The rolling thunder of all these smoking bands will help keep pot smoking illegal.

jguernsey - That is exactly the point I was trying to make in my post on Sept 19. Thanks for looking at the big picture!

The toxic problems of marijuana smoke beyond the effects of THC will cause it to never be legalized as a smoking product. THC in pill form might be legalized.

Medicinal and other uses for pot might be legalized.

I know a bar owner, who is a nonsmoker, and he said it the best.

"At any time right now I can put up a no smoking sign and this bar will be nonsmoking. I don't because I know my customers smoke. I really don't think that the government has any business telling me how to run my business."

My thoughts, everyone knows that there is smoking in bars. If you apply for a job at a bar and then complain about the smoke, you shouldn't have got a job there in the first place. That establishment has been there, most likely, long before you came around, why should it suddenly be their problem that you want a job and are concerned about your health. Go work somewhere else, no one is forcing you to work there. It's most likely going to pass and it will be one more intrusion of the government into our lives.

I don't know how recent that study was conducted. The smoking/drinking connection has been known for some time. I think the cause is related to how nicotine constricts the blood vessels and increases heart rate, but I could be wrong. Not just in teenagers, in everyone.

A recent study shows that smoking tobacco aggravates the effect of alcohol in teenagers.

banyan99, you got me thinking about that TV thing. TVs are very annoying in bars. Should only be allowed for the big game, none of that other stuff.

I'm not sure about the lemonade either. Is it like Mike's Hard Lemonade?

thekid: That sounds interesting. I might go and set up a snack food stand and make a fortune!!! Will it be OK if I wear a respirator? I don't want to think I'm back on Yasgar's farm.

banyan99 - you a smart cookie!!! I agree America - the land of the free, is becoming more communist every day. I am not a smoker or a drinker but I believe in the rights of my fellow americans to run their business as they choose. I even go to a bar once in awhile, I love bar burgers, but I know walking into the place what I'm getting into. If I don't wish to breath in second-hand smoke I don't go, that's my right, I believe if a business owner chooses to ban smokers that's their right, if they choose to allow smoking that is their right. If people choose to go to the beach and tan that's their right and the government should let us free people be free to choose what we want.

The arguments I’ve read so far (no, I didn’t read all posts since Feb) don’t appear to see the bigger picture. They argue for or against smoking. My father and I argued this point for hours before seeing the big picture; we should be on the side of the business owner to regulate their business as they see fit – this is American.
Helpful example: I open “Tres Chic Supper Club,” you open “Your Sport’s Bar & Grill,” and my dad opens, “Stan’s Cigars.” The government decides smoking (a legal act) in public is a public health issue which needs to be regulated. My dad’s cigar club goes out of business because his revenue comes from smoking customers. I say nothing; my club doesn’t allow smoking.

The government, pleased with their success, decides to ban TV watching (a legal act) in public places. There is a direct correlative link between television watching and obesity; as television watching increases, so does obesity. The government decides this is a public health issue - TV in public needs to be regulated. I’m sorry, but without TVs in Your Sports Bar & Grill on which to watch the big game, your business goes under. I say nothing; I don’t have television in my swanky club.

The government, pleased with their past success, decides to ban dining el fresco (outdoors). There is a direct correlative link between sun exposure and skin cancer; the more hours of sun exposure, the higher the risk of skin cancer. The government decides this is a public health issue - public sun exposure needs regulation. Because my club has outdoor seating I am forced to close.

The cigar shop example is an actual example from Seattle, which happened after the recent smoking ban. The study about TV viewing and obesity I referenced recently in a college paper. We all know too much sun gives people skin cancer. These examples are realistic examples of the government regulating a legal activity taking place in a private business ‘for public safety.’ The studies conducted regarding second hand smoke reference non-smokers LIVING WITH smokers. That is not the same as sitting in a bar for 3 or 6 or even 10 hours with smokers. Smoke is annoying, stinking and unpleasant. However, sitting in a properly ventilated room for a few hours with smokers will not kill you. If it did, there would be no debate!

Should the government regulate how a private business is run? As appealing as the end result is in this case (smoke free environments), government intervention is not the answer. Contact your local business owners and let them know they are losing your business because they allow smoking. Ask them to consider having smoke free events occasionally and ADVERTISE THEM AS SUCH. A smoke free night at a bowling alley/club would attract people who currently avoid them, allowing business owners to assess if this is a viable or necessary option for their business. Let business owners decide how to run private business based on their customer’s feedback, not the government’s demands.

i guess i NEED some meds cuz apparently ya lost me on the lemonade;)...gfan there are just to many smokers to know em all...BUT if ya wanna meet a few...it is almost harvest time which means 38th annual midwest marijuana festival in madison!! march up state st to the capitol on sunday 10/5 at 3:00!! and yes the smoke flies during the march!! kewlest...walk...ever.....

I thought all the stoners around here knew each other, and hungout. Have your conventions at the Lannon Stone Motel. Lannon Stoners

im a lemonade junkie when i go to the bars and since most people enjoy a nice tall glass of ice cold lemonade id say no fault.

I would like to know why we have to have a state wide ban. I think that each city should beable to come up with there own ban.I think that janesville has a very gd. ban. When you take it out of the bars that is strickly to go against smokers.

gazettefan-apparently Obama smokes (or recently quit, or is trying to). Not long ago I saw a news bit on CNN I believe where an aid was to be nearby in case he needed some nicotine gum during public events.
"This has been a nonpartisan announcement."

my stoner friends are a little more repsonsible than that. based on your logic if im hit by someone drinking rum you would be financially responsible??;)

Yes, you don't want those things in bars, right?

Im sick of automible exhaust, trians, bus, dumptrucks you get the idea

Hey, thekid, you owe me 4 bucks. The other day I was waiting at a stoplight when four of your stoner friends pulled up next to me, each one toking on a big blunt. Smoke was billowing out to the car like it was on fire. I was going to make a citizen's arrest but instead I got a severe case of the munchies. Had to go to the Quik Mart to chow down on Oreos.

The assembly is supposed to vote on it in January. Not soon enough though.

The word is: The Wisconsin statewide smoking ban will pass soon!!!

Obama, McCain, Biden, and Palin don't smoke.

Willie Nelson smokes.

Lake County, Illinois, a county that borders Wisconsin, will ban smoking in public housing. The Long March continues.

I also forgot to mention heart disease.

I forgot emphysema, many of them will die choking on their own sputum.

I doubt that those folk losing ONLY 1.4 years of their life are going to be dying in their sleep.

Haeight, don't be lighten' up when you're gassing up.

And thanks for bringing us all back on point.

And, everyone has a last 10 years. And those years will not be enjoyable with throat cancer, cancer of the tong, and lung cancer, and the possible realization (if smokers have a conscience at all) that one person's cigarette smoke caused these same diseases in many nonsmoking people including friends and family members.

You mean missing out on gas being $100 a gallon? Sign me up, 12 years ago gas was 1/4 the price it was now, smokes were 1/3. Overall prices on everything have doubled. But the avg wage has not doubled.

God forbid anyone wants to miss out on the end.

Many years ago, perhaps 20 or so, I heard the argument that for every minute that you smoke you shorten your life 1 minute. Those who put forth that proposition stated that the average smoker, by their estimation, would lose 10 years of their life.
A cynical response by unimpressed smokers was "yes, but it's the last 10 years, so who cares". I wonder how many of those smokers don't care now that they are 20 years older and may be hoping they haven’t lost those extra years after all.

nowwhat, maker sure to snuff out those cancer sticks.

My god how much longer is this blog going to be on here. I think 6 months is more than enough. There is nothing more that can be said. Move on and moan and groan about some other topic. It's time to get rid of this thing.

Jeez!!!

No I don't get it. Smoking forever only drops an avg of 7 years off a persons life. That is smoking a pack a day your whole life. That includes the second hand smoke you inhale while your smoking.

But your concerned about an infinitesimal time, in comparison to those smokers, nonsmokers are exposed to it. Lets see that would be 70 vs 77 years of life. That is what 9.1% for an entire lifetime of smoking. Assuming its a pack a day habit, over a 10 hour period, though most are over an 14-18 hour period. That avg is 2 smokes an hour.

Lets assume you spend 2 hours a day around a smoker. That means you get to smoke about 20% of that amount. So your looking at 1.4 years of your life lost on an avg from being around a smoker for 2h a day your entire life.

That is 14h a week, and god forbid you spend 14h a week at a smoke filled bar you would be an alcoholic, with a greater risk of developing cancer from the alcohol. I refer you to some point in the posts below about alcohol related cancer risks.

So yes please oh please draw me a picture or something about how the bad smokers affect your life. That banning smoking in bars will change. Everywhere else you can have smoke free, most smokers don't care about smoking anywhere else. Except maybe outdoor stadiums.

Haeight, tobacco smoke is harmful, vehicle fumes are harmful, tobacco smoke and vehicle fumes are more harmful together than just tobacco smoke or vehicle fumes alone. GET IT?!!!

How do you know non-smokers don't share the same fanaticism about other pollutants? The article above is about smoking in public places, so most people choose to remain on topic.

The world doesn't revolve around me, but I prefer that clean air does.

Chain smoking cigarettes even in a confined space won't kill me faster than being around vehicle exhaust.

Which brings the nonsmoking cancer defense back to, is it your commute/factory you work in that is giving you cancer or the 5 seconds of second hand smoke?

I love the fact your fanatic about attacking pollution and inherent diseases. But its sad you don't share that same fanatacism when it comes to other pollutants.

Its also a shame the nonsmokers think the world revolves around them. Apparently they still believe they are the only group worthy of being in a public place.

Think the toxicity of vehicles is bad? Try checking out "about.com/cancer" and read the 599 ingredients that are put into each cigarette.

The toxicity of vehicle fumes does not lessen the toxicity of tobacco fumes.

Good thinking on the car pollution problem.

We'll do what we can about toxic fumes of all kinds as fast as we can deal with them.

While were cleaning up our air, let's ban outdoor smoking too.

Internal combustion emissions from your car are much more toxic than tobacco smoke. Your car emits hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, toxic organic compounds such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and benzene.

A typical car emits more carbon monoxide in 60 minutes than a tobacco smoker does in their entire lifetime. Imagine what a 6000lb pickup or SUV spits out, not to mention the amount of petroleum it will consume in it's lifetime.

100+ years of the internal combustion engine is taking it's toll on our health and the environment.

And one of our biggest public concerns is burning the tobacco plant?

lgirl, your heartfelt concern about how your and the stress-relieving habits of your fellow smokers are a danger to nonsmokers is appreciated.

But it seems toward the end of your post a possible case of nicotine withdrawal caused you, in a round-about way, to turn on us nonsmokers and as a result you took the wrath off yourself and directed it at the tobacco companies.

Thank you for your efforts to not make your smoking habit a problem for others. And when things get gloomy, please keep the faith.

Since I was sensored and my second post makes no sense at all without the first, I shall kindly reword it. Obviously, I'm a smoker. I realize second hand smoke is a problem and yes, people who have never smoked in their life do suffer from cancer or some other health issue related to smoking. Look, I smoke for stress. Call it an excuse all you want, but that's just how it is. I don't smoke in a lot of public places due to complaints, which I understand. If I happen to really need a cigarette, I go outside, lean against the building where there is little to no people around and smoke. I TRY to respect others wishes even though it is a free country and I really shouldn't care what people think or say but I do. Yet, you continue to complain and complain about my habit / way of handling my stress (as unhealthy as it is) despite not only me effort, but the effort of many other people. I can already tell some smartass is going to say just quit and that would solve the entire problem but you are not me. Unless you were me, you wouldn't get what having one cigarette does for me, or others. Some have smoked for more than 20 years, how can you expect them to just quit? It takes time, just like anything, and you can't expect smoking to just go away. Unless you people put all of your focus on the Tobacco companies actually trying to do something to stop it, I don't want to hear it. There is always going to be smokers and non smokers. We just have to find a solution where both can be happy instead of bashing each other left and right about a problem that has lasted longer than I have been alive. It's pointless. So really, I'm sorry if the smell of smoke irritates you non smokers and I'm sorry that you are afraid you might get cancer from a little second hand smoke, but your complaining isn't doing anything but irritate more and more people. There is always two sides to a story or situation, so don't go cramming your way of life down people's throats who are trying to cooperate with you. Save the complaining for the people, rather company, at fault instead of the people who gave into temptation and stress.

The Surgeon General has determined that people who don't smoke think people who do smoke are insane.

Good suggestion.

The government can't ban gas passing and they won't ban tobacco smoking so maybe it could mandate that someone invent some kind of personal catalytic converter with a tube and mask that smokers wear on their face while they smoke, with another tube that can be worn.... well, I'll leave to the imangination where the other tube can be worn.

It's close enough for what passes for speech for some people to be protected by the First Amendment.

I don't think they can do that!

The government should ban passing gas in public.

My last post below was for luckystrike, I mean luckyducky.

nurse4u, great post for the subject.

You nut!!! Well no, then the doctors will be able to spend more 20 seconds with you. Another way in which our quality of life will improve.

I am sure that I would be happier with less patients if it meant stopping lung cancer, throat cancer, COPD, asthma, etc.etc.
It would be nice to be able to visit restaurants with my daughter that we can NOT go to because of her heart/lung conditions (she can not be around cigarette smoke).
We were at the lake and we had to leave because of all the patrons that were smoking-it was $10 a person to be admitted to this lake. I have a big family, and they were extremely disappointed that we could not stay. But, hey at least the other patrons got to smoke!
There was a bar at this lake, and I think they should have cigarette smoking prohibited on the lake and only in the bar.
All I know is, I won't be going back.

The lost revenue will be more than offset by the general improvement of everyone's health. It's a fair trade-off for improved quality of life.

luckyducky, Kenosha's joining the side of the righteous. Soon there'll be a statewide smoking ban.

That darn Surgeon General is a real straight-shooter!!!

I'm going to have to agree with the surgeon general. LOL

The Surgeon General has determined that smoking cigarettes makes you stink.

News studies reveal that secondhand smoke is more deadly to children than previosly thought.

All people in favor of the smoking ban should support any law that forbids smoking in vehicles with children.

cocktail, sometimes the people needs to impose its will by way of the government. Try to think about it being any other way. Democracy goes hand in hand with capitalism: capitalism is not on the loose independent of democacy.

I still think pure capitalism should decide this issue. Of course I have never seen a smoke-free bar in an area that doesn't prohibit it. Maybe they would be more profitable. Any of you bar owners want to try a little experiment?

I'm with you, nurse4u, this blog is the record breaker because people don't want cigarette smoking in bars!!!

Am I there yet????
Whoo!! That took a LONG time to get to the bottom to post..what was I gonna say? Oh yea..
It sure would be nice to be able to go out and not have to worry about my hair & clothes smelling like cigarette smoke..

This settles it: Soon there will be no smoking in bars in Wisconsin.

as do I, lynda. I watched my father die because of lung cancer. One would wonder why/how I would smoke knowing how it affected my family in such a horrible, painful way.

Addiction is bizarre. It allows one to minimize the affects, justify one's behavior and make promises that one cannot live up to ("I'll quit tomorrow"). I was insensitive to joke about going out to buy more cigarettes, but the reality is: I'm not quite ready to quit yet. Don't ask me why. I have asked myself the same question many many times.

lynda, sorry for not sounding serious in my recent posts. I understand the full meaning of your post.

tjncj and Zoom, sorry, I got mixed up on who wrote what.

Yes, tjncj, it was gripping. I was reminded of my own experience. Take the next "1000".

Novecientos noventa y tres.

Zoom, tjncj, had 1000. But alright, novecientos noventa y dos.

lynda, a very valuble post, thanks.

I have been smoke free now for about 14 years and still have health problems because of the years of smoking. I really hope that a complete ban will someday be in effect for all of us. I watched someone very close to me die from this insidious drug and it was pretty sad as their last breath was one of misery. It's all so meaningless and preventable.

Zoom, I intentionally made post # 1000 on topic, telling in gripping detail my only smoking experience. 990.

The last 15 posts (including mine) are off topic, and shouldn't count. I'm rolling back the meter.

988

YES!

Good work, sassy and tjncj. I think trey is French.

I smoked a cigarette once. It made me cough.

I don't think it is. Maybe it should have been "tres" or just plain old three.

Is trey Latin?

no habla espanol.

Estoy seguro que un día no voy a fumar. No estoy seguro de que aún si será porque dejé o porque mató a mí.

Novecientos noventa y siete

For others like me, because I am confident that others are STILL reading this blog...ha! I said:

I'm sure one day I will not smoke. I'm not sure yet if that will be because I quit or because they killed me.

Nine hundred ninety-seven

Courtesy of: http://www.google.com/translate_t

sassy, maybe someday you won't smoke.

novecientos noventa y seis

I do not want to see this blog die out, even though nearly everything that can be said on the issue has been.

That said, I just got back from buying another very expensive pack of cigarettes, which I will probably smoke. *sigh*

995. :)

LOL,tjntj.

If staff doesn't shut down this very important smoking ban blog at 999, I will not do post 1000: I don't think I'll be able to stand the excitement.

novecientos noventa y cuatro

Novem centum nonaginta trey

I think the mentions of the stinky stuff were the problems. Only tolerable on the other blogs.

Novecientos noventa y dos.

hey! I was only censored two times on gazettextra! maybe three, but who's counting?

oh yeah, NVgrf is. :D

Let me know if Guinness will consider it, cuz I think I have been fairly tame compared to many here...but that's just me.

I didn't read any of these comments. I just tuned in to see how many times ms sassy gets censored. Three more and I'm calling Guinness!

tjncj, you are one smart cookie! I had to check though, to make sure you had all of the X's and V's in the right places....(you do!)

Are you from Rome?

Or at least Italy? LOL

989, btw

CMLXXXVIII

For me no smoking would be great. I have asthma and when it kicks up any amount of tobacco smoke makes next to impossible to breathe. I don't want to take smoker's rights away, but I would like my rights to be able to go places that I can't go now. Smokers CAN live without smoking for a bit, but I CAN'T live without breathing. I just had to leave my job because even though the staff and residents smoked outside, they smoked just outside the doors and the smoke would all come back into the building. My asthma kicked in and I have not been able to work for just over a month. Management would not do anything about it. No one would even go faher away from the doors to smoke either. I have coughed so much and so hard that I have re-injured a rib that I broke in an accident in January. I have to lose my income, take extra meds, and cough for a month.Is that fair? I take my meds as prescribed and do everything I am supposed to do to try to avoid asthma issues. Why does it have to be such an issue for smokers to give it up for a little while when they go out? California and some parts of Colorado were great! No smoking in public places and these places had lots of business. Smokers have their right to smoke, but people like me have a right to breathe and be able to go out also.

please accept my sincere apology to the gazette staff and anyone commenting whom I offended with my language...

and possibly my last comment on this article: with any right there is a responsibility. As an occasional smoker, I feel it is my responsibility to make the environment of the non-smoker as clean as possible. After all, I am the one who is choosing to smoke, therefore, it is also my responsibility to reduce the interference of my smoking on others. I think it has to do with manners as much as anything else.

Ya, and so is the whole, "Oh my god, I'm going to get cancer for sure if I inhale a bit of smoke." And smokers have "modified their behavior" yet people still bitch. Hell, we can't even go to certain bars anymore. Isn't that what a bar is for? Smoking and drinking? And I say we lock you in your house for a long period of time, let's see how you do.

Yes, cars pollute. I think driving them indoors has already been banned.

The law won't require people to quit smoking, just modify their behavior. The idea that people will turn into "unsocial psychopaths" is a little dramatic.

LOL..only if you wanted to, gazettefan...only if you wanted to. don't forget about the beads and incense though, too, if you're going the guru route. can't have one without the others, can ya?

Would I have to get a guru?

Nine hundred and seventy eight

977

and good one jsvlparkergrad!

(however, technically, I believe this is a count UP, but who on the gazettextra.com gets technical?!)

Ok, wis1031, let me see if I have your logic straight:

By REMOVING harmful toxic fumes from confined public places, we will all somehow end up herded into confined secret places for the specific purpose of being murdered by the RELEASE of toxic fumes.

I'm Casey Kasem, now on with the countdown.

Ahhhhh, just got back to my house from downtown Toronto. What a gorgeous day!

Especially enjoyed all the non-smoking places, bars included.

Yep, saw that box car go by....oh, WAIT! It was a streetcar, and everyone was smiling and having a good time (must be the pot they are able to smoke legally here)!

I think it is time to take the money away from the bars , bowling alley's, and restaurants they don't need that money from there 25 to 40 percent of there customers. After this we should outlaw 1person in a car and the amount of children you can have. You idiots don't realize its not a health matter its a private citizen issue. Go ahead and give up your rights (until it is something legal you want to do).Change the laws and then we can all go quietly on the box cars.

972

Hey, tjncj, do you think cyberspace grows on trees?! ;)

970

Studies have revealed that cigarette smoke mixed with the interior smell of a new car is especially toxic.

That's right Hannah.

And Zoom, coffeman's not fooling anyone. He's knows this train's been in station long enough.

ALL ABOARD!!!

Coffeeman,
If you didn't want the discussion to continue, why did you comment two days after the post before yours?

The beatings will continue until moral improves.

Why is this discussion even being allowed to go on? Other discussions are pulled right away even though they are popular. I think 936 comments just about covers it all and it will always be smokers against non-smokers. Remove this blog please!!!!!! There is no other ways to present your arguments differently than what has already been stated.

I enjoyed several of the no-smoking venues in Madison yesterday. It's only a matter of time, Janesville.

justthe..., logic from the anti-banners?! That's a laugh!!!

If Haeight is your champion, you should give his posts a good read. Logic and clarity are grossly absent.

crazycatlady, tells us how eager you would be to eat in a restaurant that was exempt form health codes.

Health codes are government imposed requirements for the purose of assuring healthy conditions in privately owned businesses patronized by the public.

OK here's how I see it. Smoking cigarettes is legal, it's not good for you but it is legal. Eating at McDonald's is legal, it's not good for you but it is legal. You own your own business, it is YOUR business, it does not belong to the government, it does not belong to the people, it belongs to you. What gives anyone the right to tell you what you can & cannot do in your own business as long as it is legal. So just make it a law that if you allow smoking in your establishment that has to be made known in any advertising that you do & a sign has to be posted on the door that clearly states this is a smoking establishment, then if you don't want to go there guess what you don't have to. But the choice should be up to the business owner, not the government or anyone else.

justthefacts,
In none of my posts did I "defend" hannah or gazettefan, nor did I have to. You, on the other hand, felt the need to "defend" haeight all the way back on post #16!

Feb 6, 2008 at 2:02 p.m.
"Haeight said: "While lining up countless non mokers I know that think its wrong to live in a dictatorship."
This non-smokers still with ya Haeight!"

What are we, back in grade school?

Well, just...., it was dead until you came along. Maybe now Haeight will come out of the Bat Cave.

The Tavern League interferred with the ban for the purpose of lining the pockets of the bar owners near the Illinois and Minnesota statelines. That will end.

Seriously...your still going on about this? If you actually reveiw the posts for their context, it appears Haeght and the anti-banners won this "debate" long ago (at least they presented a more logically consistant argument). Oh, and in case you haven't noticed the ban is benched for the meantime at least. I quit participating in this blog 2 month's ago because nothing new was being added to it. Haeght would state some facts...gazzettefan would say he was off topic, hannah would chime in with a quirky little chirp here and there, and zoom would be there to defend the latter two. The only thing that has changed is that each side has managed to round up a couple individuals into their respective "posse". Do you really think your going to change each others minds at this point? Isn't there another post we can beat to death by arguing in a futile manner?

The toxicities of pot and tobacco are one and the same problem. There's no getting around it.

"Our whole society is based off that concept of standing on the poorer."

...I LOL'd

"...me first and screw all others..." is exactly what a smoker is saying when he lights up in a public place.

