WE Blog

I want to ban drunks in public as they pose a serious danger to myself and family. And cell phone use in public needs banned as well, it pollutes my air and is way too loud and distracting. Overwieght people eating in public is very disturbing and should be banned as well. Gay people talking with straight folks is also quite appalling and ought be banned too.

Bad guys win again.

Courage?? Courage to throw away rights?

This country is populated by the world’s most ignorant and idiotic people.

“This country is populated by the world’s most ignorant and idiotic people”

…and don’t forget smokers!

It’s about time MY rights to breathe clean air were protected!!

Yes mommy … can I have another cookie? What go ask my nanny Wichita? OK… da da da da da!

I already have one mommy; I don’t need another. People will vote with their dollars on whether they want to support places that are smoke-free, we don’t need nanny to dictate personal behavior.

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C.S. Lewis

Truer words were never spoken.

I suppose you anti-government cons also object to government regulation of Wall Street by the SEC, or laws protecting National Guard members activated for overseas duty, that prevents their children from being taken away, or their homes from being foreclosed, or their jobs eliminated while they are serving their country? Our recent history is replete with examples of industry greed in the aftermath of deregulation that destroys the ability of families to be economically self-sufficient - remember Enron? How about the rampant fraud in the subprime mortgage scandal? The Savings & Loan debacle in the 80s? Jeez, you people have short memories.

The “he” of that last quote, BTW, is Lincoln, who wrote this:

“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man’s initiative and independence. You cannot help them permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

You’re welcome.

“…enforcement remains a question…”
——————

The people taking pictures of those they’ve decided are parking illegally will have new duties. And those individuals will see the inside of places they would never have gone before. They’ll catch a whole new batch of crooks!
/sarcasm

Of course there was never anything preventing privately owned businesses from not allowing smoking in their establishments. They could have made their businesses NON-SMOKING at any time.

Just like putting up NO GUNS signs………..

I can think of only one restaurant I’ve been to in the past few years that allows smoking. It isn’t going to make that much difference to me.

But this should not be a City decision. It should have been left to the individual business owners.

Ben, my apology to you if I offended last night. We did ask those around us if they had a problem. And the ventilation seemed very good.

I already have one mommy; I don’t need another. People will vote with their dollars on whether they want to support places that are smoke-free, we don’t need nanny to dictate personal behavior.

GMC that almost sounds like your a libertarian, but somehow I doubt your for the decriminalization of victimless crimes; drugs, gambling, consusuel sex between adults, and something tells me you would oppose a strip club in butler county.

Why is it that the poorest among us are also the smokers?

Get a clue. As for the ban - it’s about time. For anyone who has suffered with asthma or COPD they are well aware of the discomfort of second hand smoke.

If a business owner wants a smoking establishment he should be able to put a large sign on his door that he allows smoking. My bet is that he loses more business than he gains. Smokers are so broke from buying the smokes that they can’t afford his food.

Max you might have a point. There is a late night talk show hosted by Jerry Doyle. If you are on his staff you are required to smoke ‘for the children’. The taxes on the cigs will pay for increased health care for our little ones.

This is one conservative that wishes they would ban smoking at least where other people are breathing.

Fast Food should be banned too, along with any fatty and unhealthy food.

Obesity is causing Cancer, Heart-disease, Strokes, and Diabetes, and other major illnesses.

Obesity kills much more then smoking. Our Nanny Government needs to step up to the plate and protect us all from our worse enemy - ourselves!

Alcohol and drugs should be banned too. And guns, and cars, and planes, and bathtubs, and….

ksgrm - well said - and good question. I have noticed the same thing - so many who can least afford it chain-smoke.

LJ you are probably right unfortunately. But for those sufferers who want to breath clean air they should have the right to do so.

Reg one thing you said that probably was just an oversight on your part was that no public hearings were held on this. There were three that I am aware of. They were going on last fall.

ksgrm
Posted May 7, 2008 at 11:07 am | Permalink
Reg one thing you said that probably was just an oversight on your part was that no public hearings were held on this. There were three that I am aware of. They were going on last fall.
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Ah well, I guess since I had no dog in that fight, wasn’t paying attention.

