A state legislative committee Thursday killed a proposal for a statewide indoor public smoking ban (24 states now have them) despite the pleas of public health officials, who noted that secondhand smoke kills more than 250 Kansans each year and helps trigger more than 2,100 new heart attacks.
The committee decided that the issue was better left to cities and not the state. It also heard from bar owners who said a ban could hurt business and interfere with their rights, as well as from the Kansas Funeral Directors and Embalmers Association, whose director said a ban “would prohibit smoking in the portion of a funeral home which is being used as a private residence.”
No doubt it would hurt funeral directors’ business in other ways, too.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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30 Comments
All the dead souls need one last hit of nicotine before they burn in hell for an eternity!
Uh-huh.
We ban smoking and everyone will become imortal, right?
A smoking ban isn’t going to prevent death. If anything, it might delay some.
“who noted that secondhand smoke kills more than 250 Kansans each year and helps trigger more than 2,100 new heart attacks.”
Bull bull bull bull.
I’ll admit to someimtes going to a smoky bar and nursing a few beers along with some blues musician on-stage and a smoldering tube of tobacco. I’m not particulary proud of it, but sometimes it’s exactly what I needed.
As I recall, no one was holding a gun to the heads of patrons forcing them to come into the joint.
And as I recall, all my life, there have been businesses that have chosen to hang “No Smoking” signs in their establishments.
If a restauranteur doesn’t want to cater to smokers, s/he has the right to put up a “No Smoking” sign. If that restaruaunteur’s customers refuse to eat in a place with smokers, they have that choice.
Most of the time I’m in a restaurant I choose to sit in the smoking section only because there tend to be fewer toddlers whining and crying and slapping their plates and disrupting the whole experience. Instead of the “Smoking or non-smoking?” question, I sometimes wish there were a law that required restaurants to ask, “Next to toddlers or not?”
Some may be familiar with the restaurant Philippe’s jr. on east Harry, I was a regular customer till they went totally Non-smoking. Back in March my wife and I were hungry and driving down East Harry and decided to stop and eat. I told our waiter we had not been to his restaurant since they went Non-smoking, he was shocked and exclaimed “THAT WAS OVER TEN YEARS AGO!”. They had went back to having a smoking section, though I often because I am the only one in the family that smokes set in the non-smoking section and was that day.
I also noticed the people that were setting in front of me being surprised! Though I respect someone that does not want to smell my smoke and will go out of my way to allow them that pleasure. I do not think their pleasure should always deny my own. As my dad told me, “Son your rights end and everyone else’s begin at the tip of your nose!”.
LOL, though I have heard of them, I have never encounter a restaurant that had a “NO KID” section.
According to the paper today, the guy who owns Town and Country Restaurant can’t figure out how to do a non-smoking section in his restuarant. What a bunch of bs. The T & C is nicely divided into 3 sections. Put all the smokers in the back part and give the rest of the place to the non-smokers. Or, have the balls to go totally non-smoking. He’s just not willing to stand up to them smokers to tell them to either put it out or go to another place to eat.
Its bad for businessand smolers are assholes
Its bad for business and smokers are assholes
Yeah, right “Rob” –
So let the business-owners decide.
There’s no law against haning a “No Smoking” sign.
Randy: “No doubt it would hurt funeral directors’ business in other ways, too.”
Everybody dies.
The crux of the biscuit is not even being mentioned. It’s the actual science, what’s been determined, conflicting views, yada yada yada.
Whether or not the state has any right to intervene depends on that, you know.
Commons sense says if you breathe a significant portion of someone else’s smoke, you have more-or-less the same risks. The effect of lesser amounts, of course, is the rub.
Carry on!
Secondhand smoke kills 250 people a year in Kansas?
Can anyone point to a death certificate where secondhand smoke is the cause of death?
Can anyone point to a death certificate where secondhand smoke is the cause of death?
Posted by: ProudMan | September 02, 2007 at 11:57 AM
It’s what I’m wondering too ProudMan.
Although I do like the smoke-free restaurant where I can smell the food and not get a snoot full of someone else’s smoke.
It’s not the smokers who are assholes, it’s the ones who want to ban everyone else from smoking.
I’m telling ya, the numbers they keep spouting how secondhand smoke kills, is ridiculous and inaccurate. I even posted the formula they used once- which was so convoluted I’d have to look it up again to even be able to tell you.
I have an old friend who never smoked but now has emphysema so bad that she became disabled and had to retire from her career. She grew up in a home where her parents chained smoked..and it didn’t really affect her until she was in her late 50’s.