I haven't worn blinders in years. Its sad the majority of people in society are so self absorbed they wish to bend all aspects of that society to their will. This is the inherent janesville attitude I spoke of the attitude of entitlement. The me first and screw all others aspect of the daily life, the lets pull out in front of traffic because there is just barely enough room for them to hit me in the rear end and have it be their fault.

The overall absence of empathy to anyones wishes beyond their own. I have freely admitted The only place I care about enjoying a cigarette is at a bar. I even offered multiple solutions to drive a dominate smoke free tavern enviroment. But alas you care not.

Like every person in our country I pollute, but so do you. You could at least demonstrate you have read some of the information posted through out this conversation. Instead of trying to get a rise out of the rest of the smoke free lackeys.

Being so wrapped up into the issue you all would do well to pull the blinders off and view the precipice your smoke free bill sits upon. I have shown multiple avenues it could be constitutionally attacked. In order to establish smoking only places of business. You can lead a horse to water...

thekid..., you and Haeight are two of a kind when it comes to polluting the air.

That's right Haeight, you're not looking at the big picture.

I granted to thekid... that pot smoking might be legalized for home use but I'm not entirely comfortable with that. How are the toxic fumes to be kept out of the nostrils of children and pets?

Going after industrial pollution doesn't preclude going after tobacco pollution.

What?!!!

There is that classic janesville attitude I have come to know. We already have it screw the rest of the state.

Since when is it wrong to use free market economics to a companies advantage or even for personal gain? Our whole society is based off that concept of standing on the poorer.

I think Zoom mentioned this earlier: The Tavern League is just exerting a devious plan to fatten the wallets of Wisconsin bar owners on the Minneapolis and Illinois borders. They are showing great insensitivety toward bar owners in those states.

I agree with going for a complete ban, because we already have smoke free restaurants in Janesville, and most other businesses are smart enough to have a smoke free environment in their public spaces (hospital campuses, etc.). Why would the taverns need a year to figure out how to put up a "no smoking" sign? Oh yes, so the taverns on the borders with Illinois and Minnesota can take advantage of the smokers that will travel from their non-smoking states. Thank you Wisconsin Tavern League for making Wisconsin the ashtray of the midwest.

See your looking at that wrong zoom and every other self righteous non smoker, things get done when you deal with single specific issues.

You could have smoke free restaurants already you could have everything but smoke free taverns already.

Problem is that your so bent on controlling every aspect of life that you lumped it all together and you got got.

The work is mostly done. Now all the legislature needs is an opportunity to vote on the bill, which the Wisconsin Tavern League has managed to block.

The smoking ban doesn't have to be stopped in order to work on other pollution issues. If we only worked on one problem at a time, nothing would get done.

moonpuppy....take out the words "smoking, smokers" in your last post, and substitute the words "corporate/industrial pollution, polluter's".
.
Now THAT'S something we should really be concerned about. Let's get our priorities straight.

Smoking should be banned from all public places including outdoor public places...there are many people who are trying hard to keep in good health and smoking destroys the body and stinks horribly.
I won't go to public places that allow smoking. I am also forced to keep my windows closed when it is nice outside because of the smokers in my neighborhood who won't smoke in their house, instead they take it outside and the smoke blows directly in mine.
Non-smokers rights need to be protected just as much as smokers rights!

Even if pot is legalized, it will be banned in the same places that tobacco smoke is banned. Most likely, pot smoking would be confined to a person's home.

Aside from the obvious dangers of pot smoke, its fumes are highly toxic.

Oh just saw your question about William Shatner. From what I can see, his wife was an alcoholic and drug abuser. She apparently fell in their pool while intoxicated and drowned. Apparently he was not investigated and it was ruled an accident/possible suicide.

jsvlparkergrad, my last post came from surfing around and looking at the positive effects from smoking bans in the U.S.:

"People experience improved health where smoking bans are in place. For example, the rate of heart attacks drop significantly. This is true across the board where bans are in place."

You brought up something I've wondered about for some time, American veterans in Canada. Is it exclusively Americans or does it include Canadians too? Let me know here or by way of GazetteXtra's email service.

gazettefan:
Sorry I can't find any stats on that yet, since the ban has only been in effect for about 2 years.
One positive thing I have seen happen is with the veteran's association I belong to here. I play in the cribbage league for my vets' club and see that there are a few members who are on oxygen can come out and resume playing cards at the various vet clubs. And others have commented how nice it is to not have put up with the second-hand smoke. We take breaks while playing, and allow time for anyone who wants a smoke to go outside and light up. The only time I heard a complaint was from one guy who wished he didn't have to go outside to smoke, because that evening the temperature and wind chill was about -35.
Overall, you will hear occasional griping about having to go outside to smoke when at a bar, but most people just take it in stride and step outside. I think that smoking has decreased slightly, and it will probably take a few years to get some good statistics about this.

Haeight-
The trigger that seems to affect my daughter the MOST is cigarette smoke..(Pulmonary hypertension is such a NASTY disease)..
But thank you for your input.. HOWEVER, I think the medical research has shown how devastating tobacco smoke is on ANY one, including but NOT limited to ALL kinds of cancers and pulmonary diseases..
Just a thought I wanted to share when someone lights up their cigarette and they can enjoy the weather with their car window down, yet my daughter can't have her car window down.. or else she can't breathe.. Nice weather, or breathe better?? Not much of a choice, now is there?
HAVE A NICE DAY!

People experience improved health where smoking bans are in place. For example, the rate of heart attacks drop significantly. This is true across the board where bans are in place.

jvslparkergrad, any info on how the general state of health has improved in Canada with the onset of smoking bans?

nice spammich...

Shatner's head should blow-up any day now. What's the buzz up there about whether or not he killed his wife?

Rush2112: Assuming you are talking about Rush Limbaugh, he's from Missouri, and I highly doubt he'd even want to set foot in Canada.
gazettefan: LMAO at your description of poutine! I will have to share that one with my buddies here!
And, no thanks, you can keep Wayne Newton and the others. Although I do have to apologize for sending William Shatner there.

One person's smoke goes into another person's face. Not so with alcohol, unless sickened by cigarette smoke a drinker vomits on the smoker.

Whenever I'm in Detroit I cross the border just to enjoy an Eskimo Pie.

I had a dream today. Where the smoking and nonsmoking people of the world could sit together in one bar with a giant vent that sucks the smoke out.

I had a dream today! That if people could wake up and realize that they're getting smashed in a bar and might possibly die from alcohol poisoning or die later in life from a bad liver, or make some stupid choice that winds them up in jail, that smoking is just a cousin to alcohol...

Next thing you know the designated drivers will want alcohol taken out of bars because they don't want to drive home and worry about a drunk driver smashing into them.(Only satire: don't take it seriously but think about it)

If you're going to ruin your health one way, I don't see how you can be so concerned about ruining it two ways...But that's how the world works I guess, everyone wants to be safe but they still want to do things that aren't. And if you think about it, smoking can take years to kill you, if you mess up and drink enough you can die in hours.

The least anyone can do is have smoking and non smoking bars maybe right next to eachother so if people who are smokers have friends who are not smokers they can walk back and forth from bar to bar and hang out. But what do I know? I'm just one person.

Smoking and drinking is bad mmmmkay.
But so is restricting freewill.

Canada brought us Rush! I love Canada.

Yes, I would consider Canada's smoke-free policies among its freedoms.

Every time I see the word "poutine", I think it's something I can get off Celine Dion's girl-cousin with just a happy hello and a couple of cheap drinks.

You can take:
Neil Diamond
Wayne Newton
and the Osmond Family, except for Marie (even though she's nuts)

parkergrad, interesting thing about that sentence:

"If you think this is a dictatorship here, move to Canada."

Even though it's grammatically correct, it can be read in two totally opposite ways.

918

917

916

Oh, by the way, gazettefan, I reread your comment about Canada being a dictatorship, and I can see that I parsed that statement rather badly. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Also, to make up for any hard feelings I may have caused, I will be sending you a heapin' helpin' of poutine :-P
Lastly, I wouldn't mind if the Tories also went to America......seeing that they are ideally closer to Bush than the other parties here (I think Stephen Harper is W's bestest friend in the whole world!).
On topic: We sure are enjoying the wonderful ambiance of our bars here....places I can actually go to now and drink a beer without it tasting like someone put a cigarette out in it.

gazettefan:
Believe me, all of Canada is extremely grateful that the US is keeping Celine Dion :-D

Then don't assume a condescending position when it comes to rights and liberties.

Don't start with the platitudes.

There are 2 sides to every coin.

Smoke-free = freedom from the toxic fumes of tobacco.

With a statement like that gazettefan it becomes apparent that you either never had a concept of freedom or lost perspective on what constitutes freedom.

Don't forget to blog from the cancer ward.

Thank you for pointing out that it is the tavern league lobbyist who are opposing this! I'm going to cash in some of my crude oil future contracts tomorrow (which are up a good 700 some odd % the last few months) and make a sizable donation to this group.
What a great cause to support!

Also, I consider smoking bans to be freedoms and not the contrary.

jsvlparkergrad, not sure if you think I said Canada is a dictatorship. I know it isn't.

In my better moments I can even forgive Canada for Ann Murray and Rich Little.

Haeight aint going nowhere till he gets this stateside thing straightened out. Then he's going up there looking for Tories!!!

Ummmm, gazettefan, Canada is not a dictatorship. Sure, there is a public smoking ban here, but, on the whole, there are more freedoms here than in America.
Besides, don't encourage Haeight to move here. We rather enjoy our freedom ;-)

There's a difference between a minority and a malignancy.

Be it a process of democracy then you would do well to remember the previous links to the constitution and how the laws were crafted. Essentially preventing the majority from removing a minorities rights/liberties, maybe you didn't read that far.

The smoking bans are the products of the democratic process. If you think this is a dictatorship here, move to Canada.

There is no persuading when your dictating.

Persueding elected officials to do the right thing is not an oxymoron. Look up the word.

That statement is an oxy moron. How do you choose if your forcing legislation upon people?

Choosing is deciding where to spend your nights out talking to every owner in every establishment you goto about going smoke free. To press the issue you have 20 of your friends show up. Then leave when they refuse.

But that will not work if your not a regular...

Freedom and the ability to exercise your rights and liberties granted to you in the constitution precludes the fact that there are places your allowed to do anything you like that is legal. Smoking falls under legal, hence its classified as a right/liberty. Meaning you can't legally remove our right/ liberty to use it in a public venue.

But you can legislate away that there are set amounts of smoking or non smoking places for the public to go. To create an area for non smokers as well as smokers... but that is just too much to handle for the smoke crazed non smoker.

We are choosing to create a healthy environment based on the circumstances and what's practical.

SO are any number of things I pointed out, including the alcohol you drink at the bar your trying to get smoking bans enacted at.

I don't see anyone trying to ban any of the other things I brought up. Some of it is either not regulated or just barely.

The universal limiting factor in all those cases I brought up is choice. Its your choice to buy a car, its yourchoice what kind of car you buy. Its your choice to drink, and cause an alcohol related accident and possibly get cancer from the damage it does to your body. Its your choice to live near an industrial area where there is increased pollution, resulted in more inhaled fine particulates among other compunds. Its your choice to live near a highway and suffer the same from vehicle emissions.

There are so many things that are choice, there is not even a whisper of banning any other legal activity. The only thing setting precedence with bans accomplishes is the removal of rights and liberties. Blindly following as a means to accomplish your goals makes you just as guilty as the next person in moving us towards a totalitarian society.

You say your rights and liberties are removed by smokers, your wrong. Where have you been legislatively banned from?

It's a health issue.

Yes the blame falls squarely on the anti- rights/ anti-liberty legislation being passed in the form of legal substance bans...

This is something the population at large fails to understand, apparently even the senator fails to grasp the concept of free market. Supply and demand dictate policy in establishments.

If not our fault you non smokers have been so blind in supporting smoking establishments causing them to flourish instead of creating more nonsmoking.

All is fair and just in a world of no choices..

Believe me, I regulary go to several bars in Chicago that are just as crowded now as they were before the Illinois ban. A woman bartender in one of those bars is a smoker and she said that she's glad there's a ban because it'll help her to quit.

A statewide smoking ban in bars has a powerful effect. Smokers accept it, they see it as a serious sign that smoking is unwanted in all public places. They adjust.

If any smokers do stop going to bars, they are at least cancelled out by non-smokers who now go to bars as a result of the smoking ban. Non-smokers who previous patronized bars before the ban now stay a little longer.

It would be big news if smoking bans really hurt the bar business; that news just isn't there. New York City and Los Angeles bars have been doing well for years with smoking bans.

This belief that smoking bans hurt the bar business is largly a knee-jerk reaction. Where there are problems, those problems are only temporary.

Again, the South Beloit situation stems from a pro-smoking lobby in Wisconsin. We should put the blame where it belongs.

Your reason to why it's hurting S. Beloit would make sense. On the same token, I'm sure Beloit bars are doing very good (from the IL business). It's dificult to say if it has hurt business in the broader IL area. No hard data is yet out on that, and just siting what some article says is only speculation.
The ban (in IL) has only been into effect since Jan 08. I'd be curious to see what many bars report the next fiscal quarter or two. My gut feeling would be that it will hurt many of them. Most smokers are pretty adament to smoke when going to a bar. My guess is that many smokers will simply stop going to those bars now that smoking is banned, and will simply have private clubs/house parties to get around the ban. Like any ban, most just find a way to get around it.

The proper change is coming about by way of the people using the government as its insturment.

You should be worried about your health re: secondhand smoke. Support the ban: improve your lot in life, come on over from the dark side.

Then make them by talking to the owners, if they are truely non smoking owners/bartenders they are more than willing to change for a large group of patrons.

On the other hand there are more smokers who own bars and more smoking bartenders. The entire time This running arguement has been going on idk how many bars I been at that over half the crowd over the course of 5-6 hours was smoking.

South Beloit.

People who don't smoke and people who shouldn't smoke made those busnesses.

If the border town bars are having trouble, it's because smokers aren't being loyal to the bar owners and the employees of those bars. Also, in the case of Beloit, the problem comes from the lobbing of a small pro-smoking group, the Tavern League.

The right to have smoke-free public places is the liberty at issue here.

There is a difference, smokers made those establishments. Like every other place you have to influence the owners to cater to your rights and liberties. Since its their rights and liberties your stepping on.

If those non smokers are coming out en masse to support the bars then there would be no issue of bordering towns losing business.

Since there is a place for smoker to go and enjoy their rights and liberties, it shows the frailty of the ban.

Its sad non smokers feel "forced" to opress groups from public places.

coast,
Thank you for your oservations. This is proof that Wisconsin will become the ashtray of the midwest without a smoking ban (Minnesota has a ban also). As the article suggests, a smoking ban will not harm businesses in the long run.

Just avoid the fact that smokers have removed my right and liberty to breath clean air in an enclosed public place.

Just avoid the fact that people want to smoke in bars then... just remove rights and liberties given to us all when this country was founded.

coast2coast, I'm not being cold about someone's business problems. But I'm in Illinois and Chicago a lot and from what I've seen and heard, the smoking ban in Illinois and in other states is not hurting the bar business.

South Beloit's situation could be an exception. That problem comes from the fact that smokers who use to smoke in bars there can just cross the stateline into Wisconsin and smoke in bars here.

The pro-smoking Tavern League here is the problem.

gazettefan:
I'm not to firmilar with the battle that is going on in WI (I'm pretty new to the area). All I am saying is that I know that in IL it has hurt many businesses there. I really don't have an opinion on the ban one way or another. If the public wants to use their elected officials to pass petty legislation, then more power to them. I'm just saying that's is easy to be against something if it doesn't effect your means of making a living; as it has many local business owners where I use to be from.

See gazettefan they have had this battle once and they are still fighting it. its called pro-life pro-choice.

Go figure which one is currently winning....

coast2coast, The South Beloit problem is caused by a PRO-SMOKING lobby in Wisconsin interfering with the statewide smoking ban.

coast2coast, the problem isn't that Illinois has a smoking ban; the problem is that Wisconsin DOESN'T have a smoking ban.

It's still being worked on here in Wisconsin; when our ban gets enacted then the playing field will be level.

On a side note; those who said that's it's all about $$$ are right on. They will never ban tobacco because they are totally relying on the tax money it generates, and they don't want to raise other taxes even higher; as we are all ready in the top 5 of highest taxing states in the country.. This is why I think they should legalize all drugs. It would be a major windfall for the state coffers when you tax it, just like they do alcohol and cigarettes...The taxes have got so extreme now, that the organized crime aspect that was mentioned by someone, is all ready coming into play...
Another friend of mine from S Beloit was offered $50K just to run cigarettes across the boarder (avoiding taxes, of course). The cigarette black market is all ready in full force. The legislators love to tell people how dangerous smoke is, but they sure love that $$$$ they get off it even more...I suspect the state will see a massive decline in the cigarette revenue next fiscal year, and where do you you think they will come to get that lost money from??

I wonder how much this ban will cost businesses in Janesville? I lived in S Beloit for many years, and IL has passed a state wide smoking ban in all businesses. A friend I know down there, who owns a bar/restraunt said his business has lost about 20% revenues since the ban, and he'll probably be forced to close down if things don't improve. I guess it's easy to tell others what they have to do, if the decisions don't effect your means of making a living.

Those non-smoking bars are confined to Haeight-world nicely tucked-away in Haeight's noggin, or no farther then the confines of the eight by ten room he occupies at his mum's house.

Jack Kerouac used to be drinkin' partners with his own mother, the very idea makes my blood run cold!

Haeight,
Where are those non-smoking bars in Janesville?

That was the most incomprehensible ramble I've ever read.

He's drunk from drinking on "mum's" birthday!!!

This blog has to do with the fact that toxic fumes from tobacco smoke can be kept out of a public place like a bar. Keeping those toxic fumes out of a bar will come with a statewide smoking ban in Wisconsin.

It is a health issue.

It is a a safe workplace issue.

It is a choice issue that will have the people of Wisconsin choosing to ban smoking in bars; the people will use the government to enact that choice.

There needs to be a BAN on producing cigarettes/cigars in the U.S. to go with a ban on smoking. A fact that it's NOT good for your health, combined with affecting other people's health makes smoking a big NO. Certainly, Children don't need to deal with messed up health because a parent smokes. Enough people DO care about their health to support a ban. Smokers, you'd think, would wise up and agree with a ban since their health is important and it'd save them money and healthcare costs. I'm guessing people will fight the ban if they smoke because they have completely lost the awareness of how they negatively affect others and themselves. And they don't care enough about themselves (they smoke) so they won't care about others.

Smoking is legal. They allow it to be made and sold and taxed. So stop producing it or let everyone smoke where ever they want. if you hate it so much stay home then you have no gripe about being in a stinky bar drinking where you are probably getting drunk and breaking the law driving drunk and running me over! Get over it or stay home!!

The Wisconsin Tavern League has continually managed to stall even a VOTE on a bill...maybe so the Wisconsin border towns can can benefit from the bans in Illinois and Minnesota? That means even more smoke for those that work in Wisconsin bars.

The South Beloit problem comes from a PRO-SMOKING lobby in Wisconsin interfering with the statewide smoking ban.

lvlssk, the problem isn't that Illinois has a smoking ban; the problem is that Wisconsin DOESN'T have a smoking ban.

It's still being worked on here in Wisconsin; when our ban gets enacted then the playing field will be level.

I just want to say as a bartender in S. Beloit, IL, that the smoking ban has tremendously hurt our business. Most people now drive 500 yards over the border so they can light up inside the bar. A lot of places do not have the option of or space to put in an outdoor patio as the woman in the article recommends and hello!! it's below zero here in the middle of winter...I don't understand why something like retrofitting exhast systems or requiring smoke eaters can't be given as a choice to the tavern owner. Let the owner(who pays his/her taxes) decide whether to become a smoking or non-smoking establishment and then let the customer decide which one they want to frequent or work at. I think that freedom of choice has become lost in a big way.

It is about 2.5 months since this all started, and I see that smoking in an enclosed room is still being equated with environmental pollutants and harm done by alcohol.
I'm still living in a large city that has a ban on smoking in ALL buildings used by the public, and no revolution has happened yet. People still smoke outside, or in their private vehicles or in their own homes.
This city has an excellent mass transit system, which is used by most people, so there is a lot less air pollution from vehicles. Hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles are more the norm here.
While this country is as capitalistic as the US, we have universal health care. Infant mortality is less, and life expectancy is longer here than in the US. If having universal health coverage and smoking bans make us look like the government is more intrusive, there are other freedoms here that far outweigh the government's ability to provide health care to all people. The laws governing marijuana are less restrictive, and prostitution is legal as long as it is not contracted in public. Escort services are a legitimate business. Gay marriage carries the same status as heterosexual marriage (and society here has not become unraveled!). This speaks to me of a government that is less intrusive into personal freedoms. (I read a lot of blogs here, and am covering them all at once here ;-) ).
My biggest concern now is that Alberta is a HUGE source of oil, bound up in sand. It has required a large clear-cutting of trees and the methods available now to extract this oil emit large quantities of CO2. The American oil companies extracting this oil assure us that they have, and are working on better, technologies to drastically reduce the CO2 emissions. Canada did sign the Kyoto agreement, but will be in danger of violating the treaty if this is not fixed.
By the way, Canada is by far the largest oil supplier to the US, and has more untapped oil than the Gulf countries.
To sum up, I think this country's concerns for health, and pollution reduction, are tilted more toward people, and seem to be working well.

I don't agree with your opinion (and that's all it is, at this point) that there will be a "slipery slope", so I have no reason to talk about alcohol consumption. You have no idea how I feel about alcohol consumption, since I choose to stay on topic. I am simply correcting your error that anyone is "endorsing" alcohol.

1. There's a difference between a room having tobacco smoke and not having tobacco smoke. Tobacco smoke in a room makes the room unhealthy.

2. This problem is prevented if tobacco smoke isn't allowed in that room (people can't light cigarettes etc.). A smoking ban makes the problem immediatly preventable.

3. Problems with other pollutants are more complicated and lack the simplicity of a ban on smoking.

4. People enact their will by using the government as an insturment.

Then the truth finally comes out. One only cares about the issues he doesn't like and the other doesn't read.

Here is the shorty

1. smoking ban in all places, bars and restaurants specifically mentioned.

2. the reason is concern for public health

3. cancer and other health risks cited as well as increased health costs.

4. blatantly states its the governments responsibiliy to regulate public health concerns.

So, it seems bars where alcohol is served is mentioned. If you read my prior posts you would see that both are just as bad as the other but one is being condoned, at least for the time being. If you read you would see lower health care costs for smokers, albeit you don't like the reason why. Accept the fact that smoking has been an informed decsion for the vast majority.

I show where alcohol causes cancer and creates just as much monetary damage as smoking. Yet you are trying to split hairs on health issues. You lay the groundwork to undermine our rights in more areas than the small corner of the world known as smoking.

Meanwhile you sit there in ignorance of that fact, overjoyed that you "think" your winning an arguement. In essense the government has handed you your own rope to hang yourself with and your so happy you don't want to or can't realize it.

Haeight,
I have read no "ENDORSEMENT" of alcohol use, to use your word. You are the only person bringing up alcohol use as another straw man argument. Certainly the article above doesn't mention alcohol. All of the alcohol related posts by other people have been in response to your innacurate comparison of drinking VS. smoking.

Banning smoking in bars is a PARTICULAR public health issue that has my interest.

Again with your projection, you been holding public health up like a torch. Your just as dirty as the next person on the public health issue. So I will ask you again, what say you?

The topic is banning smoking in public places, especially bars. Other kinds of pollution are important topics but they are not the particular topic of this blog. Bringing in the other stuff is off the point. You bring in the other stuff because you can't effectively deal with the topic at hand.

You tend to start posting about offtopic remarks or repitition when you have nothing to say. Too bad public health is the topic, since its the fuel for this fire. So what say you?

I copied and pasted from below the Gazettextra's 8th rule of blogging here.

