16, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Ron
While I do agree that smoking in an establishment is a health problem as a #1 concern, a secondary concern that some people don’t think about is what cigarette smoke does to the interior of a building. Of course a bar is going to have dingy, stained walls and a contaminated HVAC system. But the damage done to the downstairs apartment in an older Victorian home I rented was downright saddening.
Our upstairs apartment was almost the entire second floor of the house, and had a large living room and nice hardwood floors throughout, but had the wood trim painted white (I hate when people slap white paint on everything!). The downstairs apartment, however, was never painted over and had the original finished wood trim, a fireplace with an ornate carved wooden mantle, and a sliding door that separated the living room/dining room (maybe it was a parlor back then?).
The problem was that the downstairs neighbor was a chain smoker in the worst way. When my wife and I were in a certain part of the dining room, we could smell the guy’s cigarette smoke waft up through the ceiling. I met him once, and he was the grossest dude ever – Brownish-yellow teeth, scraggly hair, grey skin….just digusting. When he finally moved out, the landlord had to have someone come in and almost completely gut the apartment. The guy had lived there for about 9 or 10 years, and the poor landlord had taken over the property for someone who had died not long before we moved in, so he basically inherited this guy and had no idea how bad it was. We had a look at the apartment, and you could tell how nice it was before the smoke damage.
Sorry, that was longer than I expected. Anyways, I have no idea why someone would enjoy sucking in smoke, or hanging out in a smoke filled building. Would they enjoy standing in a burning building, or taking a hit from a muffler pipe? Probably not!
January 16, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Emma
My desire for the smoking ban is two-fold. My first reason, I willingly admit, is selfish. I want to be able to go to more restaurants without having to deal with the smoke. Period. Al & I eat out a lot, but we’d like a little more variety.
My second reason has little to do with me and a lot to do with people who work in these restaurants/bars. I don’t think they should be subjected to breathing the smoke-filled air.
I’ve heard the argument plenty of times that those people can just go get a job somewhere else if they don’t like it, but that’s a lot easier said than done, especially in Erie.
As for the littering problem…oy. What a bunch of pigs. Have you ever walked around Perry Square on the Erie Insurance side? What a mess.
January 16, 2008 at 5:53 pm
andrea
Personally, I would love to see all smoking banned. It’s a nasty gross habit. I’m also selfish and like to go out AND breathe clean air. I know, so obnoxious of me, right? How dare I ask for clean air. I should be totally ashamed.
January 16, 2008 at 6:19 pm
dianarn
I think you’re being a little stereotypical. Remember the time when physicians prescribed cigarettes to people with anxiety? Probably not.
You think cigarette smoke is the only thing you need to worry about for your asthma? Think again. Have you ever looked up at the sky on a clear sunny day and see all those X’s and tic-tac-toe patterns in the sky left from the jets that last for hours and then spread into a whitish haze over the sky? Do you think water vapor can stay as such at 20,000 feet in the air where it’s below freezing most of the time?
They’re called chemtrails for a reason. Look it up. This stuff falls on us and we inhale it every single day, unknowingly.
Why do you think there’s all these kids that develop asthma, even more than there were 10 years ago?
I agree with you. Cigarettes are nasty. There’s hundreds of chemicals, plus added nicotine, plus the lovely fiberglass filters. But they’re nothing compared to the ingredients in chemtrails. And these are sprayed over everyone. You don’t see a ban on them. Nobody mentions them.
Recently in California people were in an uproar because they were spraying moth phermone capsules in order to kill some apple moth. This stuff wasn’t even tested on animals, much less people. Yet nobody informed the citizens that they were inhaling biodegradable capsules which released moth phermone in their bloodstreams.
If I were you, I’d be holding my breath a lot longer…
January 16, 2008 at 6:58 pm
cowgalutah
200% tax? who would want to pay that? I guess then you know you have a real problem.
January 16, 2008 at 7:19 pm
inmate1972
dianarn: Of course know I have more triggers for my asthma than just cigarette smoke, I only brought it up in reference to this particular issue we are debating in this city. Given my drothers, I would also ban perfume, cologne, and a lot of other things as well.
January 17, 2008 at 3:58 am
robertjerome
I’m an ex-smoker and I’m very sensitive to passive smoke. Once you’ve been addicted to nicotine you never forget how relaxing and meditative it was/is to pull on a full flavor cigarette. That is why I always hold my breath when I walk past smokers. The temptation is always there and I know if I breathe secondhand smoke for too long I’ll start craving a cigarette.
My city has the second highest rate of smokers in New York State (I wrote a post about this at my blog, check it out). I agree with the other people who commented that smoking is a public health hazard. If we can get irate about meth labs (and meth users and dealers), pedophiles and pitbulls, why not tobacco? I guess the nation can only tolerate so many anethemas at once (besides, the French make smoking look so cool).
You forgot to mention that smokers not only litter their butts everywhere, but they also leave globs of spit every place they go as they are constantly cleaning out their lungs.
http://www.robertjerome.wordpress.com
January 17, 2008 at 12:42 pm
inmate1972
How could I have forgotten about the spit!!
And isn’t it interesting that the French, the most famous smokers of them all, passed a country-wide public smoking ban that held 66% percent public support?
January 19, 2008 at 3:56 am
anon
chemtrails? Look it up, they are contrails. Always have, always will be expect for some people trying to create hysteria.
January 21, 2008 at 4:18 am
dianarn
anon… a contrail is created when the hot jet engines turn the ice crystals in the atmosphere into vapor. Most contrails occur at 26,000 feet in the air where the average temperature is -40 degrees Celsius. After the jet engines leave, the water vapor turns back to ice crystals, since there is no other heat source. A true contrail would disappear pretty fast, like the wake behind a boat.
If you can stop water from freezing at 0 degrees Celsius, I’ll believe your story about contrails.
March 12, 2008 at 9:28 am
john
you priggish bore.
wah wah wah is all i hear from you.
i don’t smoke either, but you won’t catch me whining like a little girl.
stay at home
in a plastic bubble
preferably oxygen free
do us all a favour
March 12, 2008 at 12:13 pm
inmate1972
At least I, along with the others commenting here, have an actual argument to make. As you must obviously be a smoker, I’ll excuse your lack of discourse due to the fact that smoking constricts the blood cells transferring oxygen to the brain.
And seriously, this entry is over two month old, move on already.