freebird...I would argue with you but your breath smells like a ash tray.....

i cant wait until they ban, 'all you can eat' or 2 for one deals. unhealthly, as smoking!

"Besides it's the law now so why are we having this debate again. It was decided two years ago."
lol
Because we ran sidewalks this week and GM again last week.

"I'll ask again: You smokers, aside from the right to pollute the air in restaurants and bars, what other personal rights have you lost in the great erosion of personal rights?"
Yes, how is this any different than not being able to smoke in a groc store or hospital. There is food and people in your direct vicinty. There are plenty of bars with nice outdoor seating to smoke in now. If I chose to sit out there and then complain then that woudl be my fault. My hubby smokes and is fine with it. It isn't like you will be torn from your beer. You can take it with now MOST places.
Get over it. This is life.
Again people have the RIGHT to eat w/o the stench of cigs in their face while eating.
Yes if you go out on the town to a bar your clothes wont stand in the corner- well if you go downtown actually the stench is still there- old stench on your clothes.
Time out feels fresh when you go in there.

Intrusion ok i will tell you what I consider to be intrusive sitting in resturaunt or a bar and having someone blowing their ciggarete smoke in your face while you are trying to eat i find that anoying people want to smoke that bad can go outside or somewhere else don't matter to me one way or the other I chose not to smoke for my own health dose not mean i have to put up with second hand smoke. I have just as much right as anyone elese to enjoy a smoke free enviorment. Besides it's the law now so why are we having this debate again. It was decided two years ago.

MikeD, you're a smoker. No non-smoker would hold such irrational thoughts.

By the way, as far as your addiction goes, it's time you and the other smokers take responsibility for allowing yourselves to be manipulated and poisoned by an industry who play you like the fools you are.

I don't smoke, and I appreciate the people who do smoke that didn't make a big deal out of going outside. What I can't stand is all the other non-smokers that to this day b!&$h and complain STILL about smokers, trying to enforce their values on someone else.

Seriously, they went outside, layoff! If they want to smoke, or as some of you may not be aware, they could be ADDICTED to the NICOTINE (wow amazing huh?) that is their problem. No wonder we're on the downward spiral toward dictatorship. There are so many people that are themselves, just low level dictators.

To speak of smoking as a "right" or in terms of "liberty" or "freedom" is to elevate it to a status it doesn't deserve. It is, in fact, simply a habit that the smoker is unable to control – nothing more, nothing less.

In the 1950s somewhat more than half of all adults smoked. Now only about 20% do, maybe fewer. With non-smokers in the vast majority they get to dictate to smokers where they can smoke in public, if at all.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Thanks, MikeF. I prefer to think that the heatwave cleared your head.

Would all the paranoids kindly move to Canada.


I'll ask again: You smokers, aside from the right to pollute the air in restaurants and bars, what other personal rights have you lost in the great erosion of personal rights?

With the heat wave, it's now fun to see the people in front of bars in 100 degree weather sucking on cancer sticks. That bizarre little ceremony should send them a message about how crazy smoking is. But NO.

Strange feeling this morning as I read the comments. I find myself agreeing with gazettefan, Sigma40, and 916WI.
Must be the heat or something...

spinmaster.....Huh? It seems as though the freedom not to have to breathe toxic smoke when frequenting businesses regulated by the state has actually increased.......no?

I like it.

The government might as well just make it illegal to buy cigarettes. That's where this is all heading anyways. Freedom is diminishing.

I applaud any business owner who bans smoking outside at their front doors. It's a tough one to make, but the healthy one.

your incorrect bar sales have in fact been negatively impacted on a local scale, from what I've consistantly been told by several local owners. I'm not sure where the report is deriving their "selective" statistics from. (large resturants only that also happen to include a bar?)

The inexorable move toward totalitarianism continues as We The People continue to trade liberty for temporary security.

I'm just sayin'...

Kissing someone that smokes, is like kissing an ASHTRAY !!! yuk. Filthy habit that deserves no protection.

I was a huge fan of this as well......Know several people that own bars, the rhetoric about the bars losing business because of the ban was way overblown.

You still have the freedom to smoke. Just walk outside. It isn't very restrictive at all. No different than other laws and regulations. If you are that upset organize a PAC and start lobbying against it. Oh wait most people like it now.

freebird...They removed the cancer (causing) from businesses by removing the toxic smoke. I now go out to eat more often and it is less harmful to my health.

Sales are not hurting in bars because of this. I think its great I can go out to bars and clubs now and not have to worry about dirty smokers. If they want to die slowly that is their decision, prior to this I couldnt go anywhere to have fun on a friday-saturday night without coming home smelling like an ash tray and having a headache from smoke.

Love it.

free....., aside from polluting the air in restaurants and bars, what other rights have you lost in the great erosion of rights.

By the way, should all the health codes for restaurants and bars be struck down?

You were always free to avoid those places. Anyone with some common sense didn't need a law to help them with this.

The smoking ban is a great example of how the will of the people can be enacted by way of the government. Now it's time for the paranoids to chime in and tell us how the ban is another step toward eroding all of our rights. Ha.

As non-smokers, we have enjoyed feeling free to eat and socialize at places we didn't dare enter before the ban. The only ones we avoid now are the tavern/restaurants where smokers stand outside surrounding the door -- we don't feel a need to walk through smoke to enter a non-smoking facility, so we take our business elsewhere. We'd rather patronize the local small eateries than fast-food chains, and this law has enabled that.