Stay focused. Keep on the story's topic.

Unfortunately I have more than just one point to make. Had I went with flippant one liners this article would be in the thousands of posts.

I just fail to see how you can claim an interest in public health while clearly supporting the opposite by endorsing alcohol use. Not to mention any of the other things I have brought up like pollution, where you claim there is already legislation for it, clearly it is not very effective.

But its time better spent arguing over rights and liberties than anything of substance like pollution that might affect change on a global scale instead of this small corner of nowhere. right?

If you stuck to the point your posts wouldn't be so long and you wouldn't be p.o.'ing minu.

Pardon me while I insert words into your mouth...

Just because I stopped talking about choice, laws, pollution, or any other issue I have brought up doesn't mean I have given up. It means I have reached the end of that part of dismisal of this bill. About the only time I reiterate my comments are after a few weeks when you decide to bring things up again or use posts out of context.

I did not think you believed in choice, you wrote it off every chance you had. With this alcohol and cancer article along with all te other alcohol articles I have posted are in an effort to show you the public health risk. The cost of alcohol related accidents, deaths, and health costs are on par with the costs attributed to smoking. Your pushing for bans using public health as the motivator, then you had best accept the consequences of your actions.

I hope in your rush to advocate this ban your not ignoring the groundwork your laying for the removal of rights and liberties we all share. Which once you open start legislating in the bet interest of "public health" you stand to lose many more battles than just the one you wanted to win at all costs.

Nobody smokes forever. It's just a matter of how you stop.

At least switch to the short ones. Then you'll be ready to quit altogther when there's a statewide smoking ban in bars in Wisconsin.

no - i smoke a lot, but i just meant i dont plan on smoking forever. i just dont want to quit right now. and who isn't better looking than that guy?

Glad to know you don't smoke that much. Some people can do that, most smokers can't. Good thinking on staying away from that other stuff.

So you're saying as a chick, you're better looking than the stalker on the other blog is as a guy.

btw, it's "marlboro".

and who said i was smoking to the point of cancer? i enjoy it for now, and it's better than doing drugs. so let me be before i turn to cooking up a meth lab for a fix. too bad i am too narcissistic to become that ugly.

You should switch to those short Marboroughs, they'll cut down on the tar in your lungs, and put off the time till you get emphazema and cancer.

The people who leave the mile-long posts are the ones in your camp, they're are on a chronic nicotine frenzy.

sweet, thanks. then can you swing by the store and pick me up a carton of Parliaments?

minu...., we're going to have a conference regarding your request and then we'll get back to you.

i like smoking. so stop writing 5000 word essay comments that no one even wants to read.

When you're done being bewildered, tell us what your point is.

WOW, all these posts about "smoking", but no more than 52 posts where someone killed another person driving recklessly and got away with it...All I can say is ......wow.

What ever happened to your "choice" issue? Has the continuous wave of smoking bans finally informed you that "choice" is not working your favor? Is that why you're on the strawman baloney of: "A person is a hypocrite for wanting smoking bans in bars but not everywhere else."? Tell us how a total smoking ban can be accomplished. We already know how banning smoking in bars IS being accomplished.

Still can't read a whole post even when its short can you? Since my first post I have attacked the various "virtues" of this bill, you have yet to refute any of the evidence I have linked, other than many weak remarks about being off topic. Or you start complaining about repetition.

More fuel for your arguement that public health is the reason you want bans. No, I don't mean just smoking you have to go all the way on health issues. If you don't the next person will, once you blindly set a precedence.

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/canc...

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/healthy...

Haeight, what ever happened to your "choice" issue? Has the continuous wave of smoking bans finally informed you that "choice" is not working your favor? Is that why you're on the strawman baloney of: "A person is a hypocrite for wanting smoking bans in bars but not everywhere else."? Tell us how a total smoking ban can be accomplished. We already know how banning smoking in bars IS being accomplished.

kiow...I know what conservatism is supposed to be. The execeptions you give are merely proof that liberals and conservatives have to be somewhere in the middle for a society to function. You should give some attention to your hard Right insults; if you do, you will notice that your mentality is only a variation of the mentality of the hard Left. They are the same thing with slightly different faces.

Liberal Republicans and Conservative Democrats are not failures of their parties. They are manifestations of the fact that all progress and stability comes from somewhere in the middle and not from people who call other people Nazis.

It's the middle that will dispense with smoking in bars. That's why I mentioned the words "liberal" and "conservative" in my earlier post. Where did you get the idea that a smoking ban in bars is an exclusively Left or hard Left desire?

Banning tobacco: All tobacco should be banned but it probably never will. Leaving it legal will avoid the problems of Prohibition. Banning smoking in bars and allowing smoking at home is the middle ground.

The impossiblity of banning tobacco altogether does not preclude banning smoking in bars: Health Codes, Public Place, Will of the People.

And there is this: Banning smoking in bars will encourages smokers to quit. Banning smoking in bars goes in the direction of fewer people smoking anywhere. This is a practical way of diminishing the use of tobacco. It's somewhere in the middle.

Sorry I always forget to include the explaination when I make short posts. If the government wants to regulate in the interest of public health, then they should stick to their assertion in the above article. They want all or none on a ban and cite public health, if they do care about public health they should make it illegal.

Anything less is as kiowamohican stated, political chicanery. In the wide an varried factual assualts on this proposed ban I lost sight of that piece of the article, thanks.

Hey, knock yourself out! You are welcome to push for the total ban on tobacco. Wouldn'y bother me. I'll be satisfied with the ban as written, though, since it's more realistic than your tired straw man argument.

And calling someone a Nazi isn't an insult?

Well at least you two have not given up the art of projection. If you derive such a large sense of well being from protecting public health, then you should go all the way right? Instead of prolonging the suffering of individuals you are "trying" to protect.

Making it illegal accomplishes every objective you claim to support. I am all for making it illegal it would validate those years and years and BILLIONS of dollars the government spent on studies. Provided you buy into the largest cause of all the illness atm is smoking, they would be 100% justified in removing its bane from society.

I am just amazed that you can still post with out tossing more than an insult and believe you have made headway on any front.

It is about public health, and nobody is suggesting a total ban. Smoking will be banned where it does the most harm; in enclosed public spaces and work places. Small moves, grasshopper.

g-fan: In general conservatism is for less government. Of course there are exceptions for anything. Many republicans are simply NOT conservatives (ie: Nixon, McCain, Shwratzinager, ext). Just as many liberals are not Democrats. That is the common myth....

All the smoke Nazi's still fail to answer the basic question..Why should tobacco not be banned? You make this public health argument, which is a legitimate argument. However; if it's such a huge public health risk then your argument should be to ban tobacco completely. You can't have it both ways, and say it's a public health risk, yet allow the substance to be legal. Substances that are true public health risks (asbestoses, ext) are banned from use entirely, and rightfully so.
To Robson; and most all you smoke Nazi's, it has nothing to do with public health. If it did you'd be calling to ban all tobacco in the name of public health and safe working environments. Instead you want to have it both ways, and ban it in public places, which plays great to the general public. As the majority of the public does not smoke and loath the people who do. While you still cash in on the massive revenues it creates from the poor working class. And yes; a much greater %age of lower income people smoke then do upper income people.
So please don't give me this nonsense that it's about public health. it's all about political pandering to the masses, and cashing in massive revenue in the process.
This is my final post on this discussion. All you smoke Nazi's can carry on how you "won" the debate. The only thing your thoughts have proven to me is that most all of you (the ones calling for anything short of an all out tobacco ban)are all a bunch of disingenuous phonies.

kiow,
Obviously the term "straw man" was lost on you. Let me explain. You (and Haeight) propose a total ban on tobacco as the ONLY solution, because you know it will never happen. You create the straw man (total ban) so you can easily knock it down, leaving no other solution. This tactic defies logic, and fails every time.

It's a shame your tone is both arrogant and condescending. However, I won't make the same mistake by attributing your tone to all conservatives.

Well, Zoom, it was no problem shutting down that little uprising.

Haeight, your two claims: Banning smoking in bars corrodes our freedom; and banning smoking in bars can only come with curing every pollution problem show that your thought processes are flooded. Slow down! Make distinctions!!!

Haeight, you still have trouble with making distinctions. Make distinctions!!!

Haeight, try reading this one word at a time:

The "slippery slope" idea has hit the bottom of its own slippery slope.

kiow....., your need to respond with insults instead of clear reason is a fine example of how the hard Left handles debate. You're not as far away from them as you think.

This has been said before: Many things that are legal in one venue are or should be illegal in other venues.

The people use the government to enact health codes. Try to grasp the meaning of this!!!

kiow....it's a myth that Republicans and conservatives are not for big government.

"Who's being naive now, Kay?"

No problem, glad to help you on the obvious!
The clear answer is to ban tobacco entirely then. Obviously it's a major health hazard if it's providing such unsafe work conditions. You convinced me. Lets ban it; and start a "war on tobacco"...We'll create a huge government agency to crack down on all tobacco growers, much like they do marijuana. Granted we'll have to find a new way to generate all that lost cigarette tax revenue to support all the other big government programs, but no big deal. Our cause is righteous, we are protecting the the health of our fellow man, and providing a safe working environment.

Actually I never once claimed smoking was pollution free, I do point out there are many more pollutants EVERYONE is exposed to on a very common basis above and beyond their limited exposure to smokers. If you can't figure out you suck down more pollutants driving your car, sitting at work or working in a factory, then I feel very sorry for you. By and large any ailment you get you attribute to smoke such is the stigma of society surrounding the issue atm.

The only true cure to your smoking problem is to have it made illegal, removing the right or liberty from everyone to use it. Of course you probably forgot I suggested that on the very 1st post, I would be much happier if you made it illegal. Then it would not give anyone in a seat of power the road map to remove all rights and liberties we have. Something you all just don't understand and I have been trying to relate to you.

Businesses are required by laws to provide a safe working environment for their employees. The ban will do just that. Yes, I'm talking about using (or not allowing the use of) a legal (though harmful) substance on private property (a business). Thank you for stating the obvious.

Your (and others) typical straw man argument about banning tobacco entirely contradicts your request for "freedom".

That is the greater issue here for all you who think it's a major public health risk. If it's such a huge public health hazard, then all tobacco should be banned in the name of public health. Of course that will soon lead to banning alcohol, fatty foods, ext ext ext. Go for it though, protect your fellow man and his/her health and well being. You all know best.

No; your talking about using a legal substance on private property. If it's such a hazard, then ban the substance. Of course you big government Marxists would never do that because they rely on this "toxic" substance for huge tax revenue. Child labor laws, and all the the things you site have nothing to do with property rights, and moot to this particular topic.

hhhmmm...would you also call the following "infringement on freedom and property rights"?

- regulation of child labor.
- uniform health codes.
- institution of the 40 hour work week.

So, by your line of thinking, all labor laws are the "epidemy [sic] of arrogance and condescension"? The smoking ban is, in part, a labor law to protect workers exposed to toxic second-hand smoke.

Nixon a CONSERVATIVE???..Have you lost your mind? That's like saying McCain is conservative! Please read your history before posting such utter nonsense. Nixon was a big government liberal. He created the EPA, and more government regulatory commissions, that would have made Trotsky proud. I think you are making the common mistake of saying a Republican is conservative.

See the problem with you big government liberals is that your a bunch of gutless wimps. If you have a problem with smoke on private property (a bar, restaurant, ext) then take it up with management. If they continue to allow it..Gee here's a thought..DON'T GO THERE! Instead you cry babies go off whining to your savor, big daddy government, and you end up with all this infringement on freedom and property rights..
For the record I do not smoke, and would never allow anyone to smoke on my property. However; it is the epidemy of arrogance and condescension (aka liberalism) to tell someone what they can and cannot allow on their own property.

Haeight, your thinking is: Let the smoking problem persist if we can't handle all the pollutant problems at once.

This blog is about the particular problem of tobacco smoke.

You persist in your resistance to see the perculiar nature of tobacco smoke as a pollutant and a problem that is remedial.

Richard Nixon, a conservative, created the Environmental Protection Agency. Consistent with the meaning of the word "conserve" or "conservative" is the act of conserving the quality of the air in a building to be at least as good as the air outside the building.

It is a liberal act to make a public place healthy and inviting to the people. This is accomplished voluntarily or by the will of the people utilizing the government as an instrument to enact its will e.g. a smoking ban in bars.

This issue really defines if you are liberal or conservative.
If you believe in individual freedom, liberty, and property rights which in turn would allow a business to determine on their own whether a LEGAL substance can be used on their own property, you are conservative, and are totally against these bans. If you believe in a nanny state, big government, cradle to grave control over your life and individual freedom, then you are liberal, and all for these government imposed bans.

LOL

I am all for regulating public health, provided they attack it from the top down. Meaning you have to start where there is the greatest overall impact to health not just where you have a bone to pick. That being said you have to start with pollution, coming from industries and cars before you can start screaming at smokers. Since you have to rule out all forms of air pollution to arrive at a true cause of illness, you have to start with the biggest forms of pollution that affect health. As well as the forms that are most likely to be exposed to the masses.

Its far more likely the general public health is affected by pollution and overall air quality than the off chance they get exposed to smoke, be it from cigarettes or burning leaves, grilles or any slew of other things mentioned through out this post. All of which give off the same chemicals as lit tobacco products, minus maybe the nicotine. Everything grown absorbs the nutrients of the soil its grown in, there are trace amounts of just about every element no matter where you go.

The limited areas smoking tobacco is allowed removes the arguement that it causes as large a health concern as the public is lead to believe. Non smokers don't stick around a smoke filled bar, smokers do, so smokers get just as much 1st and 2nd hand smoke as anyone. This is one more reason to let all smokers sit in their own establishments while the nonsmokers enjoy their non smoking bar on the other side the street.

While I hope your not too offended nursingstudent, I previously admitted smoking is a trigger for people with asthma and other illnesses. I do not accept that its the sole trigger, while dust/fine particulates can exist for who knows how long in an area that allows smoking and any movement can stir up that debris to aggravate those conditions would that not be considered the icing on the cake from the general air quality like the car ride being exposed to exhaust from all the vehicles and the chemicals found inside of the very car your using?

Which brings it right back to bars being about the only place smokers really care if they are allowed to smoke, even if its only a percentage of the bars in an area that are allowed to be smoking. Its going to look real funny when your trying to go to a bar that don't serve alcohol, because people continue to fight for the majority rule in the name of public health. Who cares about liberty anyway right?

Im saving all the butts and ashes so I can dump them on the capitol steps when the health nazis get their way.

That is sad, is there more than one trigger for your daughter? Like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide emissions from vehicles that cause the same adverse reactions? I bring this up since its probably a larger concern than smoking.

Here are a couple links about what is inside a car and at the end of the MSN article it talks briefly about what is outside the car. Sad some people thought it was a joke when I brought it up previously.

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/asth...

http://healthycar.org/chemicals.introduc...

I have an eight year old daughter who has severe respiratory and cardiac problems. She has a disease known as pulmonary hypertension. Even being in an area that has been smoked in three weeks previousely affects her and can cause her oxygen saturations to drop, coughing, and pneumonia. We have to be VERY careful when we eat out or attend birthday parties, etc. What's difficult is when the weather is nice, we have to drive with our car windows up because if people are smoking in THEIR cars, the smoke can go into OUR car. So we never get to enjoy the nice weather while driving. Just something to think about when your lighting up and blowing your smoke out of your car window....

OK, melstew, I get the seriousnous of the problem. Some people are affected more by perfumes and cologne. I don't like any kind of chemical smells myself. Very irritating.

I didn't realize how serious it is with you.

so you dont find it serious when a person is taken to the emergency room with a severe respitory attack triggered from someone having to much prefume on and or a real strong perfume.yes second hand smoke is they say,you can ban those pesky smokers from places, but those people who put on all this perfume are allowed to sit and make someone physically sick. people just need to tone down a little when they are wearing it.

The overstatement of a similarity between two things is a distortion.

Talk about arguing with the uncomprehendable!!!

LOL
I have made more progress arguing with a deaf mute than I have here. If you are knowledgeable enough to understand the fine particulate issue, then you would realize the issues are one and the same.

Looks like we finally got rid of the pro-smoke people on this blog.

Yes, perfume and cologne are problems but not as serious as cigarette smoke.

...respiratory...

Respritory problems are probably not fun to deal with. Perfume/cologne and smoke are not the same, however. I'm sure once there is evidence that second hand perfume/cologne vapors cause cancer, they will be banned too;)

i cant wait until they ban wearing perfume and cologne in public places. people are complaining about cigarette smoke, but perfume and cologne are just as bad for me. ive had to leave resaurants because some women have to put on a quart of it to go out in public. ive been in lines where ive gotten sick to my stomach from the stench of it. i cigarette smoke is banned in pulic places because of health issues then i think perfumes and colognes should be also for those who have respitory problems. and one other thing heavy perfume do not cover up the smell of body odor.

You're right about the smoking, simondavid.

wow this section got a whole lot of comments
what i thought was good is that people shouldnt have to put up with firsthand,secondhand,or mainstream smoke whatsoever
i think that if people could learn how to deal with their addictions, because they probably have god knowledge but not intentions on using
nicotine gum,chew, or whatever
i say we should just ban it all in all
because nobody wants to go on a date smelling like stale cigarettes and whiskey
am i right?

Well said, call1

What I can't wait for is when they ban smoking around infants & toddlers. We non smokers have had to put up with breathing in smokers carcinogens for decades now because they (smokers) won't admit to them selfs smoking kills daily, hourly, every several seconds. Adults have the option to get away from it. Parents who smoke in the house with their kids, or in the car with their kids.. those are the ones needing attention. When my first son was born my wife smoked where ever she wanted. The day we brought him home from the hospital, she tried lighting up in the car. When i voiced my opinion (which we had talked about not smoking around our son before he was born, so she knew I wasn't going to go for it)..she says to me, "I'll roll down the window & blow the smoke out." I said, "the only way your smoking right this minute is if you get out & walk." I love my wife, but i wasn't going to let my kids have to deal with what i had to deal with growing up with a dad that smoked. Life's all about choices. When your hooked on something (Nicotine, anything)choices are limited, & they're getting slimmer. What's everyone going to do when cigarettes manufactures can no longer put Nicotine in their products (its coming)..

Yes, it's better to just chime in with an opinion.

I hope people caught the good news about the Fitchburg smoking ban.

I lol'd at the complaining about the complaining.

MajorMojo,

Smoking is harmful to your healht. Dont' smoke!!!

Wow, you people are still in here complaining. This story is over 2 months old, get over it already.

The original article should be titled:

LACK OF SMOKING BANS CAUSE DRUNK DRIVING FATALITIES

And for all you people who've been claiming that Madison bars are hurting because of that city's smoking ban being in conflict with Fitchburg, the article reports this happy news.

Fitchburg’s smoking ban started April 1, [2008]

STUDY REVEALS MORE SMOKING BANS ARE NEEDED OR A NATIONWIDE SMOKING BAN IS NEEDED

And the first part of the copy and paste job says the overall rate of fatalities is the same as it was before the bans. What didn't materialize was an overall reduction.

Most importantly, the study attributes increased drunk driver fatalities to knuckleheaded smokers who are driving greater distances just so they can smoke and drink in a bar.

All in all, the study reveals that smoking bans aren't the problem, but instead, the problem stems from not having statewide smoking bans or a nationwide smoking ban.

At a minimum, the "significance" of the first part of the copy and paste job is cancelled out by the last part it, which is pasted below.

Smoke Free Wisconsin Executive Director Maureen Busalacchi objected to linking the increase in accidents to smoking bans, saying people may travel to drink for many reasons.
“How in the world you would figure out where people are traveling unless you are interviewing them?” she asked.

The results were similar nationwide, except in New England, which has many smoking bans, Adams said. A wellenforced national smoking ban would get rid of the drunken driving increases because people would have no reason to travel to drink, he said.

The study didn’t include Wisconsin because Appleton and its ban covered too small an area and data collection started before Madison banned smoking in 2005.

Fitchburg’s smoking ban started April 1, and Eau Claire’s will start July 1. Marshfield residents approved a ban Tuesday that will become law within 30 days.

Study: Banning smoking increases drunken driving

Associated Press

MADISON
Enacting city smoking bans appears to increase drunken driving, according to a new national study of arrests by Wisconsin researchers.
Fatal accidents involving alcohol increased after communities banned public smoking, the study to be released by the Journal of Public Economics found. The authors attributed the increase to people driving farther to drink, either to a place with an outdoor smoking area or a city without a ban.
“The increased miles driven by drivers who wish to smoke and drink offsets any reduction in driving from smokers choosing to stay home after a ban, resulting in increased alcohol-related accidents,” the study says.
The researchers, Scott Adams, from UW-Milwaukee, and Chad Cotti, now at the University of South Carolina, said they were surprised by the results.
“We thought we would see a reduction,” Adams said. “Our first thought was, ‘Throw it away, it must be wrong.”’
But it wasn’t, he said.
The study looks at highway fatalities from 2001 to 2005 involving at least one driver with blood alcohol content over 0.08. It compares those in cities and counties with bans to crashes in surrounding areas without bans. It found an increase in accidents after smoking bans were enacted, both in ban areas and near boundary lines.
Smoke Free Wisconsin Executive Director Maureen Busalacchi objected to linking the increase in accidents to smoking bans, saying people may travel to drink for many reasons.
“How in the world you would figure out where people are traveling unless you are interviewing them?” she asked.
The results were similar nationwide, except in New England, which has many smoking bans, Adams said. A wellenforced national smoking ban would get rid of the drunken driving increases because people would have no reason to travel to drink, he said.
The study didn’t include Wisconsin because Appleton and its ban covered too small an area and data collection started before Madison banned smoking in 2005.
Fitchburg’s smoking ban started April 1, and Eau Claire’s will start July 1. Marshfield residents approved a ban Tuesday that will become law within 30 days.

Wow, Haeight, you're really into this!!!

What's the big deal about may post from the past? Different kinds of health problems will be dealt-with in different ways in due time.

Don't go thinking you broke the back of my killer logic.

Eventually all the bars in Janesville will be non-smoking when the statewide smoking ban goes into effect.

Sucking on cancer sticks will be done in the basements of traveling smoking posses.

Please name the non-smoking bars in Janesville.

If a non smoker is so concerned about their health what makes them seek out the smoking establishments when perfectly good nonsmoking establishments exist?

Again with the claim that health care costs are lower for smokers. Yes, maybe it is over a lifetime, because smokers die sooner. But the ban isn't to reduce the health care costs of smokers, it's to reduce the costs of NON-smokers exposed to second hand smoke. I don't think non-smokers want to die sooner.

sound familiar? looks like you knew I would talk about a drinking ban.

gazettefan
Feb 19, 2008 at 9:51 a.m.
Suggest removal

We are deciding we don't want to be next to smokers; that's why the smoking bans are happening.

As for the other issues, the smoking bans are a good start.

warm, maybe making a statement that makes some sense here is in order.

I'll admit its only a way to find common ground and force you to consider the broader repercussions of this law. Since it can become a reality that your barred from drinking in public due to the health and cost issues attributed to it.

A single accident between a SUV and any other vehicle will likely result in the complete junking of both vehicles in todays vehicles due to the uniframe constructions and the fairly heavy reliance on plastic parts. Vechiles are made to compress in an accident to absorb the impact and save lives, the other side is that one good hit and they are more costly to repair than buy new.

The cost of an accident 30-50k per vehicle and that is assuming no injury. Then the costs of police and fire departments and of course the paramedics being called which can become a lot of money. So a single accident could carry a price tag of $100,000 as a light estimate, a cost absorbed by the insurance company which passes it out to everyone.

Well you pay insurance and its not covered by your insurance if you have alcohol in your system. Usually the victim foots their bill using their insurance. But if your not caught and arrested proving it was alcohol related then there is a chance you will still be covered. Smokers pay insurance too and they are covered and I already showed how the cost of health care is less for smokers.

