Via the Post: City Wants To Use Zoning Laws to Make Eateries Tobacco-Free
As usual, “free markets” are not.
The question on smoking in private businesses is simple, but the ninnies cannot handle losing, I suppose. Simply put, free markets can easily decide this question. If the majority of people want smoke-free eateries, then they will patronize those establishments that choose to be smoke-free. Prospective employees who want to work in a smoke-free environment will concentrate on getting jobs there. There is no need to use legislative end-runs to control consumer choice.
I won’t excerpt the article, as it’s pretty much just wall-to-wall horseshit from the ninnies. What we are talking about is a third party regulating your choice. You can still serve alcohol (a poison, whose influence is devastating to many, many people) but YOU SHALL NOT ALLOW PEOPLE TO SMOKE. You can allow people to overeat (although I suppose a trans-fats ban will come soon), BUT YOU SHALL NOT INHALE THE BURNING TOBACCO SMOKE.
I don’t like smoking. It smells bad. It’s really bad for you. I don’t think anyone should smoke. I would always, given an option, patronize a non-smoking establishment over one that allowed it; I would go out of my way to do so.
But the regulation of something I don’t like, of a private space for adults, who are engaging in other behaviors which are similar (if not, identical) to the one you want to control, is foolish. Worse, it’s yet another dangerous precedent: “You need to have your decisions made for you, because we know better”.
Free markets can solve this “problem”, or at least, curtail it, without the need for invasive government.
Lastly I fucking hate it when people say “public health” and yet, our health care system is tied largely to one’s work. Quit calling it public health, if I can’t just go get health care. OK?