My apologies to the Council Members then.

I still have concerns for the business like restaurants that have made great efforts to accomodate those who smoke.

I have a feeling there is going to be some economic suffering for these business owners.

I also wonder how many employees will be fired from their jobs when employers try to accentuate the city ordinance by implication or demand.

I have a feeling that that this can of worms is going to turn into a pit of snakes. We shall see though.

LJ one of the things that came out at the hearings was that business wasn’t harmed in the establishments that went smoke free. This came from cities that have had the ban for a while.

I’m not for taking away liberties but this is one of those that affects those around them more than most.

I get annoyed at the person talking on their cell phone while shopping or eating in a restaurant especially with an earpiece and you think they are talking to you when they are conversing with someone on the phone. But as annoying as this is it doesn’t harm me physically.

I would support large signs stating that a sports bar for instance is a smoking establishment and allowing exemptions for same. Having been forced to leave without finishing a nice meal that I paid for because the guy/gal at the table lit up isn’t right.

I say good for the council.

An all-out ban for public places would at least level the playing field for businesses.

For those of you who seek to eat or drink smoke free, do you frequent those places?

LJ I do. We have had to make a decision between eating and breathing or just eating. We always make the choice to breath.

Fleetwood my problems come about when I am sitting eating and someone sits down at the next table and lights up. My eating pleasure has been spoiled.

As for bad service I control that with the amount of my tip especially if it is somewhere I go often.

I hate eating with people talking on their cell phones and screaming kids. Maybe we need an ordinance making kid and phone free zones

“As for bad service I control that with the amount of my tip especially if it is somewhere I go often.”

Thank you for making my point. We (the market) do control what businesses do. If they allow smoking, DON’T GO THERE!

The anti’s don’t have a right to force businesses to make everything hunky dory.

This isn’t over. Some council folks might lose their jobs. I hope.

The market rules. Let it.

Tom the phones not so much unless they start to argue with the person they are talking to. The kids well that is another story - people who allow their children to scream and throw food and disrupt the peace of the entire restaurant should be asked to leave. May be a little extreme but best for the customers and the kid. If they aren’t socialized don’t inflict punishment on the rest of world for your failures.

Fleetwood I actually agree with that logic. The market will rule.

Reg when was the last time you were in an airport that allowed smoking? Recently while traveling we have been in SeaTac, Ohara, DCDulles, Atlanta, St Louis - none of these allow smoking. I still think we are late to the party.

Hope the vote holds. Afterall it doesn’t ban all smoking like many cities have done. It allows the business to make their own rules about it. If they serve 18 and under they must be smoke free.

If I were a restaurant owner, I would welcome the law. Now they won’t have to make the choice as to whether to allow smoking or not. Either choice they make would undoubtedly P-O customers. Now smokers can be mad at the city.

Or worse yet, they could continue with the weak compromise of smoking and nonsmoking sections, which, of course, don’t work at all.

I wonder if people know that automobiles put far more cancer causing agents into the air than a cigarette ever will

“At what point, GMC70, does society have the right to restrict the physical harms of public smoking, an act you characterize as one’s “personal behavior?”

More interesting question, CF: We both know that nearly everything we do has at least some impact on others or society as a whole. Is no part of my life off limits of the nanny state? Where do we recognize that enough is enough, and I am entitled to do what is bad for me whether society likes it or not, even accepting some social cost?

TomPaine,

BINGO.

GMC70,

Are children in a position to avoid secondhand smoke if their parents choose to patronize the Kansas Flea Market? And if not, GMC70, does that not invalidate the conceit of your argument that the principle that ought to govern such decisions is some version of supply and demand or “individual liberty?”

You also insert the interesting qualification that “they are private places of business, capable of running their business, for the most part, as they choose.” “For the most part.” Hmmm.