The price is huge on alcohol related costs and public health just as much as smoker costs and public health. Who knows which one costs the public more. Personally I see more evidence of alcohol related accidents and hit and runs than I do from people being declared dead from cancer.

Strickly attaching the issue of smoking in bars and a ban for smoking in bars to the issue of consuming alcohol anywhere is your unwitting way of admitting defeat.

The only staw man arguement is that public health is different when dealing with different drugs that are legal. Considering there is a short list of legal drugs that people gather to use. You have smoking and alcohol. Both a public health risk so both will be taken care of given enough time according to your arguements that time will prevail on public health superceeding the individual rights to use legal drugs.

The only thing this proves is that when its something your doing to affect public health your very defensive, when its something your not doing to affect public health your more than willing to remove liberties from an entire group.

If your going to craft a law that bans a legal substance craft it in a way that caters to both sides. Otherwise your liberties that your so defensive about will be the next thing attacked, while people sit there and say time will prevail everyone knows alcohol is a public health hazard.

Not one of you can show me where a tavern makes sure every single person is safe to drive before they leave. Your all hypocrits for standing by one public health hazard defending its use even though it kills people instantly and not to mention the $ cost involved while condeming another that creates a health problem years and years from now.

Haeight,
You are the only one creating the straw man argument by bringing up drinking, nobody else. Alcohol and tobacco kill in different ways, so we have different laws, but apparently you can't make that distinction.

Unfortunately, anybody that posts here for the first time gets fed to the troll.

As far as drunk driving, yeah its illegal if you even have one drink you will end up in jail if a cop realizes you have imbibed alcohol charged with either OWI or DUI. But show me where in a bar people sober up before they leave to drive off into the night? Show me all those patrons who hang out til bar time and show me how sober they are to drive.

Now show me where the cops actually bother to arrest these people, or even try to police that law. Sometimes they pick up those staggering the worst, but overall there is a huge amount of drunk drivers leaving the bar to wreak havoc on the community.

That law your holding up as the holy grail that allows public drinking at best only gets enforced when the driver is caught. Even then there are countless hit and runs in the night, where the driver parks their vehicle in a garage and finds out what they did the next day and gets it fixed at some other time. Avoiding taking responsibility for what they did.

There are countless holes in your statement that because there is a law, it makes it safe to have public drinking. But your all gung ho that smokers as a group in a drinking society can't have a few places to continue to smoke away from non smokers...

Well according to the numbers of drunk drivers and alcohol related crashes and deaths it seems to be a very big public health issue that needs more legislation. That means in the interest of public health drinking is going to get banned from public use.

Having a hard time swallowing that? its the next step after they start removing liberties from public. You can't ban one thing on the grounds of public health without all other things being attacked once they start exercising the power you give them in removing the liberties of the public.

Or is it different when its something you don't care about versus something you do care about?

There is no way to determine who is going to get in an accident from alcohol, there is no way to determine who will get cancer from smoking. So lets use legislation to proactively ban everything deemed bad. That is what is occuring here, fear mongering.

tjncj, that's right.

The previous poster has trouble making distinctions.

Drunk driving is banned. It is illegal and you get fined/go to jail for doing it. The same will happen when you smoke in a public place if it is banned, you will be fined. They are not talking about banning smoking, only in public places. They don't have to ban drinking other than in your home, they make driving drunk illegal. A waitress can work in a bar and not risk disease from second hand drinking, it is the smoking that kills.

That is just it, every other thing deemed "bad" but still legal has health issues attached.

How else would u remove drunk driving, even alcohol related accidents from happening?

You ban them from everywhere except drinking in your own home.

If this law in any form passes while cigarette use is still legal, it lays the groundwork to remove all liberties deemed harmful from public other than inside your own home.

I have even shown where this law in its current form could be deemed unconstitutional. Yet you just sit there and claim public health is different when it applies to alcohol use than compared to cigarettes.

Put that into perspective, the drug that could kill you and others immediately, alcohol, is less harmful to be used in public than the one that might give you some form of cancer and kill you, cigarettes.

Well I guess when its said that way banning one but not the other makes sense, right?

Within the content of your last post is the reason for banning smoking in bars. EVERYTHING else is different enough to justify the peculiar nature of a smoking ban.

All health issues cannot be dealt with alike. The content and persistance of your screed on this blog reveals your disconnect as to how complicated life is.

If the sole reason for banning smoking is public health and the costs related to it then you should be banning all legal activities that result in putting the public health at risk and raising costs.

Since a single driver hitting a vehicle even after a single drink is considered an alcohol related accident. Then the cost of alcohol related accidents, the cost of insurance, and all other costs related to alcohol are at least on par with smoking.

You can not ban one legal activity on the basis of public health concerns without opening the door to having all legal activities banned on those same grounds.

My "apples and oranges" remark about drinking hurts everyone supports my belief that this lame attempt at a ban will do more harm than good to the rights of all citizens. Something your just not comprehending and rejecting outright because you fail to grasp the concept. The thought of getting what you want has blinded you to the way your getting it and how it can be applied to EVERYTHING.

Haeight, Apples and Oranges

Or if the two things aren't entirely different, a similarity between them would have you supporting a smoking ban alone if you believe banning alcohol makes any sense.

If banning BOTH alcohol and smoking would be good then banning smoking would be at least somewhat good and better then no ban on Both alcohol and smoking.

Instead, if you can't have it all, you want smoking in bars to persist. You are self-contradictory.

Your own "reasoning" undermines your complaint.

The reason that smoking should be banned in bars while allowing the consumption of alcohol to continue is because the two things are not exactly the same. This has been explained countless times here on this blog; and again by 4education below. You are selective with your reading while you generalize with your inappropriate comparisons.

Now you will revert to your inappropriate issue of choice without understanding that the only choice factor for this issue is the choice that the great majority of Americans are making. That choice accounts for the unstoppable wave of smoking bans throughout this country.

Ah but you can affect other people by drinking at a bar. Many people are affected by drunk drivers. Which gives the same arguement for drinking hurts everyone as much creedence as smoking hurts everyone.

A total ban is the only way to protect the public health right? So lets ban it all since it is apparently an all or none attitude. You have to ban all the bad things not just some of the bad things.

If I have a beer while sitting on my couch and then I go to bed, it does not slowly kill you against your will. A person's right to engage in legal and lawful habits that affect their own health is one thing, but infringing on another person's right to clean breathing air in a public place (be it a bar, restaurant, street corner, etc.) is what makes smoking a very different discussion than alcohol consumption.

Drinking hurts everyone

Ban the bars, then there is no smoking. You also manage to rid the city/state of a majority of drunk drivers and dramatically reduce the effect of 2nd hand smoke.

Its win win.

Then you don't have to pay higher insurance premiums for people who do get into accidents from DUI, then you have lower health care costs from apying for those hospitalized. It even protects the workers since they won't be able to drink on the job damaging their liver causing damage that might make it shutdown later in life.

Does that about sum up the article? I mean it achieves the same goals of the smoking ban but it also helps the multiple alcohol groups who want stiffer laws too.

The current wording of the ban opens the door to ban a lot of legal habits that have been deemed inapproriate outside of the home by the majority. Do the smoking ban right and make it illegal or make it so a majority of places are nonsmoking with a percentage of smoking establishments to cater to all sides.

I guess I have had it too easy explaining what a venue is to most people.

There are bars even in rock county that make people of another race feel very very unwelcomed. Some of it depends on the time of day. But you can even get the same treatment or worse wandering the wrong neighborhood at the wrong hour.

You just don't go there.

A smoking bar is one more place you just don't go if you don't like it. To say it again yes there should be more non smoking bars than there are, it doesn't mean a ban is the way to get them.

I am sick of your selective reading and not absorbing the other comments made. Instead choosing to only attack very select statements instead of the whole post.

to make it clear

smoking = venue

if your in the wrong venue, your going to feel very unwelcomed very fast.

I've lived all over this country and in several countries on the other side of the world and have traveled to some others, and I've never been refused service, and I do drink in bars, and had drank in several biker bars without a problem.

When you describe how others respond to you when you walk into a bar, I wondered if you're one of those people who wears his underwear on the outside.

If that isn't the case, what the heck are doing? Also, what determines your bar choice?

Wanting to do karoake on game night has something to do with banning smoking in bars?!!!

You are correct about "everything not applying everywhere". Your references, allusions, similes, and comparisons do not apply here.

Smoking Hurts Everyone

I thought that was apparent. I take it you have not been so well traveled to have met an unwelcoming committee, or more than once. As you walk in people stare, as you ask to be served they refuse, then the patrons proceed to tell you how much it would please them if you left while a few of their friends start to close in. Meanwhile they are telling you to leave and drive to the next place. They aren't there to hurt you, they are there telling you how very unhappy they are with your presence. Its not just race its also groups, some groups don't take it as far hence bikers being included. You can't walk in looking like a suit or square.

So like every bar there are many venues. Some cater to live bands, karaokee, sports, different races, bikers, the list goes on. Where is the problem in the smokers as a group having their venue in a bar? The smokers only establishments that cater only to smokers and those that could care less. If you think about it what non smoker will go to work in a smoking bar?

Your going to be the star of the next bar theater "tossed out the sports bar" in Minnesota if you pull into a sports bar and start up karaokee on game night. Its a matter of groups and weather you fit in. If you so gung ho about this smoking ban and being able to go anywhere, then you have not been everywhere. Since you would realize its not "everything goes" with everyone.

What's the point in and the truth of saying someone can't be served in a mexican bar or black bar?

What's it have to do with the harm that smoke does to people in bars? and a smoking ban?

Nice try Gazattefan, but just because he mentioned race does not mean his comments are racist. Like it or not, he's right. It's about freedom- both personal and in the marketplace.

Haeight, as goofy as your last post is, it got way, way out there when you resorted to racism!!!

That is city not state. Either way you cut it its a violation of rights. Its funny janesville has only managed a smoking ban for restaurants and not bars. Smokers while they dislike it aren't put off by it too much. But they do rush to leave not giving into things like desert or another bottle of wine or anything else an establishment has to offer.

It all amounts to being one step closer to removing other "bad" habits that a majority deems inappropriate. Which only validates the Drinking hurts everyone statement.

The easiest way to legislate smoking policy is to force a compromise. Where the amount of smoking and non smoking establishments have to be proportionate to area they reside. This means that 20-25% of all establishments would be smoking and the rest are not smoking. Where the smokers would line up to fill those jobs in the smoking establishments.

But you non smokers just can't handle the thought of smoking anywhere in public. I have given a few examples of it not being your right to be served anywhere you go, not limited by smoking. Its just one more group of society you nonsmokers have a hard time dealing with. By all means walk into a bar filled with bikers, a bar full of mexicans, a bar full of blacks, or pick a crowd that your not and try to get served... awkward isn't it?

Where is your legislation to be allowed to do your thing there?

On March 28, 2008 the Federal Court of Appeals reversed a lower district court's ruling that the city of Austin, Texas could not enforce a smoking ban in bars.

The Federal Court said that the city of Austin had followed all constitutional provisions.

The smoking ban in Austin bars is in effect.

Note that the Federal Court said that the ban imposed by the city of Austin followed all CONSTITUTIONAL provisions.

Once the narrow view that a smoking ban is in the best interest of everyone, then my title will be the next article.

Since the way that this ban is trying to be enacted will remove rights of the minority, it will be a non issue of removing the rights of drinkers who are a minority.

I thought you all would have picked up at least that much, removing yourself from the issue and looking at the way its written then applying it to all other "bad" choices in life that could be regulated.

Since the story is about smoking being harmful to everyone, it can't have that other title.

I has to have this one:

Smoking Hurts Everyone

The title of the story could be:

Drinking hurts everyone

then you wouldn't have to worry about the smoking at the bars.

The title of the story is:

Smoking Hurts Everyone

Haha Pizzaman! That definitely places a picture in the mind, erasing it now lol. It was the first example that made sense to me, so I went with it. As for myself, I am most definitely NOT a nudist and I don't personally know of any as I try to avoid uncomfortable dinners and get togethers.

Oh and I read the posts about Wiki and I think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Someoen simply stated their opinion on the reliability of Wiki and now you are acting as if they were on the floor throwing a tantrum. If someone rejects what you are using as unreliable, big deal, get over it and don't act as if they hurt your ego by rejecting it.

Haeight, it doesn't matter how many smokers or nudists I know or do not know..I was making a point. It doesn't matter how many are in a group, I was showing that nudists, as a group, may want their own place in public to go..maybe there just isn't enough demand, but just saying that if they wanted a place, they should get a place, according to your logic and the Bill of Rights as a supporting document to "smoker's rights".

I thought would check back into this blog as there seems to be less concern about the post count by all but a few. From what I read, Haeight is presenting a much better argument against a smoking ban than those who are for it. Remember that all citizens have rights not just the one's that don't like what someone else is doing. Someone posted that they wanted to be shown where it states in the constitution that people have the right to smoke but it goes both ways, where does it state that people do not. Between the mail/email I have received and all the people I have talked to, it appears that our silent majority is not being so silent on this subject and that most seem to feel that as long as it is posted that smoking is allowed in the establishment it is your choice if you want to enter it or not. That being said, that's how I will look at this when it is brought up the next time.

Haeight thinks we don't know that he only leaves those long pointless posts so that they'll push other posts off the screen.

Haeight, please don't tell us you smoke in the nude. Watch those hot ashes!!!

Peanut are u a nudist? How many nudists do you know? Me I know of none and all occurances I have ran into suggests most nudists live within their own communities. Meaning they went to a place to gather together with others like them.

This is protected by the bill of rights. Your about a month or two late on that topic where practically everyone decided it was easier to not read the laws and try to pass legislation anyway. there are multiple wiki links below. At some point someone had a fit about wiki info being unreliable, even though wiki states on each page if its been verified as correct. So I leave it up to you to figure out which source of the bill of rights and constitution you would like to lookup and read.

So your bill of rights that gives everyone the right to use any legal substance or do anything that has not been deemed illegal in public would fall under the 1st ammendment.It says the government can't create laws to govern religion, the press, freedom of speech, assemble peacefully in a group, etc etc. Until a barfight breaks out its pretty peaceful.

The 14th ammendment says the government on a federal and state level can't abridge the privilages or immunities of us citizens or deprive them of life liberty or property without due process. Liberty means 1: the quality or state of being free: a: the power to do as one pleases b: freedom from physical restraint c: freedom from arbitrary or despotic control d: the positive enjoyment of various social, political, or economic rights and privileges e: the power of choice
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionar...

Since its legal to smoke its legal to assemble in a group to do it in public. nudity is legal, nudists have been fined but its usually overturned in court away from public eyes. They have rights too, they just choose to exercise thoe rights where there are less issues with the public.

I deal with a great many things I don't eat in janesville retaurants due to the no smoking policy I choose to go out of town. I don't even smoke anymore but I refuse to embrace an economy that refuses to stand up for everyones rights. I don't deny there should be non smoking bars, I deny that everything should be non smoking. I deny anything that says it has to be one way only and tosses the rights of all others to the wind.

Whether they want the ban or not (some do and some don't), it would be good for them.

I already graduated dummy.
I never argued whether that was true. I just said the government doesn't care what the majority of bar patrons think. That's not what this is about.

Guy on the couch,

Of course my point was relevent. If the majority of patrons that went to a bar did NOT like sitting in smoke, then nonsmoking bars would get the most business. What part don't you understand? Maybe you should get off the couch and go back to school.

"Deal with not being able to set foot into everyplace on the face of the planet and having it be exactly the way you want it. So grow up and deal with it."

Maybe you could take your own advice. Please show me where in the Bill of Rights it guarantees a right to smoke. Just because nudists like to walk around naked doesn't mean that they're whining that they should have at least one place they're allowed to go nude in public. Sometimes we don't get everything we want and sometimes we don't even get a fraction of what we want, so I say you deal with it.

I agree gazettefan. I was speaking about Janesville, where there is no total ban.

cocktail,
That would be relevant if the government's goal was to make bars as profitable as possible. Unfortunately they're getting caught up in this thing called health.

I haven't heard of smoking ban violations where the bans are in place except for one business in southern Illinois. I'm sure that situation has been straigtened out by now.

Smoking ban violations will not be a problem. Sooner or later the violations will be reported and the business owner will face citations and stiff fines and eventually license revocation for repeat violations.

tickle_32,
I'm guessing that there are no non-smoking bars because the owners don't want to deal with the headache of policing the smokers that WILL violate their policy. Making a law takes the decision out of their hands.

And to repeat myself for Height, et. al., polluting the clean air of others with smoke in an enclosed public space is not a "right". A law will eventually make it illegal, just like it has in many other states, like our neighbors Illinois and Minnesota.

Part of the point of the story is that a smoking ban does NOT hurt the bar business.

A smoking ban in bars is one of the ways the populace uses the government to enact its will.

um...I don't have ANY facts to base this on, but rumor has it that opening a sandwich/beer shop was a problem for one local "entrepreneur"...

theguyonthecouch,

I revert back to the first part of my statement. If it were true that MOST people in a bar cared about their health so much, then in this capitalistic society we live in a non-smoking bar would be more popular than one that allows smoking. So based on supply and demand, there would be more non-smoking bars than ones that allowed smoking. Funny, haven't seen that around in Wisconsin or anywhere else around this country (including Seattle). Only places I find an abundance of non-smoking bars is where the local or state government forced it on them.

And regarding this article that was written, Sen. Robsen talks about the waiting list in Appleton for liquor licenses since they went non smoking. If it such a popular idea, why isn't anyone around here opening up non somking bars??

I am a smoker and I know there is no easy answer for this problem. I have no problem with no smoking in restaurants. I don't think any smoker should have a problem, as most of us don't spend more than an hour in a restaurant and it is the courteous thing to do. That being said, I am against no smoking in bars. Smokers have to have a place to smoke if they choose. Why can't there be smoking and no smoking bars???? That way, everyone can have a choice as to what kind of establishment they want to enter. I have the same amount of rights as non smokers and I get really offended when I'm in a facility that allows smoking and I get dirty looks from people when I light up. Where I live, we have 4 Laundromats, 2 of which are non smoking. I should be able to smoke in one of the 2 smoking facilities without getting grief. For what it's worth, I was recently in San Francisco, in which all places are non smoking, and when we went to a bar, we would just go outside to smoke, like everyone else. Wasn't a real big deal...just a pain in the butt!!!

True, and like I have said before if you want to fix the world then there shouldn't even be bars in the first place. Since there is a more immediate concern for public safety arising from drunk driving than the someday 30 year from now smoking related smoking death.

Its simply not the way our society is setup. You can't remove the rights of individuals and groups because they conflict with your personal view. Some people care less. Lots of people want to be in a smoking and drinking enviroment. lots don't but it don't make it right to wave a magic wand and remove their right to group together and drink and smoke now does it?

You have to leave it up to each persons ability to choose. It has to be left up to the owner to choose. Removing the choice removes freedom. Forcing a choice and displaying it still allows them to choose and gives you the abilty to choose to enter.

That is the issue at stake, choice. Once you remove choice and start tossing public interest around it opens the doors for a great many thigns to be taken away. I could make a stand and have bars taken away due to alcohol related deaths. I could have cars taken away because of pollution causing asthma attacks. I could have businesses that pollute shutdown due to acid rain destroying the air quality and enviroment and increasing risks of asthma attacks.

There are so many things that could be held up and paraded around as in the public interest that life as you know it would cease to exist.

What is so wrong with leaving it alone and forcing the businesses to post smoking or not? Then you make your choice instead of having "public interest" make the choice for you.

Haeight, regarding your comment, "I notice you didn't say he wished he stopped smoking." He said that years ago when he was diagnosed with cancer...the horrific pain came much later. But that was what Judy Robson was saying in her sentence: "As a nurse, I’ve seen the painful, debilitating toll that smoking takes on human bodies."

That really isn't the issue. The past is gone. The question is: What can we, as a society, do to stop the debilitating toll that smoking takes on human bodies? I think the answer is quite clear. If you want to "poop in your own nest", feel free. Don't poop in mine, though, please. We (Society) shouldn't have to die because you choose to kill yourself.

Its only going to work if they are all nonsmoking because the smoking bars will get more business is that the line of reasoning? Because that is about the only thing that is holding up getting your statewide smoking ban. NO one cares about anyplace else other than the bars. workplace buses you name it you can have it, bars no you don't get those. One dead bill later....

Well if the hold up is truely the smoking in bars then it shows a demand for those types of establishments. It shows a market and it shows are very large group your trying to oppress with legislation.

Now is circles right back around to an all or none attitude, where the non smokers can't accept a partial victory. Where they can't even get a partial non smoking conversion out of the bars. Its that or they just aren't accepting a partial conversion.

No matter what way you twist it your stepping on the rights of people. its not lawful. deal with a partial conversion, convert the businesses on a case by case basis. Get over your self righteous attitude about non smoking and the great benefit. There are plenty that don't buy into it. Deal with not being able to set foot into everyplace on the face of the planet and having it be exactly the way you want it. So grow up and deal with it.

The only thing that matters is that some people like the way that specific business is and that they support it to the owners satisfaction.

Everyone here is so dramatic. You fail to realize the truth of the matter, both sides have rights. you have to draw a line on who rights your stepping on. the only real way is to allow smoking and have it displayed on smoking establishments. Apparently the sign will need to be huge so you non smokers aren't offended when you walk into the establishment.

I notice you didn't say he wished he stopped smoking. People make their own choices. Smokers pay just as much for insurance as the rest of you. There are multiple links throughout this thread pointing out the overall health care costs of smokers is less than nonsmokers. So deal with the fact they picked their way to check out of this life. Would it be better is they slit their own wrists instead?

You sit here crying about how it should all be smokefree everywhere, when you are not in each and every establishment 24/7 and observing the crowds. They change you might end up with a huge nonsmoking crowd at night and a dominate smoking crowd during the day. There are huge flucuations in patrons through the course of a day and week. You want it all to just be about you and what you want. Instead of what everyone wants.

You gonna make a law that you have to be served at a bar? Just because you walked in doesn't mean that your wanted there. I been in places that are very racially motivated for patrons... your told to leave.

Your all blind to the reality of life if you believe you can legislate every aspect of society. There are places you go and there are places you don't go. Simply because you don't like the crowd maybe cause your a racist and its not the type of people in there you like. Maybe its because there are no men or no women in that bar. Maybe its because you don't like the old people there or that young crowd. Maybe you don't like the music.

Expect Haeight to cite Abe Lincoln's Cooper Union speech when the Ol' Railsplitter started out with:

Light 'em up if you got 'em.

I see this topic is still alive.
I tried talking reasonably on here, but it is like talking to a brick wall. There are people here that believe it is their God-given, Constitutional right to be able to smoke wherever they want and if you don't like it get the he11 off their planet. It is their right, and they are the only ones who have rights. Anyone who doesn't smoke should just get out of their way. Nonsmokers have no rights and you are not going to change their mind on that, pure and simple. This whole thing has just been laughable.

just to give my 2 cents: my father passed away almost exactly 2 years ago as a direct result of smoking cigarettes. One of the last things he said while he was still mobile was that he didn't think it was going to hurt so much, physically. Seeing him go from a very strong, independent man to a fragile "old beyond his years" man who was dependent on others for basic necessities was, for me, unbearable.

I realize that people would like to hold on to their "right" to smoke; however, it's not just an individual who is impacted. Insurance rates increase whether a person smokes or not based on the Actuary's findings...

and to the dismay, I'm sure, of gazettefan, I am speaking to the emotional side of cigarette addiction: while it is not easy to kick the habit, the people I have known who have successfully quit found that they are much happier and have a general overall increase in their quality of life. Things are more enjoyable and they tend to experience more self-fulfillment (at first for being able to beat a habit that had previously had so much control in their lives, and later a general contentment). Perhaps Screaming MeeMees will be a non-smoking establishment, as well...hehe

Wait'll haeight gets back. He's researching what the Magna Carta says about smoking in bars.