As medical research gets better, it will only prove more the destructiveness caused by cigarette smoking, not only to the smoker, but to others who are exposed to their habit as well. It’s a known fact that babies born to women who smoke have lower birth weights and are more at risk for SIDS. Many OB’s won’t even care for a pregnant woman who smokes because of the liability to the baby.All you smokers can minimize the effects of secondhand smoke on others all you want, but the evidence is starting to differently.
I treat non smokers as they treat me. If they kindly and respectfully ask me to move my smoke away, I will. If they are in my face or rude about it, I’ll blow smoke AT them. You can ban my smoking in public when you stop all the idiots on cell phones in public.
Cell phones don’t ruin other people health. If you blew smoke in my face, you’d have a fight on your hands.
Like I say, I treat others as they treat me. Example: “I’m sorry, I used to smoke and smoke bothers me. Would you mind moving away a bit?” I’d smile and say “No problem.” A more militant behavior against me WOULD get a militant response. Oh and cell phones? My kid was nearly killed three times by people in parking lots driving while on the phone. What the hell do these idiots have to talk about that can’t wait.
Folks, folks, relax.
This is the funniest story of the day. Why does an organization that deals with death publically say it is against a smoking ban? Think of it. The more that die, the more they make. And with the rise in cremations, things are getting tough in the funeral business.
I can’t imagine anyone more tone deaf to what they are saying that funeral directors being against smoking. The question is, what were they smoking when they decided to speak out?
I was so gald when they banned it here in Georgia. It is so nice to walk into a Waffle House and eat breakfast without having to breathe cigarette smoke. The only real drawback is that the waitreses and cooks that used to smoke while they worked the place now have to go outdoors too which means you might have slightly slower service. But the tradeoff is worth it. Besides I didn’t like it when they cooks and waitresses were dangling lit cigarettes over my food. I didn’t order ash on my sausage.
Smoking should be banned in ALL places at ALL times where anybody under 18 is allowed.
Kev, smoking while serving or cooking has for a long time been a violation of food prep standards. You didn’t have to ban smoking to do it.
If you didn’t want to go into a waffle house and smell smoke, you should have found a different restaurant.Before long, I’ll be telling you what you can eat- and there won’t be waffles for you!
Liability to the baby! I’ve never known a child miscarried due to smoking. Matter of fact, everyone I know that was born to smokers was normal weight. The friends I’ve had who have had trouble with miscarriages DIDN’T smoke.
Sids…is that the same Sleep on your back, no now the right side, now the tummy…stats? What will it be tomorrow?
Just curious, what did your friend do for a living Mary? My great grandfather had lung cancer and never smoked in his life, and his parents didn’t smoke either. Sometimes, stuff JUST HAPPENS.
I had 5 miscarriages. And my husband smoked in our house while I was pregnant with each of our wannabe babies. Wish he had respected my wishes.
T&C does a great deal of business; precisely because they cater to smokers.
My mother died of complications from emphysema… never smoked a day in her life… Just one of those things…
Low birth rate, bullbutter!I am a smoker, smoked while carrying all my sons, and birth rate was never below 8 lbs!…
face it, you smoke, you’re an idiot.
you smoke while you’re pregnant, it shows you have no regard for your child.
the only person dumber than a smoker is a smoker who thinks they aren’t doing anything that is unhealthly.
you’re a drug addict. your drug just happens to be legal.
you smell like an ashtray. you stink.
My friend was a nurse all her life…she never smoked and neither did her husband. She was told by her lung specialist who diagnosed her that it was her parents chain smoking that caused her lung problems. It’s a fact that smokers on average have lower birth weight babies and a greater incidence of SIDS..research as proven that, just look it up. Anyone who smokes when they’re pregnant is totally selfish in my book, just like someone who drinks alcohol when they’re pregnant. Any woman who puts her own selfish needs ahead of her children’s health is not mom material and probably should never have had kids.
I need to report a smoking incident to Scholfield and the “ban smoking everywhere on planet earth as well as the moon” crowd. Before proceeding with their next plan of attack–whatever it may be–the head honchos should arguably consider adding a ban of all smoking outdoors if the weather forecast calls for shifting wind. The other day, for instance, I was outside, walking up the sidewalk, when a little gust of wind came up and may have blown just a suggestion of my cigar smoke in the general direction of a guy about thirty yards away. Do the banners have any stats on what this might trigger in a guy who’s carrying a grocery bag of Ragu, pasta, Boone’s Farm wine and a box of sugar cookies? Perhaps I need to buy him a treadmill or an apple or something to help reverse the damage if he took a breath of air just in the second when the gust went by.