So, GMC70, why should the City of Wichita regulate public health in the sphere of food preparation, for example, and not in the sphere of second-hand smoke? If you want to argue that people don’t CHOOSE to eat contaminated food, I could invoke numerous counterarguments, a recent one of which pertains to the “market” for unpasturized whole milk. If people want to consume food that could possibly make them sick, GMC70, is that cool with you? Caveat emptor? Or suppose they want their children to consume that whole milk, which contains e.coli that is much more risky for children than adults: what then? Are parents entitled to put their children in jeopardy? And if you think they should not be in this case, then why would you allow it in the case of secondhand smoke?

In short, GMC70, I think your “private/public” distinction falls far short of the work you want for it to accomplish. I am no fan of the nanny state; but second-hand smoke is sufficiently destructive that I believe the concern for the health of children, in “private” facilities that are open to all members of the general public, trumps the concern over the “right” of adults to act in a way that contaminates the same.

If that makes me an advocate of the Nanny State, GMC70, then the obvious riposte is to ask whether YOU are cool with the Fed’s assertion of broad, unregulated surveillance and data-mining operations directed at American citizens.

Finally, there isn’t an obvious answer to your question. But here, I think Mill gets it right:

“As soon as any part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it, becomes open to discussion. But there is no room for entertaining any such question when a person’s conduct affects the interests of no persons besides himself, or needs not affect them unless they like (all the persons concerned being of full age, and the ordinary amount of understanding). In all such cases there should be perfect freedom, legal and social, to do the action and stand the consequences.” “On Liberty,” Ch. IV.

And a little further, Mill says this: “All errors which he is likely to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good.”

Doesn’t seem overly complicated to me, GMC70. To put it in an example, growing pot in basement for person use = OK; cooking meth in bathtub for sale = not OK.

I don’t even remember the last time I went into a restaurant where they allowed smoking with the exception of Ryans. I notice there never seems to be anybody in their smoking section. Since you can’t smoke in most restaurants, what’s the big deal?

Note: There’s one REAL study that links second-hand smoke with any kind of health problems. The study is flawed. Most of the second-hand smoke flak goes back to that study.

The smell of cigarette smoke isn’t that bad. No worse than car exhaust, or that stinky perfume you’re wearing, or your foul breath.

If you smoke, you need to quit. As a smoker, you’re one of the few classes of people that can be discriminated against.

“and I start coughing, my eyes swell, and I feel like I’ve been hit over the head with a hammer.”

I feel like that in the morning Mary, wonder if someone is sneaking in at night and smoking.
(Just kidding)

I wish the city would next ban freaky and goofy looking people from restaurants. They make me plain uncomfortable, and I have a RIGHT to be comfortable, everywhere, anywhere and always, after all, I’m entitled.

And I AM entitled to breathe clean air…your “rights” stop where mine begin.

I’d like to reassure my friend CF.

My son has grown up around my smoking. He has suffered no ill effects.

Would you next ban me from smoking in my truck driving with my son next to me?

I am a VERY considerate person and smoker. When I was in the National parks, I put out my cigarettes and then put the remains in my pocket for later disposal. As I have said before, I tend to treat people how they treat me.

Blue Jay,

Actually, I grew up with two smoking parents. It was a good day for each of them when they quit.

My point was to push on GMC70’s qualification that private businesses are free “for the most part” to run their businesses as they choose. Given that this qualification seems to license government intervention, notably with respect to food safety, I was pointing out the inconsistency in GMC70’s argument by which the public is entitled to prevent harm in some cases but not in others; hence the comparison between preventing people from eating dangerous foods versus smoking.

The issue of parenting, on its own terms, is distinct from the counterfactual arguments I was offering about the double effect of one’s actions on the children of others, though the food issue complicates this somewhat.

This topic brought to you by Newport Menthol Cigarettes.

1970s commercial on Newport Cigarettes to the theme of “Born Free.”

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NrVAIMouuZY