Uh, cocktail, yes they are. I go to the bar and I don't want to breathe smoke all night long. Alcohol itself is bad enough for me.

I am always outraged at this no matter what city it is in. We live in a capitalistic society. If it was more profitable to open a non-smoking bar, people would do it. People at a bar are not that worried about their health.

Zoom, good point. Why no smoking story in the Gazette?

Though a new smoking story would probably end this blog.

I pity the fool who smokes, got no time for the jibba jabba, bad for the kids, remember to stay in school and don't do drugs.

Thank you Zoom :)
I need to loosen up a bit on the grammar/spelling thing and I know I make mistakes sometimes, but the your/you're, there/they're/their thing is something I'll always have a hard time letting go of.

(their)

I'm also wondering why the Gazette hasn't written a story like the Beloit Daily News did, since this is there most-commented article.

...and katherine,
Business owners apparently had a say, if they supported The Tavern League, which is the lobby group that effectively stalled a vote on the bill.

It's been said before, but apparently some new posters haven't waded through the 600+ posts (nor do I blame them).

There is no inherent "right" to pollute the air with second hand smoke in enclosed work places or public areas. There is no Constitutional argument.

pvangalder,
Choice is a broad term. It has been discussed at length here. Choice of what?

katherine,
Government can and does regulate businesses. Drinking at 18 years old used to be legal; child labor used to be legal; etc.

Sorry King Haeight, I missed the chunk of the blog where you talked about having childhood asthma. I was busy that week preparing for exams and writing papers, so I'm sorry that I missed that part. I have read most of the blog and tried to keep up so that I am informed and not just spouting out my rear. As for your logic that someone should "bother" themselves with looking up the relevant information to be sure that the Wikipedia stuff is accurate, why should we?? As someone that wants others to take their arguments seriously, the cited works should be the most accurate and relevant the first time they're posted, not be in the form of some central directory...it is absolutely ridiculous to believe otherwise. You may claim laziness on the part of the reader, but I guess the part of me that wanted to go to law school at one time believes in getting evidence in the argument right the first time. I won't even get into the proper use of your, you're, there, they're and their in regards to credibility....moving on.

As for your argument that smoking can be beneficial in the event of an asthma attack, I had to read it again to be sure that's what you were saying and I'm still shaking my head. According to that line of logic, smoking should ward off asthma attacks shouldn't it?? Nicotine does not act as a bronchodilator as far as I know, so if you can point me in the right direction that will take me to that information, please enlighten me. I tried researching it myself, but everything I found contradicts that logic.

I could really give a hoot less if you smoke, but I really don't think bars should be exempt just because it is a bar. I remember walking around the Janesville Mall as a kid and seeing people smoking as they walked around the mall, but those places went non-smoking even though it was clear that many smokers shopped at the mall. I know that there is an argument about how smoking is not allowed in certain places because of flammability issues and whatnot, but it's the same in a bar. Personally, I find it humorous to watch someone try to light a cigarette as they're obviously completely trashed. I, myself, have been there and I am sure I looked absolutely ridiculous and I wonder how many things I have burned in the process of drinking and smoking.

since you haven't tried to smoke with asthma you really wouldn't know. Like I said I grew out of my asthma. Weather it was just my time or the fact I never stopped competing in sports making myself stronger and dealing with the inherent issues of exertion and the inability to breathe. it wasn't til later I started smoking.

While smoke can aggravate asthma in the form of 2nd hand smoke, directly smoking it while it does inflame the lung tissue has a more immediate effect of relaxing the muscles that are causing the spasms in the 1st place. So in effect even though its harmful it has a faster impact on stopping the attack than most inhalers.

Since its "bad" its not a prescribed method for defeating asthma attacks. Directly inhaling tobacco smoke is a much much higher concentration than 2nd hand smoke inhalation. Yes I know quite a few ppl who smoke and have asthma. They do have emphezema and other problems, but again choice.

I am still having an issue with the fact that the majority of you ignore freedom of choice. Rights when they are not used, are rights taken away. As history demonstrated for eons.

wow.. a nicorette gum ad $24 for 105 pieces from canada drugs... that is more per unit than a pack of smokes.

pvangalder, your boogie-man is in your brain. It's what's making you smoke with asthma.

Gazettefan-
No advice given-just a point that it's about freedom of choice. Take away our freedom of choice -what will it be next?

pvangalder, smoking with asthma! Great combo!

Your advice just cries out for acceptance.

In what way is the government hassling you?

What's the bottom line? Why don't the people who own the business have a say in whether they want smoking or non-smoking? Aren't they the ones who pay the taxes on the business? Pay all the costs? Oh ya right, they can put up a patio. That's if they have room for one outside and it might be warm enough for what, 5 months if you push it?
Doesn't the government tell us how to live enough? When do we say STOP. I'd just as soon they realize we have brains of our own and can make our own choices!!!

I was just released from the hospital today after having an asthma attack on Wednesday. It was my fourth such asthma attack since September (all requiring hospitalization).I am 50 years old and have smoked for probably 35 years. I have always been in near perfect health -good heart rate; good blood pressure, great cholesterol count, etc etc. And I still am in near perfect health except for the lung problem! -great heart rate, great blood pressure, great cholesterol count etc etc. Not until this last September did I ever have an inkling that there was a problem. Asthma attacks are the scariets things that I have ever encountered.Quiting smoking is a very diffucult thing to do but at this point I have no choice but to quit smoking. BUT I still do and should have a choice on where I wish to go out and spend my time and money. It is/was my choice to smoke -no one held a gun to my head. I will never change my opinion on whether the government should be able to dictate smoking "rules & regulations" on privately owned/family owned etc bars or restaurants. We all have a choice -if you don't like the smoke go somewhere else. But at least give me the choice to make that decision.

Wiki has made an effort about a year or two ago to regulate fact and fiction on their site and post when there is unverified information on their pages. you can find more detalied info if you bother to search for it yourself. The bulk of the copy paste from the wiki is refering specifically to excerpts from the actual documents. so deal with it as you choose. it does not nullify any of the data posted since you can go practically anywhere and dig it up. it just happens to be a central location.

As far as asthma yes, I had it growing up I out grew it yes my parents smoked out of the 5 kids I was the only one with asthma. Yes I have had major attacks.

I think you have not bothered to read the posts in this blog since I have covered your questions. I never said smoke doesn't affect asthma, I said its far more likely there are many other triggers your exposed to. Smoke being the one that tips it, if your dumb enough to enter into a known smoking enviroment. As well as the multitude of other factors such as ppl with poor hygiene and too much perfume, people with animals and them carring dander on their clothes spreading it everywhere. There are many indirect ways to be exposed to many of the triggers beyond just smoke by walking into a crowd. I can;t feel pity for those people who willingly expose themselves.

How hard is it for a asthmatic to find a smokefree bar? not very. How much more likely is it they get exposed to a plethora of other triggers before they are exposed to smoke from tobacco? Very likely. So I care not for the asthma card being played, its a weak attempt at sympathy.

Its like trying to feel sorry for someone knowing they have an allergic reaction to peanuts seeing them open a jar and wolf them down. It just don't hold water. By the wording of this bill we should ban peanuts from being sold in case someone has an allergic reation to them. Its a health risk, there is evidence that shows peanuts cause deaths.

Green is more of a fall color. I'd be sucking on pure oxygen right now if they let me do you even know the added health effects of 10-15 minutes of exposure a day will do?

blondeflutterby and hannah, great posts.

Yes, anyone can put anything on Wikapedia and if it's baloney it'll stay there until when or if someone corrects it.

Yes, nice irony with Haeight with the sucking on cancer sticks and breathing pure oxygen. Why oh why am I picture him flicking his Bic by next to that tank!!! Please don't do it, man!!!

Haeight, while I appreciate you citing sources, I have a hard time with citing Wikipedia as a credible source. Did you know that Google allows you to search scholarly articles and journals?? If I were to use Wikipedia as a source in a college research paper, I'd be downgraded because it is not considered a reliable source. I know this is not college, but I believe that in order for people to take your argument seriously, you must cite credible sources.

As for your sources on asthma (yes, I have checked them out), I side with you that smog and fine particulates have a big effect on asthma, but smoking plays a huge role as well. Have you ever had an asthma attack Haeight, or have you ever watched someone have a severe asthma attack that requires hospitalization?? I have. My brother has had severe asthma all his life and smoke was just one of his many triggers. I have recently started to develop asthma due to my smoking and I'll admit that freely. Do I believe the car exhaust contributes?? You bet I do, but I know for a fact that smoking does cause asthma and it brings on asthma attacks which are so not fun to have. I'd much rather be carrying around the latest designer purse than the latest designer oxygen tank.. Hmm..you think green is in this season??

Thanks. I see my mistake now. Another smoking blog started sooner and ended with about 92 posts.

Smoking is bad. No smoking in bars.

Well I was the 1st poster and I found it the day it was written. so there is your date and yes and there were 3 other smoking posts I think we had discussions in, I use that term loosely.

Did this blog and story really start around Feburary 6th. Seems like it started longer ago than that and that the earlier posts are missing? The Robson story has no date.

Yes voting :D I have a huge beef with the current standard, read the 1st post in this blog about fixing that. uh for ppl that hate trolling through posts its the last 1/3 of it.

Or to get Haeight to shut up!!!

While I applaud Judy Robson for her interest here I wish she would take as much interest in the Voter ID bill! Voter fraud is easy to stop. Just make it as hard to vote as it is to rent a movie from Blockbuster.

lol a google ad on this page about smoking

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?art...

Your saying that by supporting smoking in bars I am supporting the decrease of business in bars that have smoking banned?

Then yes. Since its a free country to patronize any establishment you choose. Its a free country to run an establishment as you choose, provided you follow the guidelines to maintain your license. Its totally up to the owners to run their business into the ground at that point. Sorry for you being in a city that is smokefree and all the smokers run to other citys. Just proves the niche smoking and taverns have.

This means that if nonsmoking has such widespread support there would be enough of you to convert those tavern owners into smokefree enviroments since its more profitable than catering to smokers. I know quite a few who want to go smokefree in the area and won't since they don't see enough nonsmokers pay them money.

The ball is in your court to make the world the way you want it, not through legislation through customer satisfaction. If service sucks you complain no matter where you go, if your treated like garbage you move on. Unless your one of those people that has to be told the hard way to leave.

Using laws to get what you want has a way of screwing you over later on. It also demonstrates the lack of foresight on a city/state level to kick smokers money to other cities/states. Its like buying foreign instead of domestic products, or buying cheap instead of quality products, You send your money away from your economy and support anothers, and you buy 10 cheapos instead of 1 quality part to get the same duration of use. Very infrequently do you get your money out of it.

"public places" means bars: more than one bar.

Also, if one of your arguments is correct: your support of smoking in bars is harming the business of those bars that are near areas that ban smoking in bars.

UH...?

None?

The only public place I stated I have any issue with is in taverns. Everywhere else can be smokefree I care not. Its all up to owners, its their business to run. They determine their patrons. In the next year You could get every single bar in the city to go smoke free if you had enough friends who where nonsmoking alcoholics to support each one of those businesses.

By and large smokers could care less about laws until they get told they can't smoke, by then its usually too late. Even this pigeonholed bill was drafted and put up for public forum over a year ago. Reminds me of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.

You should think about the damage you are causing by your support of smoking in public places.

Yeah too bad I link the info to back up my statements instead of tossing insults in an effort to defame.

What I've learned so far is that you talk like you've been dating Briarmoon.

All that confabulation.

Sad you might learn something. A link to something that I had brought up at some point in this blog... it relates to asthma.

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/asth...

The problem came from an unrepresentative small group of people, the very thing you've been railing out against.

I don't read your blathering posts if they are more than a few sentences. I doubt if anyone else does.

The current bans in place around the country can be overturned because of those laws. Problem is that it takes very specific instances to fight those bans. Mostly you have to be the owner of an establishment or have that owner on your side in the fight.

One of the non smoking supporters said he was looking forward to a democratic resolution to this, well there are many forms of democracy. You have to choose which form you would rather be apart of and keep in mind it will work for or against you someday.

It simply revolves around finding somewhere you like to be and not crashing someone elses party. Petty is as petty does, meaning one thing leads to another. You want smoking gone, even though I stopped smoking months ago, I want drinking gone from public establishments then. Hows that for petty? With your nonsmokers views of getting a smoking ban put into effect, a drinking ban will be simple.

Trying to enforce a smoking ban is political suicide its no suprise they ran away from the issue.

I can sit here and debate all day about previous posts and their inherent meaning, since the meaning has been lost on many posters and resorted to well something else. As far as the yoda character quote and the supposed regression later on in my post, that was deliberate, to show the futility of their line of thinking. But that reasoning was lost on folks I guess. This is why I chose not to post until this was well I can't say decided, since they ran away from the issue.

Before the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights protected individual rights only from invasion by the federal government. After the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted, the Constitution also protected rights from abridgement by state leaders, and governments, even including some rights that arguably were not protected from abridgement by the federal government.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Prote...

Note that the US Constitution states that the power comes from the people "We the people..." However, some argue that unlike a pure democracy, in a constitutional republic, citizens in the US are not governed by the majority of the people but by the rule of law.[45] Constitutional Republics are a deliberate attempt to diminish the threat of mobocracy thereby protecting minority groups from the tyranny of the majority by placing checks on the power of the majority of the population. Thomas Jefferson stated that majority rights cannot exist if individual rights do not.[46] The power of the majority of the people is checked by limiting that power to electing representatives who govern within limits of overarching constitutional law rather than the popular vote or government having power to deny any inalienable right.[47] Moreover, the power of elected representatives is also checked by prohibitions against any single individual having legislative, judicial, and executive powers so that basic constitutional law is extremely difficult to change. John Adams defined a constitutional republic as "a government of laws, and not of men."

The original framers of the United States Constitution were notably cognizant of what they perceived as a danger of majority rule in oppressing freedom and liberty of the individual. The framers carefully created the institutions within the Constitution and the United States Bill of Rights. They kept what they believed were the best elements of majority rule. But they were mitigated by a constitution with protections for individual liberty, a separation of powers, and a layered federal structure. Inalienable rights refers to a set of human rights that are not awarded by human power, and cannot be surrendered.[48] The Constitution of the United States was written to protect the inalienable rights of citizens from potential excesses of government, even if taken by majority rule. Inalienable rights are not granted by government, but by nature.[49]

Republicanism and Liberalism have complex relationships to democracy and republic. See these articles for more details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy

Well that just puts a damper on the day, doesn't it?? I guess I'll be able to say I was ahead of something for once when I quit before the ban is enacted. I was really hoping for a vote, but I guess money really does make the world go round.

That's it for tonight, smoking is bad for you, don't smoke!!!

But you knew that was coming.

The devil made me do it.

Your post was 666!!!

If you've seen one, you've seen 'em all.

Everybody loves a parade!!!

Sure it is. I never said it wasn't.
The silly part is that the proponents are the ones that shot it down two times in a row now.
But it makes for a good parade.

Good, then you're saying it's inevitable.

So is Christmas.

Bubs, I think you're right. The ban is still on the way.

One in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Perhaps smoking ban advocates feel that if Dems can hold their Senate advantage, gain the advantage in the Assembly, and get rid of Decker, they can get the ban passed and effective prior to January, 2011.

Seems to me the smoking ban advocates threw the baby out with the bathwater.

It looks like a bill never got to a vote.

The 2011 date would be the compromise offered by the Tavern League. Some compromise. Do taverns really need 2 1/2 years to get ready for a ban? No, all they need is a sign.

Zoom, did you get the impression that there is a state-wide ban that'll begin July 1, 2011? and what failed is the effort to get the ban sooner?

The story isn't clear to me.

The smoking ban is dead...for now.

http://www.beloitdailynews.com/articles/...

you smokers offend me.

Hey! Congratulations to pamdogbr549, blondeflutterby and gazettefan's sister, for trying to quit with Chantix (and enduring the side effects). It sounds like it is working well! Don't worry if you slip during your quitting time, just take it a day at a time.
blondeflutterby, I have been honored to work with pharmacy techs for many years now, and they have been like gold to me. I have seen the long hours, no breaks and rude customers we have both had to deal with, and I know it takes a dedicated person to put up with that!

Thank you. I know when we would go places where we couldn't smoke I could smell it in my clothes. Didn't like that smell. One reason we decided to try quitting. Also have grandkids I would like to be here for so they are my incentive to quit. Today we started the larger dose of Chantix so I am hoping I stop completely before the weekend. We are going up North and staying In a hotel. For once I reserved a non-smoking room. So I am sure that will help. Good luck to everyone trying to quit!!!!!

I've had horrible bouts of nausea with the Chantix, but I am willing to put up with it to help me quit. I wish you the best of luck in quitting, but I'll warn ya, your sense of smell will come back so strong. You will be able to smell how disgusting smoke actually smells..it's a great incentive to stay smoke-free though. Again, best of luck!!

pam... nice going. My sister started Chantix recently and says it's working.

My husband and I have smoked for many years. 1 week ago we decided to try and quit. Called the insurance company and they said they would pay for us to quit. Called the doctor and we both got a script for Chantix. I smoked 2 packs a day. I can now say after being on Chantix 1 week I am under a pack a day. This pill may not be for everyone trying to quit but I can say Cig's are starting to taste nasty and I am smoking less. I know this is off topic here but wanted to say I know smoking is addictive and I am hoping this med makes me quit forever. We have a good support network helping us through this. I know of the side affects and so far have only had headaches. Today is suppose to be my quit date and I failed and had a smoke. Was told thats ok. Work on tomorrow being quit day. I will quit.

Laser Therapy For Life

608 314 8516

You can trust them to work with you and go the extra mile to make sure you quit !

I know , I did it !

blondeflutterby, good luck with quiting. You are not off point. It's about time this blog has gotten around to dealing with methods for quiting cigarettes.

Hannah, I don't smoke. I don't know if it's okay to just put the phone number on the blog. Maybe not, cause it would amount to free advertising. Don't know. I'm going to Google the laser method on the net.

Thanks jsvlparkergrad, your kind words mean a lot to me as a tech and I'll miss all the great pharmacists I've worked with over the years. I am just finishing up college, so maybe choosing such a stressful time in life to quit smoking wasn't such a good idea, but I'm trying. That point brings up an excellent issue as well. How many potential employers would say no to me without so much as looking at my resume just because I smell like a dirty ashtray?? It may not be fair, but it is reality and I have accepted it and decided to try changing it.
As for the Chantix, I am aware of the issues surrounding the drug, but for myself, I figured that the benefits were worth the risk. Thanks Hannah for pointing out the laser treatments. I have recently heard about them and they seem to work for some people, so I guess if the Chantix doesn't work, the laser will be my next step.
I guess I'm sort of off topic, but wanted to respond regardless.

Yes, according to some, smoking addiction is a more severe addiction than heroin.

The substitutes at least take away the smoking aspect of nicotine addition.

There's another method that has something to do with laser treatment. Don't know the details. Maybe someone out there does.

Thanks, blondeflutterby, for pointing out this newest smoking-cessation drug, Chantix. I am familiar with the drug and was hoping it would be an excellent alternative to nicotine gum and patches (which, have been, in my experience, not very effective in smoking cessation).
However, unfortunately, it has been discovered that for some people, this is just not a very safe medication. The FDA has it under review now for its problems with suicidal thoughts and other mental and physical symptoms. Please see this site for more information: http://www.usrecallnews.com/
I do wish you good luck, blondeflutterby!
I know that pharmacy techs have a stressful profession and I know that you have made my profession a lot easier :)

Did you ever hear of something called Chantix?? It is a prescription that is used to help people quit smoking and that is what I am using. This "aid" contains no nicotine whatsoever and no drug that you become physically dependent on. Ready for this..are ya?? It works on the nicotine receptors in your brain so that it makes it less pleasurable for you to smoke thereby making it easier to quit. It is not a magic pill, however, as you still have to tell yourself no due to the mental addiction. So my question is, why in the world would Pfizer produce a medication that works on the physical dependence aspect of smoking if there was no physical addiction?? I know that this drug was not originally intended for smoking cessation, so before you go there, I already know. Sure, I've had experiences with people who become addicted to the gum or the patches, but they are the exception, not the rule. I have been a certified pharmacy tech for 10 years and I have spoken with many people who are attempting to quit and I agree with thekid when he says that there is not just one way to quit as each smoker has to find their own way.
Also Haeight, you contradict yourself by quoting Yoda "do or do not, there is no try" and then proceed to say that you "know at least 30 people that have "tried" to quit" smoking. So which is it?? Also, I'm curious to know what benefits are there to smoking in your opinion??? I would just really like to see it from your side as well and this will help me to understand why you are so adamant about fighting for it. I'm not being sarcastic, I would really like to know.

Nothing wrong with keeping this blog going if only for the reason that some day we might help Haeight come to his senses. Now he's tapping into the "wisdom" of a cartoon character. Maybe that explains what he's been doing here all along.

jsvlparkergrad, yours is a perfect explanation re: the addictiveness of smoking. There's a reason tobacco companies bemoan their lose of the ability to market cigarettes to kids. Except for situations like the stress of certain forms of military life, adults are usually too smart to take up smoking. Kids make the dumb mistake of doing so then the addictive nature of nicotine makes it a life-long habit.

At least, for now, Haeight's lost his Constitutionalitis.

I have still been "addicted" to reading this blog. Haeight says that "Its a mental addiction not physical. Something like 20 minutes after you smoke the nicotine has left your system. The need for a cigarette is a mental addiction to the hormones released."
That statement is not entirely true. Nicotine addiction is a physical dependency. Nicotine acts on receptors normally used by one of the main neurotransmitters chemicals in the brain that carry information between nerve cells. in the brain and nervous system (acetylcholine). The longer you smoke, the brain adds more receptors to keep the pleasurable feelings from nicotine the same.
Yes, nicotine is a "natural" chemical found in tobacco plants. Nicotine is in tobacco plants to keep insects away by poisoning them. It is a deadly neuro-toxin when given in high enough doses (that's why a person experiences nausea and other unpleasant effects when smoking for the first time).
Tobacco companies have refined their tobacco plants over the years to contain more nicotine, so that a smoker will become addicted faster, so as to maintain the need for tobacco products.
So quitting smoking is not just as easy as not going to the store to buy them. Nicotine addiction has been found to be more addictive than cocaine and heroin.
I am a pharmacist, and we are taught how chemicals affect the brain and the mechanisms behind addictions. So I am not on here just shooting off my mouth just to contradict Mr. Haeight.
And I am not coming from the stance of a person who has never smoked. I have smoked myself (courtesy of the Army, who practically gave away smokes when I did my 3-year active duty tour over 35 years ago).

by the time this convo ends maybe it WILL be legal for me to smoke some herbage. yo haeight to say that smoking cigs is a mental and not physical addiction is ignorant. im not sayin theres no mental addiction, but there are most definitely physical withdrawals if you stop, which most def makes it physically addicting. to say that no ones ever quit with help from the patch or any other aid is ignorant. i quit cigs cold turkey over two years ago, but that doesnt make my way the right way. it makes it MY way. you cant expect all people to accomplish things the same way you do and they are not less than you if they cant accomplish what you do how you do.

Ya think? Just cuz I can quote yoda I will "Do or do not there is no try."

Then you have to think about what it is your trying to quit.

If you cave in and buy nicotine patches and gum then you didn't quit. Your replacing one form of addiction with another.

Its sad that its marketed as an aid in quitting smoking. It works great they ain't smoking they just spend countless months, years reaching for that next piece of gum or patch.

There is no singular instance of me basing anything with quitting smoking off of. Everyone who ever quit for more than a year or two did it cold turkey. Every single one reaching for patches and gum went back to smoking. They never kicked the addiction.

I personally know at least 30 ppl that have tried to quit. Of those 2 have managed to not smoke or replace their addiction.

If you really want to be technical about the reason behind smoking and bars, look into the addiction aspect since drinking does almost the same thing. Smoking you can do anywhere, you can't drink anywhere. People with addictions tend to group together and they spill over into the various interactions between the crowds they mingle with.

If you even care I can safely say more than a few of you are alcoholics, simply from your posts. Did you know your classified as an alcoholic if you drink more than twice a month?

Your singular experience does not mean it's easy to quit...what a joke. You've basically insulted any smoker who has tried to quit and can't.

Ah but it is just that easy to quit, you can take that from someone who smoked over 2 packs a day. Its a mental addiction not physical. Something like 20 minutes after you smoke the nicotine has left your system. The need for a cigarette is a mental addiction to the hormones released.

So the simplicity of stop buying them is that out of sight out of mind is your only true course to quitting. So if you want to be technical about your addiction, its not the cigarettes its you.

The industry devoted to helping people kick the smoking habit are simply there to sell you your tobacco free fix. It doesn't stop the addiction it simply supplys it in a different form. They are simply there to finish pumping you for cash. Since they are supplying you with the nicotine that gives you your hormone boost that you would otherwise get from the smokes.

Seems fair trading smokes for patches and gum that cost just as much. Still leaves you with something to buy that you have to stop using eventually. So no help there really.

You know the difference between nicorette and chew? One is natural. You want true all encompassing legislation, make it illegal. Make them revert to what tobacco was before they treated it with a billion different chemicals. If your so damn worried about the health effects steer clear of smokers.

What your going to walk into a business burning down and demand service because you know the fire department is going to put it out? get real and get off the backs of people you have no care in the world to be around and let them have their place. Whats next? you going to demand no gay bars because it offends your sense of reason? you have a right to walk into anyplace you want and be treated like everyone else right?

So it literally all circles right back to wants and want not. You have your places and we have ours. Deal with it.

Haeight says smoking cigarettes is equivalent to walking down the street.

Also, his tunnel vision has done severe damage to his reading comprehension.

A usual, Haight is wrong again. If it was as easy to quit as simply not buying cigarettes, there would not be an entire industry devoted to smoking cessation. Nicotine is highly addictive. Can't wait for the inevitable "what I really meant was" comment.

snap

Haeight, I think it's funny that you assume to know me from one post. I'm not quite that easy to peg. For instance, I am not a selfish ex-smoker as I am still smoking about 1/2 pack a day as I have to cut down before I quit because it is not "just as easy as not buying them". I never was a "casual smoker" either as I always smoked about a pack a day. I also do not need a history lesson on smoking but thanks anyways. My grandfather raised tobacco in Edgerton for many years as well, so I had reason to personally reject the bans as it meant the livelihood of my family. Also, if I am selfish over thinking it would be easier to quit if there was a smoking ban, I think it's a good thing to be selfish about. Did you ever hear the saying "beating a dead horse"? I think we arrived at that point about 200 posts ago, but I still value everyone's input.

You missed the point. In the short span of a paragraph, blondeflutterby, while putting the matter to some thought quickly arrived at the right conclusion.

While you are taking forever.

Interesting, a smoke free bar that makes money. A selfish ex-smoker who believes tobacco should be illegal and doesn't view smoking as pleasureable.

Makes my case as well, smoking establishments have their crowd that frequents thema nd nonsmoking establishments have their crowds that frequent them. Both can coexist, its pure choice as to which you decide to step foot into. As far as quitting goes, its easy stop buying them.

Making tobacco illegal removes the right to use legal substances when and where you please. Something you probably don't understand if you were just a casual smoker. Tobacco use has been going on throughout history. The right to smoke is as ingrained in human culture as having the right to walk down the street in public. Arguing there is no smokers rights is simply petty posturing in an effort to assume superiority based on moral grounds. Unfortunately this entire blog has severe ethical issues.

Overall the wants and the want nots are fairly evenely matched for those voicing their opinions. Which filters right back into my original statements, mkae your smoke free bars if you want them and stay out of the smoking ones. Use the free market to make your point.

blondeflutterby, you end your post with many of the right reasons for a statewide smoking ban.

Thank You

Ok, so I just read on my local news site in Eau Claire that the city is wanting to go smoke free ahead of any state ban. I was thinking about all the comments I've read here and from my news site my two cents on the whole thing is that I think the decision should be left up to the business owner. We have a bar that opened a couple years ago in Eau Claire called Dooleys pub and it's smoke free. What is odd is that it is right on Water St. (the row of bars where college kids go) and it has done amazingly well competing with all the smoking bars. I happen to be a smoker who has just graduated from college and I am now in the process of quitting..so I guess I am not really biased either way. However, I am selfish in the respect that in the event a total ban gets voted in by the state I will be happy because it will make it much easier for me to quit when I don't have places to smoke inside. Actually, I wish they'd ban cigarettes altogether because I don't see how someone can actually truly enjoy smoking, but more power to ya if you do I guess. As for my "rights" as a smoker, I have never considered it a "right" to smoke in the same way as my "right" to freedom of speech. I guess I've just never seen it that way.

Haeight, you said:

"At least the supposed "off point" entries have some relevance to the issues at hand."

I don't know whose tautology is working here, mine or yours!!!

At least the supposed "off point" entries have some relevance to the issues at hand. Honestly, I have not seen squat about any other form of regulation coming from our government. Even janesville city board has a hard time doing anything contructive and have to attack billboards advertising.

I am just amazed they can find the time to write a bill about smoking in public. But they can't find the time to address a single issue about air pollution from factories, exhaust emmisions, cell phone use while driving, or any number of things that have a direct and immediate effect on a persons health.

Instead they are trying to regulate smoking in establishments that can easily be avoided until they get with your nonsmoking program. Problem is that they won't since there are too many smokers supporting them.

The only way for pro-smokers to put any words together on this blog is to talk off-point.

When they talk off-point, they can go on and on forever.

yes smoking is very bad and yes i smoke. but i do not smoke in my house or anyone elses unless they say its ok, i dont smoke around anyone at work. if you dont like the smoke dont go to bars,or, other places smoking is allowed. you as a non smoker choose to put yourself in that enviroment, just as i choose to smoke. this gives one something to continually complain about. now onto the next complaint i have respitory problems which is my fault and no one else is responsible for this situation but myself, i work with the public and it makes me sick when mainly females come into my place of business with tons of perfume and cologne on. i cough my eyes water and sometimes it effects my breathing, but i assume that is ok, because it is not cigarette smoke. i personally think that one should not be allowed to smoke in public places or where colognes or perfumes, or do other things that affects anothers health in anyway,

Technically the 18th century was from 1701 to 1800.

I so sorry my 5 seconds of grabbing some relevant info to contradict your take on the reasoning behind americas formation was supposedly irrelevant. last time I checked the 18th century was 1700-1799.

unfortunately the content in my posts have been the most varied and wide ranging. All attacking the different "virtues" of this bill. yes I have resorted to being just as petty as the next person, but at least I have better responses than that is offtopic or it offends my reasoning. To be fair its your right to be offended, its everyones right to do as they please.

I have attacked every aspect of this bill. All I get from you non smokers is see we are right. The lies about increased health care costs, the lies about the role of government. What you don't understand is there is no right or wrong, it about choice.

If its truely the role of government to protect the public health then this would be a non issue. Tobacco would be illegal and taverns would not be allowed due tot he public health risk. Cell phone use inside a running vehicle would be stopped. There would be government mandates crushing the current need for speed in vehicles and implementation of laws for lightweight practical vechilces with insanely high mpg if they relay on ICE engines.

The reality is that those with money stay in power and those who promote money stay in power. Regulating the true cause of the issues at hand here and the issues I have brought up would be political suicide.

So hiding behind the statement of ther are/is laws regulating things is not sufficient. Honestly explain to me where the need for a vehicle has to accelerate from 0-60 pmh in under 15 seconds gets us anywhere? a 4 cyclinder engine can do that and still get 30 mpg. Funny thing is that is based off a vehicle I owned and is 20 years old.

There is no need for a vehicle that travels faster than 60-70 mph. but all of them go much much faster. 4 cyl top out around 100 mph, 6cyl around 120-130, 8 cyl around 150. The list goes on and on. They get horrible gas mileage yet there is nothing regulating them to achieve anything better than that which they were able to do 20 years ago for fuel economy.

but your going to sit here and tell us about your right to clean air in a bar... how about clean air period. This whole blog is about abuse of power and political maneuvering to obfuscate real issues. How much time have they spent on this bill instead of on bills in reguards to real life altering issues in this country or world.

You realize we could actually have the government redesign what constitues a practical means of transport. This would force the automobile industry to make completely different vehicles and bring about a revolution in the industry that will revitalize it while achieving pollution goals. Instead we get a bill about smoking.....

I once told myself not to argue with morons so I must now leave this discussion

Finally, some action.

http://www.gazettextra.com/weblogs/lates...

Haight, since you were obviously picking and choosing which section to highlight, I thought the least I could do was chose the correct Century.

Haeight, from the content of your most recent posts, it appears that there's something caving in on you.

Sometimes we live with our existential nausea by politicizing it in some form. You should re-focus.

It all kicks back into our government being setup to be decentralized on all levels. It all revolves around the assertion in the constitution that we all have rights that will not be oppressed. It forces the states to abide by those assertions in the 14th ammendment.

Its like a lite version of government, all the things you can and cannot do are not written in stone and should not be written in stone. The rights of the people have been left to the judiciary branch to decide where it deems appropriate. It was made this way to give us the freedom of choice not limit us to majority rule or any rule beyond our own.

The biggest factor in all aspects of our lives, when someone doesn't like you or what your doing, your told. If enough people tell you they don't like you and your in the same room as them... you tend to leave in short order. They could have no reason other than you walk funny. Its fully with in your right to stay there, but why?

not very it depends on your perspective.

Since your obviously picking and choosing which sections to highlight I will just say this. The majority were told by their lords what to do or they were tossed into jail. They ruled through the system. While the monarch retained and exercised various forms of their power the general ruling of the the surfs was left up to the lords to enforce.

Lackeys were told what to do about transgressions and they fanatically carried out their orders. Since it bettered their lot in life.

ultimately you could gain a lot of comprehension about past and current affairs in our government from this link you decided to delve farther into than the part about "The lords of appeal constitute the highest court in Great Britain. The crown need not assent to all legislation, but assent has not been withheld since 1707."

though the crown still operates even today in their government its a strong suggestion at best.

Wow, how off topic was that?

The 18th cent. was a time of transition in the growth of the British parliamentary system. The monarch still played a very active role in government, choosing and dismissing ministers as he wished. Occasionally, sentiment in Parliament might force an unwanted minister on him, as when George III was forced to choose Rockingham in 1782, but the king could dissolve Parliament and use his considerable patronage power to secure a new one more amenable to his views.

Great political leaders of the late 18th cent., such as the earl of Chatham (see Chatham, William Pitt, 1st earl of) and his son William Pitt, could not govern in disregard of the crown. Important movements for political and social reform arose in the second half of the 18th cent. George III's arrogant and somewhat anachronistic conception of the crown's role produced a movement among Whigs in Parliament that called for a reform and reduction of the king's power. Edmund Burke was a leader of this group, as was the eccentric John Wilkes. The Tory Pitt was also a reformer. These men also opposed Britain's colonial policy in North America.

Outside Parliament, religious dissenters (who were excluded from political office), intellectuals, and others advocated sweeping reforms of established practices and institutions. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, advocating laissez-faire, appeared in 1776, the same year as the first publication by Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism. The cause of reform, however, was greatly set back by the French Revolution and the ensuing wars with France, which greatly alarmed British society. Burke became Britain's leading intellectual opponent of the Revolution, while many British reformers who supported (to varying degrees) the changes in France were branded by British public opinion as extreme Jacobins.

Did they not teach you reading comprehension in school?

That is how it is NOW. Here is how it was, from your same link:

George III was succeeded by George IV and William IV. During the last ten years of his reign, George III was insane, and sovereignty was exercised by the future George IV. This was the “Regency” period. In the mid-18th cent., wealth and power in Great Britain still resided in the aristocracy, the landed gentry, and the commercial oligarchy of the towns. The mass of the population consisted of agricultural laborers, semiliterate and landless, governed locally (in England) by justices of the peace. The countryside was fragmented into semi-isolated agricultural villages and provincial capitals.
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A085...

The reduction of the Kings power didn't begin until the end of the 18th century.

this is a copy paste link at the bottom if u care.

Great Britain is a constitutional monarchy. The constitution exists in no one document but is a centuries-old accumulation of statutes, judicial decisions, usage, and tradition. The hereditary monarch, who must belong to the Church of England according to the Act of Settlement of 1701, is almost entirely limited to exercising ceremonial functions.

Sovereignty rests in Parliament, which consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the crown. Effective power resides in the Commons, whose 646 members are elected from single-member constituencies.

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A085...

Our Founding Fathers left a Monarchy, which does not represent the people, and formed a Democracy, which does.

the bulk of our initial settlers were religous deviates. Pushed out of england by the majority scoffing at their religous views. That shaped our current form of government. Or did you they not teach history in your school either?

This country was founded to fight the ideal of majority rule? You're kidding, right?

The fact is, the Bill in question is currently being BLOCKED by the Tavern League of Wisconsin; a buiness lobby that does not represent the views of the majority of citizens. They have convinced a few legislators that even bringing a Bill to a VOTE is a bad idea.

603... so in order to properly finish off thie train wreck of a blog I suppose I might as well come clean.

I argue for every right that is taken from every person. It matters not if one person views it as good and another views it as bad. If its not illegal, its considered a right. Bans of legal substances are wrong it creates duality. The oxy moron of drinking is that its legal but if your in public, even drinking at a bar, you can be tossed in jail. There are double standards in reguards to your "rights".

I hate the blind sense of justice people derive from depriving people of their rights. I have smoked over half my life and I was never carded until I was legal, same with alcohol. The whole time knowing full well it was my choice.

In recent years I drink less and I haven't smoked in months outside of the time I drink. Bars have never been my scene, house party's well those are much much better. I feel sorry for those who have to go to the bar. I don't like the laws, I recognize the value behind the drunken driving laws. There is a clear and present danger.

Smoking laws, there is an eventual danger. Someday down the road you might fall over dead from it. Its much more likely and probable you will be exposed to the multitude of other health hazards I have brought up. Its much more likely those will be the cause of your death, not the few short hours spent in and around smokers. Its much more likely nothing or next to nothing is/has been done about those other risks. all vehicles could get over 100 mpg, they would have little in the form of acceleration but they would achieve their purpose. but that would take away a persons right to lead foot it and ride my bum. btw I am that guy that slows down even more.

In short I hate the people who feel justified in forcing change upon people. A change for yourself is one thing, a change for the group you hang out with provided your of like mind is fine.

Think about this you have built a house of cards here supporting the majority that imposes their will upon the masses. That is not what this country was founded for. This country was created to fight exactly that ideal. This issue as it is worded is taking away the freedom of all people to do what they want with the group they want in the place of their choice. its just a matter of having it applied to every little thing, its a matter of time and it will happen.

If a group anywhere in the world doesn't like what one person is doing they tell them to stop and leave. Sometimes they aren't even that nice about it. Its not my fault or anyone elses that your group of non smokers has a weaker voice where you like to hang out than the voice of the smokers, or maybe I should say maybe you non smokers spend less money the only true language of business.

by far this will not be my last post on this issue I just figured it would give you another lovely life lesson.

A public service announcement brought to you by Zoom:

With just two weeks to go before the Legislature adjourns, Gov. Jim Doyle said it's time legislative leaders in both houses scheduled the smoking ban for a floor vote.

Make your views known by calling the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-362-9472.

...do it for the children.

Smoking bad.

Ban smoking in bars.

Everybody happy.

Can this train wreck be steered back on topic?

And I thought this would die on March 1st after a day and a half without a post.

Haeight, even though I reject your power-tripping effort to hand out reading assignments here, I've always given you the courtesy of responding to the actual written content of your posts.

But today you piled on the effluvia so fast and furious that I have to ask you to make a list of one word or two or three word clues as to your burning issues below.

If you do, I will respond to it.

hannah all it takes for a cop to be involved in anything is a suspicion of crime. your wandering around at night, idc where you are all it takes is for a cop to say there has been robberies recently and I was wondering... have you been drinking?

There is also the lovely getting pulled over coming into town on country roads and the cop saying well there been reports of people disturbing the peace in teh area, loud stereos ppl burning rubber etc etc mailbox bashing. They don't need reasons they make reasons up when they spot you. Of course when have you ever dealt with cops, gangs, robberies, or any slew of things that would show you the nature of the common man.

Hannah at which point did I say smoking is healthy? If you remember I pointed out simply breathing causes harms to your lungs and body. I said its a choice and smokers like every group have rights.

Yes its well with in your right to kill someone, the law states you have to have a good reason why.

Even drinking a drop alcohol and driving is against the law, something all you have glossed over since it was brought up months ago. I think someone mentioned it was offtopic.

The only rights both smokers and non smokers have is to establish places for their own groups. That is the only way to not infringe upon the rights of another. its not my fault if you don't like your non smoking establishments and need to have the smokers establishment because its kool.

Everything is discussed and everything gets legislated, ultimately it takes one person standing up and proving why its a violation of current law to have it removed. That is why prohibition of alcohol happened.

It usually takes someone getting in trouble and fighting it to get it recinded. Like Exxon they are finally after 19 years in court for the valdez thing. Its still not resolved.

Only the non flitered for me tyvm, them putting filters on cigarettes was wrong lead to an increase of lung disease since the smoke has to be forcibly inhaled intot he lungs causing it to go deeper.

There are plenty of laws about safe driving. Here is the one that matters the most, zero tolerance. Its OWI or DUI one is your over the legal limit the other is you have alcohol on your breath. Both land you in jail, both stick you with a fine. Then there is well I don;t drive I walk... you still can get ticketed for public intoxication. Which if your driving you get one of those too.

Allowing bars with the current laws is an oxy moron.

Actually, that is public intoxication and is illegal...

I only contradict myself if you misinterpret the context of the words.

I have said from the start your spillting hairs on the lesser of 2 evils. Smoking and drinking well apparently by the numbers smoking is definately more evil. Drinking is just as evil.

I am for freedom of choice, our right to choose, when and where we go. I am not for making all places fit my view of the world. I am content with my place in it. This bill plainly states it needs to conform with a specific group/individual view of the world.

That is the entire point, you non smokers want it all, the entire thing and that is not your right. You can't get off your moral high horse long enough to realize your just as dirty as the smokers, complaining about how its their right to smoke in public while you complain about your right to drink and drive.

I am suprised you can even recognize repetition, since you tend towards skipping posts of relevance. In favor of trying to dismiss things as offtopic. repetition forces learning, and you have not read or learned anyting posted in this forum.

Had you learned, I would not have to explain what constitutes a group and I would not have to explain individual rights and I would not have to keep bringing it up.

Denial get you repetition, keep denying facts and links and the constition. Deny it as much as you want it doesn't make it go away.

I hope your having a hard time trying to stomach the likely possiblity of drinking in taverns being banned. If its so easy and in the "bag" for a smoking ban it should be relatively simple to address the issues multiple groups have with allowing public establishments promoting drunken driving. I mean a lot of those groups have been around far longer than this fairly new group pushing for the removal of smoking rights.

Since it would set a precedence for removing individual and groups rights in a business it would be a simple matter to apply it to removing alcohol from being served.

call it off topic call it off point dismiss it however you must to allow you to sleep better at night thinking you won some small battle about right and wrong. I simply call it ignorance in the ways of society and the mechanics of life.

Haeight:

The fact that you're writing responses to my posts before I post them shows that you're in repetition-mode.

Also, Cheers, the real one and the TV one are non-smoking bars. Bad example.

I'll get to your other repetitions some other time.

here you go gazettefan think on this your post but in reguards to the next set of rights being removed formt eh individual. you statements about groups and individuals makes little sense, I thought at the least the cheers bit would make you realize the group dynamics of a bar scene.

"We can contol the harm that cigarette smoke does by removing it from bars. We have CHOOSEN to do that. The nature of the source of other forms of pollution is or will be handled in appropriate ways.

In regular everyday life, smokers and non-smokers are not groups. They are individuals. In any case, groups have no more rights than individuals.

When the alcohol ban starts, you can CHOOSE to go to a bar and drink soda or you can CHOOSE to not go to a bar. You can also CHOOSE to start a drinking posse and change houses once-a-week with your homies as long the posse doesn't conduct itself as a business and doesn't include employees. Then you can call yourself a group. But remember, groups have no more rights than individuals."

Choosing to stay out of harms way... you wouldn't be going to bars and drunk driving after you leave. If you truely cared about peoples health and the impacts of one group upon another in society you would not even allow drinking anywhere other than your own home.

Hve you at least bothered to listen to the nonsense spewing out into the blog? Your sitting there defending your right to go get sloshed at a bar and endanger the lives of everyone after you leave. Then your claiming its in the publics best interest to stop smokers from giving you cancer?

Every little word uttered into this blog about non smokers having the right to clean air can be said about the publics right to have safe roadways and an utter absence of anyone under the influence of alcohol gathering outside their home.

Then you can branch off and list the detrimental effects of alcohol to the person and the way their brain shrinks due to chronic alcohol useage and how it destroys their body and can destroy other peoples lives because of it.

But oh no your all gung ho about smoking in public is bad and there is no way a group of people would choose to create smoking and nonsmoking establishments. IT has to be all nonsmoking because its better for everyone. Yeah you smokers need to quit you'll be better off.

You drinkers need to quit then we wouldn't have the same problems. My god your supporting the ability of of government to remove rights from people and groups rights that are protected by law. Then your naive enough to think they are just going to stop with smokes...

I would say I feel pity for you but I can't I can't feel any more pity for you than anyone else that realizes their choice had a detrimental impact on their lives and everyone elses.

Your so wrapped up in your crusade you forgot what your supposed to be fighting for, you would give it up just to win on one issue. Its all fun and games until it jumps up and bites you in the bum. Think what you will, do as you like... at least someone will be able to for a little while. this is not an admission my side has lost this is a plea for sanity on your parts.

We can contol the harm that cigarette smoke does by removing it from bars. We have CHOOSEN to do that. The nature of the source of other forms of pollution is or will be handled in appropriate ways.

In regular everyday life, smokers and non-smokers are not groups. They are individuals. In any case, groups have no more rights than individuals.

When the smoking ban starts, you can CHOOSE to go to a bar and smoke outside or you can CHOOSE to not go to a bar. You can also CHOOSE to start a smoking posse and change houses once-a-week with your homies as long the posse doesn't conduct itself as a business and doesn't include employees. Then you can call yourself a group. But remember, groups have no more rights than individuals.

As I pointed out your not out of harms way if you think smoke is the only thing aggravating the health condition of anyone.

Again I am forced to reiterate a great many things to all of you, since you choose an ignorant and oppressive lifestyle.

its not constitutional to hold the rights of one group over the rights of another.

deal with it.

We are choosing to stay out of harm's way by removing cigarette smoke from bars.

More good news about the state-wide smoking ban in Illnois, thanks Zoom.

A friend goes to karaoke every Friday at a Rockford bar/restaurant. His observations after the Jan. 1 smoking ban:

Dinner business has increased.
Bar business has stayed the same.
Two waitresses have quit smoking.

yes please lets discuss a medical condition I suffered from as a child. Granted I wan;t running into every bar I could at that age but I was made fully aware of what asthma was and its triggers. by far smoke is not on top of that list, but it is on that list.

so why you going to go out your way and put yourself in harms way just to get into harms way?

armancay, thank you for your important post about smoking and asthma. I made some important related posts on this blog about the same.

If you've returned here, you can see below a crash-course in this blog's champion of cigarette smoke.

He is wordy with his diversionary and miss-the-point baloney. That he speaks off-the-point is why he can on-and-on.

I am getting sick of hearing about smoke and people with asthma and them holding it up like its the only cause of their attacks.Honestly, are you even aware of how many different circumstances can trigger an attack?

adrenaline, you get scared or something catches you off guard enough to make your jump same holds true if your arguing or if someone is getting mad watching people argue. That releases adrenaline into your system and usually triggers the most asthma attacks. allergies, this would be time or year/enviromental conditions. This would be pollen, dust, spores, fungus, molds, animal dander and a slew of other things found inside and outside of your home. Smoking is lumped into this category, most asthma sufferes avoid smokers like the plague.

Now to expand upon this, you get into a car, I assume its newer and has that new car smell. That is smell is toxic it will burn your lungs, if you have asthma that would be the 1st thing that aggravates your condition. Next up the trip to the pub, I would estimate you will spend about 30 minutes round trip. As I expressed earlier exhaust is considered a fine particulate this means it blocks the ability to absorb oxygen even in healthy people. Your not even to the pub yet. For the sake of making this long story a wee bit shorter, I will assume you ate at home.

Now your at your pub with smokers, I assume you don't stay long due to your asthma.

Lets assume your in a non smoking pub. This means your now fully aware of what everyone actually smells like. You have that person who hasn't bathed in weeks, the person with entirely too much cologe/perfume on, and a host of other people milling about all with different hygiene. You have the person covered in cat/dog hair the person who hasn't washed their musty clothes in who knows how long. OVerall your being exposed to just about everything I previously listed.

This happens weather there is smoking going on or not. You just see and smell smoke instead of people. Either way its not going to decrease the likely hood of an asthma attack, at least not by much. Its much more probable one of the many other things sets off the initial attack. Take your pick of pollutants or irritants.

I am not saying smoke is pure, I am saying stop blaming all your problems on the one thing you rarely expose yourself to. If you do expose yourself to it and there are other places that are nonsmoking then shame on you, not shame on the smoker for hanging out in a smoking establishment.

I am going to pitch to every bar owner I meet that they get a 50' sign that says smoking bar in bright neon lights.

I refer you to the previous posts which I discussed air pollution its link with vehicle emissions and factory emissions. Maybe your wife shouldn't leave the house if that is your concern since the evidence of air pollution triggering asthma attacks is just as strong and it has the same effects as smoking does. Since smoke is classified as a fine particulate, pollution and smoking are one in the same.

At least you know your showing up to a smoking or non smoking enviroment. Be it out to eat in a nonsmoking establishment or testing your luck with going to a smoking establishment. I provided a link to a smart person much earlier in this post about a lady that did exactly what you just brought up... its slightly sad but she was going to work everyday in a smoking enviroment instead of taking care of her asthma. If I recall it right she was a student trying to turn a quick buck to pay for college. Instead of finding a proper job in her field of study or finding a nonsmoking establishment to work at. She opted for the quick cash, risking asthma attacks everyday.

I have no remorse for people who push their luck. Doing what she did is just like me choosing to smoke every day of my life. When you gamble at some point you it don't pay out.

It all revolves right back into the post about rights and majority not being able to dictate tot he minority about what rights they do and don't have. The simple solution is a big sign right on the door when you walk in that says smoking and not smoking. We have that now, signs ont eh doors saying no smoking. Lets make them bigger like you wanted to do with the warnings on packs of smokes, cuz we never noticed the warnings. Taverns at this point are about the only place that smoke. In janesville I can point out quite a few restaurants with bars attached who have no smoking. Its not like there is a lack of watering holes for the nonsmokers.

As far as the name, I been using it for near 15 years. It suits most conversations.

If you want to smoke then go for it. Smoke your lungs out. As far as the right to smoke in public places? Well my wife has asthma and your smoke might set off an attack and she might die. Call me selfish but her right to breathe might outweigh your right to smoke.

And you walk in and every yells:

Haeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeight!!!!!

So I am left to bringing it up again. There is a tax on tobacco. Why is it not being used to pay for that increased health care cost of the smokers and for cancer reasearch? I mean that would be the only fair thing to do with it right? taking away the money of the users for programs to help them? This is another facet of the system being used for greed.

I don't think I want to even touch on the amount of people who individually goto the bar to hang out with their bar buddies. As sad as that may sound there are usually at least 20 morning regulars at any successful bar. Then the crowd changes as the day progresses, usually. Its like Cheers, you all remember the TV show. You had your main characters, aka the bar flies, then all the ppl passing through being those who were in the background. Which group supported their local pub?

Hannah I am sorry you misinterpretted that statement, I can write a novel about it. Refer to whybesad's post since it contains the essence of that statement.

The people have CHOOSEN, using the government as its insturment, to ban smoking in bars. To believe that the smoking ban was only perpetrated by a small band of people against the will of the great majority is paranoid. Or at least along the lines of paranoia.

Many things are situationally legal or legal according to location: It's legal to drive on the street but not on the sidewalk.

The high tax on tobacco is to lessen taxes on necessities like food. If tobacco revenue is lost due to a smoking ban then that's a positive trade-off resulting in the improved general health of our people.

Be careful of what you wish for people. This is something that can and will go farther than smoking. It's about choices. You choose to go to a bar to drink. You choose to smoke. We can make our own choices without the government telling use if it's ok or not. Last time I looked tobacco was legal. It's sad that our choices are being dictated by a few people in the government. They may not like smokers but, they sure like the tax revenue they make off of the cigarettes.

People who go to bars and smoke are going there as individuals. In any case, "groups" have no more rights than indivduals.

This whole blog has become laughable.

rights of either group do not out weigh the right of the other group. Which is part of that lovely reading assignment you skipped on the constitution. which is why there is an impasse and why this bill is unconstitutional.

From the non smoker perspective....At best smoking needs to be made illegal taking away the right of the smoking group. At worst clearly defined smoking and nonsmoking establishments, which is already the case. Just a lack of enough non smokers telling the taverns they prefer nonsmoking.

Non-smokers have expressed their wish to not be around cigarette smoke. They didn't express a wish to not be in bars. Something has to go. It will be cigarette smoke.

Yes, if a "smoking lounge" is licensed as a public place of business with employees then there will be no smoking in smoking lounges. Or, no such businesses will be licensed. And no employees will be permited. (PS No one would go to a smoking lounge anyway.)

The slippery slope in this case only applies to smoking venues, not rights. The rights of people who want to assemble in a public place without cigarette smoke are more important than the rights of people who want to poison the air.

non smokers have expressed their interest to not be around smoke, thereby taking their want to be in a smoking establishment out of the equation.

Since this bill would implement a ban any group gathering together from smoking inside a place of business. This tosses out smoking only lounges setup in tobacco shops.

Above and beyond the rights I previously outlined being taken away from the individual.

Even if there was one smoking bar in janesville and all the rest non smoking you would all be pissed off. Because you wouldn't want to set foot in that bar unless it was non smoking.

Guess what there are business owners that love to smoke there are employees that love to smoke there are patrons that love to smoke. They have a right to have their all smoking and no whining establishments that serve alcohol too.

This is the rights arguement and perpetuation of no smoking and go outside is a rights violation. Your slippery slope is right here, the slippery slope of rights violations.

Whether alcohol is served as nothing to do with anything.

People can gather in a non-public place and smoke their brains out.

Allowing noxious fumes in a public place restrains the rights of non-smokers to assemble there.

The "slippery slope" complaint has hit a slippery slope. Everytime something happens doesn't mean that it will continue to happen at an accelerated and exponetially harmful rate.

Even with the way its currently worded smoking lounges/bars where no alcohol is served would be illegal. Which in its self is a gross violation of individual rights.

its a bill... means it has to go through the whole process of government it smore likely the issue will be pigeon holed. Like alcohol prohibition and many other things that are prohibited poeple in power will abuse their authority whenever they can. which is why there is a judicial review of all laws once someone breaks them.

Well put, gazettefan.

Per the article above, the legislators are not arguing about IF a smoking ban will be put in place, but WHEN. If there were any constitutional arguments, it wouldn't have gotten this far.

I could claim that like yourself I pick and choose what to read. Unfortuneately for everyone I choose to read just about everythign I can on most subjects.

The law is attempting to circumvent individual rights. Individual rights outlined in previous links. this includes your individual rights to get together and drink in a "public" bar since you determined in previous posts that bars a public place.

Passing this ban as it is currently worded is effectively opening the door to banning all things not in the interest of the majority at this juncture in time.

If you ever bothered to read now is the time since its plainly covered in excessive amounts of links I provided to the constituion. Mainly in the immuniteis and priviliges clause and the due process clause. They were set in place out of fear that rebels and rebel sympathizers would gain control of the power structure of the government though votes and dispense with personal rights and other laws set forth in around the time of the civil war. It speaks strongly about the individual rights of all people including minorities.

But I guess you don't care about rights. The same rights that give you just as much right to a smoke free enviroment that give me the right to a smoke filled enviroment. The same rights that give the owners the option to rule over their establishment.

The people and the law have determined that those "rights" don't exist.

For an explanation, read this entire blog.

So there is no way this ban infringes upon the individual rights and owners rights? seems otherwise, seems I also provided links that address just those 2 things as well.

Human language is such that if your thinking is even a little out of kilter, you can interprete anything to mean anything.

None of what you are saying applies to what's going on in the real world.

Your problem is that there are people out here in the real world who are seeing this thing properly. You need an audience of people who don't know any better.

zoom the whole of the context of that paragraph

"Smoking bans ae not the easiest way to achieve the goal of the ban. The easiest way being making tobacco products illegal. The next easiest way is to display smoking or non smoking status in an establishment. The hardest way to enforce a smoking ban is to stip the rights on the indivdual and business owners from them and force dissimilar beliefs upon them. the 1st 2 choices are constitutional the last is not."

and that was directly related to the prior post reguarding due process and the copy/paste section of you too lazy to click the link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_Process...

so... where was the need to correct me? or didn't you read all of the posts and just latched onto the parts you liked?

Since the owner has to purchase the land and permits to form a business that allows access to those they deem appropriate I put forth each business is an organization/group. The owners also set forth policy's and determine the forum of the entertainment.

No one argues the doors of night clubs should be flung wide open to the public, there are bouncers that permit entrance.

There is a reason there are a multitude of terms to describe a place to gather and consume alcohol. Each caters to a different group in society. All fall into the catergory of a group usually to consume alcohol. There are plenty of people who wish to walk both sides of drinking and smoking, plenty who are non smokers outside of bars.

Overall its been the owners right to determine the patronage of their establishment and this is one more facet of that right to determine access. The only time that right has been revoked is when illegal activities have been allowed to occur.

"Since smokers have the right to assemble in a group, yes that means public, and do their thing."

Freedom of assembly means joining/forming clubs or groups, not physically hanging out. You can form a club to protest the smoking ban, but you can't physically go into bars and smoke. So start thinking of names for your group.

"Its like arguing you need the whole road to drive on instead of just your lane...you can only be in one lane. You start taking up 2 lanes your gonna crash, unless your passing."

Hilarious. As if the smoke from your cigarettes doesn't float into our "lane".

Again, thank you for stating the obvious...yes, a meaning can change when you omit words.

I did not misquote you, or even take your words out of context. I simply corrected your mistake.

it goes forth on grounds of, ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law. so read away or feel ignorant.

Haeight, who made you Professor Haeigth of this blog -handing out reading asignments? It is you who isn't doing the required reading. All the anti-smoking posts here and the related literature against smoking render all your statements and references null and void.

This goes for your Briarmoonism regarding the Constitution.

zoom wrote"a smoking ban is laughable"

its easy to take things out of context.

Haeight wrote: "Smoking bans ae not the easiest way to achieve the goal of the ban. The easiest way being making tobacco products illegal."

The easiest way to acheive the ban is...A BAN! Just like it's already been done in numerous other states.

There is the point, your not reading and keeping up with what is being related to you. Thereby making your posts irrelevant to the context of what I am trying to point out. if it was a simple issue there would be simple posts. Since its a complex issue there are many posts. all dealing with the same ground your not fully reading while bringing in new arguements and evidence to the contrary.

This all rolls right back into my 1st post about the right to operate your own business and allowing or disallowing the right to smake based on the rights of the owners. Forcing the government to make tobacco illegal to achieve its goal. Then there is an absence of right since its been determined for the greater good of all people tobacco is not a right. The same way marijuana was made illegal and no longer a right, even if there were fear mongering tactics used to achieve that goal.

So if you bone up on the constitutional issue you will realize its not a cut and dried issue of kicking out smokers. Since smokers have the right to assemble in a group, yes that means public, and do their thing. If its in a bar more power to them and the delimiting factor is a statement of what type of patorns your establishment caters to.

At some point if the public chooses to exercise their right to clean air they approach the owners or they hang out with their non smoking crowd in another place more suited to their taste. At some point smokers will be sitting in a bar with themselves and non smokers the same. I have no idea why you'd want to hang out with smokers in a smoking bar unless you liked the smoke. but its as much our right to have smoking bars as it is your right to have non smoking.

This is how it ties to my "constitutional diversion" as some people have labled it. THis is why you get to read a novel or be scoffed at in your responses by me and others who have read up the material provided for this open forum of discussion.

When your all done patting yourselves on the backs....

the copy paste function suits its purpose especially since you all like to misconstrue things. Did you all even bother to read the links? I have to keep asking because your talking as if you have not. What is at stake in this issue is the ability of the government to regulate our rights. Be it smoking or drinking or any number of other individual rights.

History has pointed out many jumpers, by this I mean once one issue is "taken care of" they jump onto the next. Limiting the rights of individuals goes against the basis of a free country, it turns into a police state. There written plain as day in the constition is the the limiting factor of the governments state and federal ability to remove a persons rights.

If you bother to read further into the links I provided for your viewing ppleasure. You will realize a multitude of issues fall into this category.

Smoking bans ae not the easiest way to achieve the goal of the ban. The easiest way being making tobacco products illegal. The next easiest way is to display smoking or non smoking status in an establishment. The hardest way to enforce a smoking ban is to stip the rights on the indivdual and business owners from them and force dissimilar beliefs upon them. the 1st 2 choices are constitutional the last is not.

There is a lovely triad of rights in this issue as I pointed out in the previous post. The right you claim to breathe smoke free air, the right of the smoker to smoke in public assembled with their group, and the right of the owners to define their clientele catering to one section of the population or the next.

Its not your right to walk into a country music bar and demand Heavy Metal. This is the same as walking into into a smoking biased tavern and telling them they can't smoke, if you don't like it get out and find your place to be amoung your peers. Its like arguing you need the whole road to drive on instead of just your lane...you can only be in one lane. You start taking up 2 lanes your gonna crash, unless your passing.

it revolves around rights and the limits of government. just caught an article last night 1 in 100 people in this country are in jail/prison. is this due to too many laws or too many people breaking another persons rights. view this as a deflection if you must avoid reality.

jsvlparkergrad, Pro-smokers want a compromise re: smoking in bars. What they refuse to realize is that the fact that smoking will remain legal IS the compromise. They can smoke at home or outside.

They benefit from the reality that a total smoking ban would bring back the problems of Prohibition and also aggravate the problems of the drug wars.

The ever decreasing venues for smoking should be understood as a message to smokers that smoking is dangerous and repulsive.

Yes, Haeight's writing has certainly improved since he started to use the copy/paste feature.

In the Illinois bars I was in recently business is booming. Not too many people went outside to smoke. Which means that a lot of non-smokers replaced any smokers who stopped going to these bars. Or, the smokers were quiting or cutting back on smoking. If any smokers stopped going to these bars, then they are showing no loyalty to the owners. But their loyalty doesn't seem to be necessary to keep these businesses booming. The non-smokers are more than taking up the slack.

Haeight trying to argue the constitutionality of a smoking ban is laughable. The argument is not made by simply cutting and pasting parts of the Constitution. At least I have enough common sense to know that I am not an expert on the Constitution.

I do know, however, that many states have instituted bans. In those instances, there was either no good case for arguing constitutionality, or nobody wanted to.

gazettefan:
Thank you for the compliment.
I have read this entire blog, from its beginning on February 6th. I know what has been said here; I merely wished to put another spin on the way this might be viewed.

jsvlparkergrad, it has all been said before on this blog re: the danger of second-hand smoke -including in bars with alcohol in comparison. And you aticulated this crucial point nicely in your post.

Get ready for Haeight to come up with another atempt to deflect.

Sorry, I didn't mean to write a novel. But to continue:
Smoking is not as mind-altering as Tylenol with codeine, or alcohol, So why is the Federal gov't even involved in regulating the age at which tobacco can be purchased? If you truly believe that cigarettes have no health consequences, then surely there should be no Federal laws placed upon anyone of any age to use the product. If you DO admit that cigarettes are harmful to the user because of the carcinogens that have been found in cigarettes, then by that reasoning, they are also harmful to a person that doesn't smoke. Why? Because when the cigarette is lit, you inhale the fumes that are produced by the burning of that cigarette. Unfortunately, the burning end of a cigarette emits the same chemicals into the atmosphere, and are not easily dispelled in an enclosed space. Even the fumes that you inhale are exhaled as well and still contain a large enough amount of these carcinogens to harm people in the same enclosed space you are occupying. You may think that exposing your children in your home to the same toxic chemicals you inhale are not causing them any harm, is OK to do, since no one is harmed by second-hand smoke. Do you honestly feel you are not harming them?
An adult person is allowed to enter a business place (which a bar happens to be) and cannot be discriminated against on the basis of gender, race, religion and other basic human rights they have in granted to them by the Federal gov't. Even Americans with disabilities are supposed to be accommodated entrance to businesses (hence the ramps you see). So, to me, it follows that any person should be allowed into a public business without being forced to inhale carcinogens. Now, that person may choose to harm his liver and brain cells by actively drinking alcohol, that is his choice. You chose to smoke, but your choice also forces other people, who have just as much right to be in that public place, to be poisoned by your choice.
I hope all this helps people see the point of banning smoking in public places.

Zoom and Haeight:
Using a frame of reference that I have knowledge about, maybe I can poke a hole in your reasoning about the Constitution.
The Federal gov't regulates Food and Drugs (hence the FDA). I can guarantee that in no state in the US is it allowed to sell Tylenol with codeine without a prescription. In fact, in the US, it is placed in the category of a Schedule III narcotic, which means the prescription requirements to obtain Tylenol with codeine are more stringent. Now, why on earth does the US government have the right to infringe upon a state's right to sell it without a prescription? I have explained in other blogs that I now live in Canada. Here, you can walk into a pharmacy and buy Tylenol with codeine right off the shelf, no prescription required. Are Canadians more responsible than Americans? No. So why is the Federal gov't regulating something that people in other countries can obtain legally without even seeing a doctor.
Another example: The legal drinking age in Canada is 19. Why is the American Federal gov't depriving people who are old enough to die in a war the right to drink alcohol legally until they are 21? (I served in the military during the Vietnam war, and can remember when the Federal gov't lowered the drinking age to 18).
For that matter, during the 1920's, the Federal gov't made alcohol totally illegal. I dare to think that action trod upon Americans' rights to allow the states to govern themselves. That prohibition was rightly overturned, but to this day there are some areas of some states that are still "dry". In some states, you can only buy alcohol from a state-run liquor store, or a licensed facility such as a tavern or bar to be consumed only at the bar and not carried out.
Continued in the next post (sorry for being so "long-winded")

Bubs, you got Haeight nailed. It's just a matter of time before he goes off on another tangent.

YOU were using flammability as a permissible reason for the smoking ban in other locations and YOU brought up a fire getting out of hand immediately after asking for an example of a person accidentally lighting someone on fire. I have not mentioned flaming since I first brought it up although it is a potential source of a fire, especially when it is around lit cigarettes and lighters.
Now you're going to change the rules and want to talk about lighting the product on fire. First of all, you ASSUME that all the product is out of reach of the patrons. Even in a bar where all of the liquor is quite far away from the patrons, it is constantly being moved closer to and away from the patrons as they are being served. You mentioned boxes that products in a grocery store are shipped in. I have been in many bars where I have seen the cardboard boxes that liquor and beer are shipped in. In some of the bars, they were close enough for a cigarette butt to be flipped onto.
Using your logic that flammability as a reason for a smoking ban, it seems like we should really be protecting people from the horrors of burning alive in a bar.

and to finish quoting the constitution the 14th amendment applies the bill of rights to the states ability to govern. it goes a lot more in depth if you follow the link to it I previously supplied....

This article is about the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. For the related clause in Article Four, see Privileges and Immunities Clause.
Amendment XIV, Section 1, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution is known as the Privileges or Immunities Clause. It states:

“ No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ”

jsvlparkergrad,
Just an FYI of something I posted earlier:

Since Article One of the Constitution of the United States does not grant the United States Congress the power to enact a smoking ban under federal law, therefore, under the Tenth Amendment it is one of the powers "reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people." Thus, smoking bans in the United States are entirely a product of state and local criminal and occupational safety and health laws.

Appropriate to the over-reliance on Constitutional reference; and appropriate to the under-reliance on how the Constitution can be applied; and appropriate to the dismissal of the fire issue:

You can't yell FIRE in a crowded bar.

again, your using the setting someone on fire as an excuse in bars. While the store situation is about setting the product on fire. In bars the product is well away from customers and their ability to burn liquor. The flamming shots is just an arguement to not allow public drinking.

A lot of grocery stores burning down in the middle of the night before they banned smoking in them?
How about department stores?
What if the bar is pretty empty and the bartender can't see everyone, in that case someone could light themselves on fire and things could get out of hand rather quickly.
I can't show one case of a someone not putting themselves out quickly in a bar any more easily than you can show one case of someone not doing it in a grocery or department store.

After reading through this and the links a few times it seems fairly clear. The government can not infringe upon an individuals liberty, or a businesses liberty unless it interferes with a government interest. Then if it does interfere with a government interest, the government can only take the least restrictive action to correct the situation. There is a part about preseving the lives of people being in the governments interest.

So there can be a smoking ban, provided its up to the owners to publicly show smoking or not since that would be the least restrictive means to not interfere with the rights of all sides.

To address the flamming shots issue in bars you will find that is a violation of fire codes. As far as drunks with smokes starting people on fire, show me a case of someone not putting themselves out. In a store there is no one in many parts of the store and plenty of time for a fire to get out of control. As far as bars/pizza joints burning down usually you can find some form of fraud occuring usually in the form of the store being refurbished and another sotre opening in a short period of time...

Its nice to know you think the constitution a diversionary issue. if you had bothered to read up on the posted links there would be a real debate here.

Here is the skinny, I hope you bone up on it.

[edit] Judicial review of substantive due process violations
When a law or other act of government is challenged as a violation of individual liberty under the Due Process Clause, courts nowadays primarily use two forms of scrutiny, or judicial review. This inquiry balances the importance of the governmental interest being served and the appropriateness of the government's method of implementation against the resulting infringement of individual rights. If the governmental action infringes upon a fundamental right, the highest level of review—strict scrutiny—is used.[49] In order to pass strict scrutiny review, the law or act must be narrowly tailored to further a compelling government interest.

When the governmental restriction restricts liberty in a manner that does not implicate a fundamental right, rational basis review is used. Here a legitimate government interest is enough to pass this review. This means that the government's goal must simply be something that it is acceptable for the government to pursue. The means used by the legislation only have to be reasonable for getting to the government's goals; they need not be the best. Under a rational basis test, the burden of proof is on the challenger. Thus it is rare that laws are overturned after a rational basis test, although this is not unheard of.[50]

There is also a middle level of scrutiny, called intermediate scrutiny, but it is primarily used in Equal Protection cases rather than in Due Process cases: “The standards of intermediate scrutiny have yet to make an appearance in a due process case.”[51]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_Process...

So we're still going strong here, good.

Thanks to Zoomer, Hannah, jsvlparkergrad, and others for maintaining our clear-headed, logical message that smoking is dangerous and nasty and should be banned in bars. (Apologies to the ones I didn't mention.)

You've dispensed with the "Constitutional issue" and other diversionary nonsense nicely.

The main perpetrator of the pro-smoker side admitted long ago that he's just a put-on. What he's accomplished, though, is that anti-smokers continually here have gotten their message out -loud and clear.

New comers, pro or anti, should read this entire blog: You'll each get a quick course in clear-thinking, logic, and tolerance from the anti-smoking side of this issue.

It's the same clear-thinking, logic, and tolerance that is bringing the smoking ban into everyone's future.

Perhaps people with an allergy to cigarette smoke should invoke their rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and claim that they are not accommodated in a public bar because they have a "barrier" that prevents them from entering the place of business.
Another example: The US government has federal laws governing my practice of Pharmacy, and no state is allowed to make laws that are less strict than the federal ones. So if the feds make it a law that it is illegal to smoke in any facility serving the public, the state cannot make exceptions to allow smoking.
I live in a city with strict no smoking laws in ALL public buildings. It does not hurt business. Even my veteran's club has to abide by the rules. I finally heard the first complaint about the smoking ban at my vets club last night, when it was about 10 degrees outside and one guy says he wished he could still smoke inside because it was so cold outside. Even casinos have smoking bans, and I know their business is not suffering at all (I still can't get a seat at the nickel slots!).

How often do bars get and store bottles of alcohol and beer in cardboard boxes?
There aren't people wearing cotton or polyester or silk in bars?
If clothing is so likely to burst into flames due to a cigarette "cherry," who is more likely to drop one onto their clothing, someone walking around Woodman's or some drunk fool who can barely walk?

how many cardboard boxes and plastic bags and plastic containers are there in a store? Same holds true for cotton, polyester, silk, and the slew of other things clothing is made out of. all extremely flammable when exposed to any heat source namely a cherry on a cigarette.

So there is practically no way that a bar could ever be burnt down by a cigarette but your local produce section needs a Smokey The Bear sign to let you know that fire danger is high?

To address double post about alcohol being flammable, it takes an open flame to ignite alcohol over 40 proof for roughly the same reasons as it takes an open flame to ignite gasoline. Linen, paper, pure oxygen do not require that to ignite any heat source can ignite them. To put it into terms you can grasp you have to take the time to light alochol on fire.

As far as why a hospital went smokefree on their campus... idk again its private property and they reserve the right to lay their own rules. I do believe hospitals fall under the category of a business since they provide a service and collect money.

Interestingly enough when was the last time you saw an ashtray/butt container outside a hospital? When was the last time you saw butts littering the ground? Prior to the smoke free campus they had it posted you must stand at least 150 feet from any entrance while you smoke. For 2 reasons to be clear of traffic in and out of the building nd to be outside the combustible range of oxygen. Such as when people are brought in on ambulance hooked up to oxygen and the people who are coming to the hospital be it for appointment of checkup who are hooked up to oxygen.

Its more likely they got tired of the litter since there was nowhere to put your smoked butt. Its probable they did it for the fine particulate health concerns. Then there was always those few orderlies/friends carting patients out to smoke. Weather or not it was in the patients best interest they would go out in any type of weather to smoke. So honestly there really is no one reason a hospital would choose to go smoke free. The largest factor would be their right as the owners of said property exercising their right to ensure a safe enviroment for those in their charge.

Wow, almost 500 entries. Anyone else think that we've exhausted the issue hear? Let's all agree the the smokers and nonsmokers will not agree and take this article off the top most discussed.

I would think that a bunch of drunk smokers hanging around bottles of 151 and bathroom trash cans full of paper towels constitutes at least as big a fire hazard as your local grocery store or veterinarian's office. Let's hope those drunk smokers haven't been drinking beer and eating bratwurst and sauerkraut or we might really have a fire hazard.

Specifically look at the privileges and immunities clause about a states right to interfere with business or engage in trade or their vocation. Which in this instance would interfere by driving away a customer base.

I'm sure Mercy Health enacted a smoking ban on their ENTIRE CAMPUS because the parking lot is flammable.

I feel sorry for you. I really do.

The 14th amendment applies the constition to the states ability to govern as well... in essence forcing them to abide by the constitution in reguards to the rights of citizens as well.

Haeight,
Since Article One of the Constitution of the United States does not grant the United States Congress the power to enact a smoking ban under federal law, therefore, under the Tenth Amendment it is one of the powers "reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people." Thus, smoking bans in the United States are entirely a product of state and local criminal and occupational safety and health laws.

I didn't think I had to argue that all the other states that have enacted smoking bans are not violating the constitution either.

You are not an expert on the constitution.

I gave two alternate analogies comparing smoking in enclosed work places to drinking and driving. I didn't see you dispute those. Drinking in public is against the law. I'm not sure how that helps your pro-smoking stance.

Yes, I am trying to discredit what you say, where it is appropriate. Isn't that what we're here for? Maybe you meant to use a different word.

I don't think anyone is attempting to "get their way". You sound like you are six years old (no noffense).

Ok places you can't smoke and why. Library fire hazard, hospital oxygen tanks in every room firehazard, grocery store combination of owners saying no and fire hazard, restaurants mostly food industry bans due to fine particulate pollution most places that use soldering ban smoking too since it creates a bad weld, clinics again firehazard and of course along with hospitals ppl with respirtory illnesses, department/shoe/retail stores fire hazard, post office have you seen the paper there fire hazard, vetrinary office about the same as a hospital except the smell of urine which is high in amonnia so maybe a fire hazard, Gas station you can smoke inside of gas stations its not encouraged to smoke near the pumps but a cigarrette that is lit will not ignite gasoline it doesn't burn hot enough on exceptionally warm days it is hot enough to light the fumes on fire and that will ignite the gas think tis around 70-80 degrees that happens but tis only because its a gas and not liquid at that point.

The majority of the no smoking is for mainly fire safety. A majority of those places you list have very flammeable materials. Some like the hospitals have explosive materials pure oxygen with a mere spark could combust which is why open flames are not allowed with in 150 feet of them. Event he cherry of a cigarrette can ignite pure oxygen or vaporized gasoline, in its liquid form gas is fairly safe provided your not trapping the vapors giving it those explosive properties. PLease by all means go on with the plaes we can;t smoke and please list why we can't if not I will be more than willing to give you a list.

I am simply astounded that you can't even accept a compromise of smoking and non smoking establishments. Have you even walked into a beloit bar and asked them how much their business has boomed since Illinois enacted their ban?

Telling people they don't have the right to regulate their clientele is like demanding to be let into a private club you don't have a membership to. Most bar owners get their business form people who go there everyday and have went there for 10-20 years. I am just going to laugh if you manage to get this passed into law and you have 50 old people being fined for smoking at the VFW cause one person decided they wanted it to be smoke free the one time they stopped in there...

What is it with non smokers hiding behind a single statement?

I haven't seen a single supporting arguement against any of the links posted dismissing the claims made in this blog. I just see a lot of opinions about how there is no substance to an arguement. Or hey you said this earlier and it was wrong therefore everything you say is wrong. There are severe gaps in logic here.

By all means please dispute the links to the constitution, to the costs of smoking, and health issues caused by other sources.

The entire drinking vs smoking arguement was to get you non smokers to think on a common ground. The same arguements you using to "try" and ban smoking can be used for drinking in public. Unfortunately you skimmed that section of the arguement or dismissed it as off topic. All in an attempt to get your way.

Unfortunately the majority of people reading this see the truth of your responses, and I encourage you to bring this back into the realm of discussion. Instead of whatever it has become... are you trying to flame me? to discredit what I have to say? Seems a bit more like a political election if that be the case.

Fast food and fatty snacks should be banned - obesity kills more. Also why not just ban coffee - no more 6 dollar lattes!!!!!

pvangalder - I agree !! What is so dang hard about putting a sign outside, "smoking allowed", or "smoking not allowed". Should be the business owner's choice. It is their revenue, their bottom line, and they are taxpayers just like the rest of us - they should be allowed to choose. The non-smokers certainly couldn't have a cow about that - if the bar said "smoking allowed" then they would know better, and not go in. Seems very simple.

I thought we lived in a free country. Why should the government be able to tell bar owners or restaurant owners that smoking is not allowed in THEIR establishment. The government didn't work endless hours building THEIR business; didn't put any sweat or equity into THEIR business; they do however willingly take THEIR taxes that they have to pay and then tell them that smoking is not allowed in THEIR business. Well maybe when the government figures out that the taxes paid on income start to dwindle because they decided to mandate non smoking in privately owned establishments they will take a second look at this so-called free country law. Just as a smoker may not have frequented a non-smoking establishment; a non-smoker may not frequent a smoking allowed establishment. Now, that FREEDOM OF CHOICE has been taken away. But regardless, I do not believe that anyone should have the power to mandate whether a privately owned establishment can or cannot allow smoking!

Public health is a government interest. Of course, you'll start your circular argument that smoking isn't a health issue.

I hardly think you're in a position to argue the Constitution. You couldn't even correctly interpret the mass transit vehicle portion of Senate Bill 150.

I see you posting but all I see is non smokers saying smokers have no rights... even though I just gave you links outlining the rights we do posses as citizens.

If you're not, you should be:

A survivalist who lives in the woods waiting till the end begins.

Don't believe income tax is legal.

This country took a fatally wrong turn when it went off the gold standard.

The world is run by a pack of satanic Masons from the White House basement.

And somewhere in that chunk of reading up on things to toss on the fire you all have going here, I read something about how laws are there for the governments interests, not to curtail the operation of business unless it impinges upon a government interest.

Still violates the 14th amendment and depending upon your interpretation it violates the 1st amendment and then there is always the lovely 9th amendment.

Long story short, violates freedom to assemble and violates an individuals rights. Here are a list of relavant links. Interestingly enough if even one state allows smoking even after a ban I can smoke : P

here is a link to individual rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_...

here is a link to the consition and its amendments for you to look over
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stat...

here is the equal protection clause
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Prote...

here is the privilages and immunites clause
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privileges_...

Yes, bars are our focus.

The bar owners already know re: smokers and non-smokers.

Or, the one who don't, will learn.

Things will turn out OK for the bar owners. It's the smokers who will have to adjust.

Approach more bar owners to go smoke free with your "overwhelming" numbers of non smokers then.

This whole bill is a farce anyway. Everything listed in it in 99% of all cases already happens. The only real change is to take away smoking from bars.

We don't always CHOOSE either to endure a problem or to go away from a problem.

Sometimes we CHOOSE to solve or eliminate the problem and stay:

SMOKING BAN IN BARS

I never said smoking wasn't bad, I said its not anyones place to tell me or anyone what they can and can't do. Unless of course its the owner that is the one telling you where to go.

Your friend brought up deaths related to smoking and if you and him were to get together and read some of the links provided you would see the general trend of lower health care costs related to smokers. You would see a slightly lower average life expectantcy.

All irrelevant unless your trying to control how someone lives their life. This slight lowering of their lifespan is after a lifetime of smoking vs. your infrequent exposure.

Exposure you chose to walk into, unlike the multitude of other fine particulate pollution your exposed to daily for much longer durations. Yet you chose to believe its the smoking causing the problem. You levy frivilous lawsuits towards big tobacco, driving up the costs of smoking.

If its such a huge concern show me where this increased tax on tobacco is going to benefit smokers? I would assume its being used to pay for these increased health costs they are tossing around. More likely its not, its being squandered like everything else in government.

In reality there is an overabundance of other causes of helath issues in your life.

Its choice, to get insurance, its choice to goto work, its choice determining where you want to work, its choice to frequent bars and endanger others when you drive drunk, its choice when you fill up your vehicle knowing full well its pollution causing effects, its choice...

You choose where you go, you choose where you stay, people move when they don't like it, people stay where they love it. Smoking is allowed in taverns because like it or not people love it. Be it otherwise there would not be bans being enacted to clean it up. Establisment owners would have made smoke free enviroments long ago due to pure market pressure.

Not true.

read the links before you respond because you have nothing to say to reiterate the comments made and can only make assumptions. Which is all you have done in the smoking blogs.

First Post: Not applicable.

Second Post: Is that because smoking kills people?

Nah not tire more bored with finding large amounts of evidence that supports the fact of smoking related health care costs being less than the total health care cost of all smokers.

Thereby proving the obvious error in the statement that health care costs would be reduced. Since the costs would have to exceed 20% of the total health care costs in order to prove anything. Since its significantly less I can only assume you feel the money spent by smokers for health care should not go to them.

Ah must have missed your post about using legislators...

Ok cool, if your in your local store and and you have an issue with, you go about getting them in trouble any way you can by calling up the health dept or the their bosses so on and so forth. Somehow they cleaned it up long enough to get the health department or boss of their back. Then the next time your there you see nothing was done about it, what do you do? Do you run off to your local law maker and get some law enacted or do you stop shopping there?

Assuming that what you said makes any sense, what's it have to do with anything?! Are you tired

Even if the cost of smoking was much higher than what I said of 50 billion it would have to be near 400 billion dollars a year for the smokers to get their money back out from paying health care...

Well I am done trying to find stuff for tonight here are a couple more links for you.

http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

http://www.emaxhealth.com/10/20732.html

Again the 20-25% of americans that smoke would disagree that is a fairly large protion of the whole.

I came across a number of something like $50 billion spent on smoking related deaths each year. I am going to see if I can find more substantial data on it.

Atm I do have this... 2 trillion dollars spent in 2005 on health insurance. Again I am trying to find harder numbers related to expenses. and iterestingly enough 1/20th of that is 50 billion.

So of the 1/5 of american smokers 1/20th are accruing health care costs.... seems like a system that pays for itself to me.

I will find more numbers for the non smokers to digest.

The DNR and EPA doesn't deal with cigarette smoke in bars. We do, by way of our legislators.

The overwhelming majortiy of Americans are against smoking.

Attempting to disbelieve only works marginally in D&D, it utterly fails in real life.

As far as your rejection goes, yeah I know, you reject everything I say on the grounds that there is no substance irreguardless of the links provided to certifiable sources showing otherwise. Proving that you have no recourse for contrary data provided to you.

I reject your claims. Those claims have been spoken to in my previous post(s).

The ratio of non-smokers to smokers will increase once the ban is in place. Everyone will benefit by this.

To give you an idea of how "few" smokers there are here is a website that give you a lovely breakdown. 1 in 5 smoke, and there is a much higher ratio than that in every bar I ever set foot in.

http://www.unitedhealthfoundation.com/sh...

You have an odd sense of choice when your forcing your will upon people who prefer smoke filled rooms. This article firmly states its her belief people work in a smoke free enviroment. There are countless smokers who are bartenders and waitresses, what about their right to work and smoke at their workplace.

She goes on to try and butter up the public with blatant lies about reduced health care costs and reduced smoking related illness. Again this is not the case, there are a multitude of hazards in everyday life that cause the same illnesses that are currently attributed to being around smokers for some short duration or time instead of the longer duration of exposure to other factors.

There is not support through out the government for this bill its a select few pushing it due to the lobbyists or personal vendeta.

Choosing to have a smoke free establishment and forcing a smoke free establishment through underhanded law making are 2 differnt things. This bill was introduced and given a public forum over a year ago... its not until fairly recently that wind of it even spread to the papers.

So you tell me how its a "fair" ban if they don't even give the general public the voice to speak until a year has past well after the wheels have been grinding in the government to whatever end.

copperguy, yes, it's a direct quote. I was stating what I thought was the reasoning of others in previous posts: That there are drunk drivers on the road and that problem is equivilent to smoke in bars to a degree that renders a smoking ban unfair.

I may have mispoke or I was responding to something that you, in your next post, state was not the issue.

You stated, in effect, that people have knowledge of smoke in bars and therefore have the choice of exposing themselves to that smoke, or not; whereas when they drive on the road they don't have knowledge of drunk drivers, at least they don't have knowledge in the same way.

But I stated earlier that people do have knowledge re: the dangers of drunk drivers. And that they perceive, with accuracy, that the dangers are much smaller that they will will be harmed by a drunk driver than by cigarette smoke in bar.

The numbers bear out that this perception is correct.

We can disagree on how true this is but the above stated belief is a powerful perception as evidenced by the impending smoking ban.

The impending smoking ban is also proof that the one problem is simpler to solve than the other.

The two problems are different in that removing smoke from bars is easier than clearing the road of drunk drivers.

The question becomes, how do we remove the dangers of drunk drivers from the road? (Not why can't people smoke in bars?)

The ability to easily solve one problem and not the other should not mean that we don't solve the easier one.

The smoking ban also means: People are choosing to not enter a smoke-filled. They are choosing this by having that smoke removed.

The choice of the bar owner will be removed just like his choice as to whether he will have a clean or dirty establishment has previously been removed.

The bar business will not be hurt.

Gazettefan: See your post from 5:50 PM on 2/22. I'm not trying to split hairs, and I don't believe I quoted you incorrectly or out of context. I wat trying to avoid being taken out of context myself by addressing that specific post.

Wow, I've been away enjoying the smoke-free and trouble-free bars of Illinois where the bar business is booming.

We've shattered the record set by the Bible-trashers and Bible-thumpers.

Thank Yous to Hannah and Zoom and others who are still speaking-out against smoking in bars for maintaining clear-headedness in this blog.

Can't do my usual detailed response to all the posts that've piled-up.

copperguy, I don't think you quoted me directly or in context. I think you may have drawn an improper conclusion from something I've said.

The comparisons, analogies, and other off-the-point diversions here are dealt with by sticking to the point:

The dangerous fumes of cigarettes in bars are preventable by banning smoking in bars. It's like a health code like previously instituted codes where drink and food is consumed.

thekid..., with your drunk driving problems, I sure hope that when you are going from place-to-place while you're whacked-out on the demon weed that you're doing so while driving a lawn mower

Plain and simple- the owners of the bars/restaurants should be able to choose if they would like their business smoking or non. It effects their money, not ours. So therefore if they choose to keep smoking, and lose business because of it, it should be their choice. We aren't making decisions for the owners any other time, so why start now?

I so can't believe you ALL are STILL at it....OMG ;O)

Oh look another air quality advisory warning against adverse side effects from polution.

http://www.gazettextra.com/weblogs/lates...

Manson, I've got my shovel. Let's go save some non-smoking mail carriers from breaking a leg.

And yet, here you are, posting.

There is life outside of this blog.
Don't be afraid of it.
Maybe check out the mall or McDonalds or some other slice of Americana around here.
Shoveling the streets for the City of Janesville would be a more productive pastime than this.

and for your facts see also bronchitis boht are usually brought on with the onset of cold weather and damp weather.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumonia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_bro...

fine particulates trapped int eh lungs aggravating the tissues and cold air aggravates that... so smoking outside in the cold or even being in a dusty inside enviroment and goin gintot he cold..... you figure it out

pretty sure I meant to use the possesive form there. Yes they have the right to do most of those things you mentioned in your post. There are a few legal ramifications. Exploiting workers is just bad business, illegal immigrants should be deported. There labor laws to limit the exploitation of ignorant workers. Mixing rubbing alcohol into liquor or beer is poisoning and considered attempted homocide since rubbing alcohol is denatured alcohol and destroys brains cells in the frontal lobe. This leads to blindness and death in much smaller amounts than imbibing pure liqour would. people do have the right to purchase and shoot firearms. Usually a person has had some formal training and doesn't act like a 2 year old firing blindly into the night, that is what gangs are for. As far as I am aware you can be fined for being nude in public, but tis still unconstitional to be fined provided your not performing lewd acts in public. To sell alcohol to ppl of all ages night or day, yes everyone has that right in quite a few places in the world if you can see over the bar you are served that would have put me drinking about 5 years old which in this lovely state is legal provided its your parents giving it to you. The time of day allowed to sell alcohol varies from place to place. inside janesville its like 9 pm or something odd. outside janesville its midnight. IN other states even later. Bars only have to close their doors to the public for one hour before they can open up again. This is simply to chase the drunks home when very few people are on teh streets each night instead of all night benders that have them driving in the morning when children are about. From what I have heard there are quite a few nude alcohol bars, limitiations are in place only when they are within city limits from what I hear they tend to shy away from serving liqour due to the drunken brawls again their choice.

As far as convience or right, lets see we smoke inside in a few places currently being forced outside means we aren't going to quit. It simply means our butts litter the ground until contairs are placed to put them in. As far as shelters are concerned that is up to the employers and a few provide them since they care weather or not their smokers come in to work or are out sick with pnuemonia. ANyone standing outside because they are forced to go there, even for cell phone use since most workplaces ban indoor use of cells could be held liable for medical expenses incurred at their cost.

Its even state law that an employer is responsible for any car accident you suffer on the way home from work but not on the way to work. The reasoning is that its your choice to leave to goto work. ITs your works choice on when to release you in bad conditions.

here is a few dumblaws for you too

http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-stat...

I'm sure you meant "you're missing." And no, I'm not. Are you missing the point that the whole idea behind this ban is to ban smoking in all places, including bars and taverns? I'm sure you aren't but it doesn't jive with what you want.
You seem to have a pretty specific idea of what people's rights are. What about bar owner's rights to hire anyone they choose and pay what they wish. Do they have the right to hire undocumented Mexican children to clean their bar at night for $1/night? That is a right that we are restricting. If all bars choose to do that and you don't like it, don't go to the bars.
What about the right to dilute alcohol with rubbing alcohol to save money?
The right to allow people to shoot firearms?
The right to allow people to be nude and or perform sexual acts?
The right to sell alcohol at any time of day or night, to people of all ages?
The government banning activities in bars (or regulating them, in the case of nudity) is taking away the right of bar owners to make those decisions. Are you for lifting those regulations/bans as well? I cautiously assume that you are willing to have at least some regulations for bar owners, hence why is the decision to be smoke-free or not more important than other choices we take away from bar owners?
As for smokers having a right not to be exposed to the elements when smoking outside a smoke-free establishment, why do they have that right? Do I have that same right if I step outside to take a cellphone call? How about smokers walking down the street? I think you are confusing convenience with rights. A smoker has the right to decide to smoke outside a smoke-free establishment in the cold or rain or snow or even a tornado if they want. They also have the choice to wait a bit longer to light up. Hell, they even have the choice to quit smoking or to switch to cigars or a pipe or move to a country that allows people to smoke marijuana. Making something less convenient is not a destruction of their rights.

You would have your ban if it did not include taverns... a fairly large point your missing.

Eventually, Sen. Russ Decker and the Tavern League are going to be overruled and this ban is going to pass. If for no other reason, I will be glad to see the debate end. As in Madison, bars will remain open and the number of people arguing for repealing the ban will dwindle.

My greed is aparent, others greed is aparent. There is only one type of citizen that does not get to exercise their greed in this matter. That being the owner of these establishments.

The attempts of non smokers to say its their right to breathe clean air anyplace they go is an infringement upon someone elses right to operate their establishemtn as they see fit, not how you see fit. If they want to run their establishemnt into the ground by making it smoking or nonsmoking its their choice to make.

I have no idea how many jobs I didn't stay at because it offended my sense of fairness. In no time at all I had another similar job same pay or higher pay. The arguement that its their job or their paycheck is a total lie. There are plenty of smoking and non smoking establishments that cater to both crowds.

In many prior posts I contend the tavern smoking is the only issue I have with this ban. I don't know many smokers that do smoke while people are eating with them at a table. Most leave the table to smoke or wait until everyone is finished. I could care less if its decided to ban smoking in restaurants. But don't you think the owners could have made it that way already?

How about a smokers right to be out of the elements when they smoke outside? Having been pushed out in the last 20 years of almost every enviroment? You wonder why smokers could give a hoot about where they toss their butts or how close they stand to doorways leading to buildings?

They are more than happy to smoke in a booth outside out of the rain, snow, wind, etc. most ae more than happy to keep it clean because they have been provided in rare instances with those accomodations.

Its when nonsmokers come along and decide that you should just quit and take away our places to smoke and the accomodations that were previously there that issues arise.

Its a free market supply and demand rule. Take your demand to where you like the supply and butt out of the smoking establishments in order to get them to change their ways. Forcing a do or die decision upon them. Your just mad that its not the case of those establishments having to make that decsion. Because smokers are the majority...