Congratulations to the advocates of a smoking ban in Chicago. The City Council finally passed a Clean Indoor Act Ordinance that prohibits the cancer clouds in most places, but gives the bars 30 months to comply with the ordinance. That's the compromise that the liquor and restaurant industry was able to extract, and they also managed to get in a provision that if they can prove that the indoor air is of the same quality as the outdoor air based on their air filtration system, they can continue to smoke at the bar.
So all of 2006 and all of 2007 and half of 2008 will be full of carcinogenic smoke in Chicago.
Unless Commissioner Mike Quigley pushes Cook County to move faster than Chicago's July 1, 2008 deadline....(he has proposed a Cook County ordinance to ban smoking in all of Cook County).
9 comments:
Lame. The local taverns are closing at an alarming rate and the ones left won't be smokey and atmospeheric anymore. I'm glad I moved from chicago becasue it is quickly losing its soul. They should have let only people who drink like real Chicagoans vote on this one. I mean, I'm all for smoke free restaurants, but damn, The Charelston without smoke? The California Clipper without ash trays? Jimmy's without smoking? A cultural tragedy, really. A bunch of pencil necked geeks who can't handle ehir drink undermining our hard drinking hard smoking die early ethos. You all might as well just admit Chicago has no soul anymore.
And Juan Pierre? Does anyone still wake up at night with nightmares about the 2003 NLCS? I might as well become a Giants fan.
Hey planes and work places are not for smoking. Drinking establishments are. Another example fo poor legislation that is way too over inclusive. The paternalism sucks. And I don't even smoke.
Smokers Liberation Front published some German Nazi anti-smoking posters from the 1930s.
While that is a fantastic diatribe, you miss a huge point (other than that I hate cigarettes and do not smoke them). The government has any number of ways it can deter behaviors that result in externalities. And so it must take a look at the cost benefit analysis which each type and manner of restriction would create. You can't make this a black and white issue and start freaking out about big government. I hope you are smarter than that, but I wouldn't bet on it. The issues are not so black and white and the ideal soultion depends on what is being restricted and how we go about restricting it.
With guns, they only create externalities (they are designed to kill someone other than the owner, even though it doesn't always work out that way) so they are the perfect object of direct restrictions (unless CF you gain erotic enjoyment from your gun, which I would not put past you - "Oh my sweet killer, how I love to make love to your barrel... you are so powerful and make me feel oh so powerless."). So outright bans on certain types of especially dangerous guns are totally appropriate, and limited exceptions for hunting and sport shooting can be accomodated.
But with cigarettes, the externalities are not direct (nobody dies as soon as you light up), and people actually enjoy smoking them. So an outright ban everywhere on a behavior that certain people enjoy, even in the place designed for their consumption? Ridiculous. There are better ways to achieve the government's aims. Price people out of cigarettes with taxes first and foremost - that would deter smoking at home and in public which is far more consitent with the healthcare considerations. And restrict their consumption everywhere that there is NOT a reasonable expectation that you would be subject to smoke (like everywhere BUT a bar). And if there is a market for smoke free bars, let the marketplace work itself out.
But my point was a cultural one, and maybe I'm just hanging on too tightly to the romantic image of intellectuals smoking, drinking and conversing in bars. I will admit that despite my distaste for this overinclusive and culturally deadening legislation, I do love the smokelss bars here in SF. But this is SF, not Chicago, and I'm starting to notice Chicago is losing its distinct identity, which is sad.
And CF, your paranoia about some desire on the part of elites to shape society to fit their apparently arbitraty personal norms is absurd. It speaks volumes about the amount of fear that blackens your heart. There are plenty of objective, universalizable, good reasons to restrict the influence of money on government, to restrit gun ownership and a even far more compelling consitutional basis to keep religion out of public schools. That you worry about the big bad government restricting school prayer is retarded and anti-American. Move to Saudi Arabia so you can bask in the state sponsored dominance of one particular religion.
The second amendment does not grant an individual a right to bear arms, either in its words or its interpretation by the supreme court. Sorry. You lose on that one. Look it up. And the interpretation of the first amendment to apply to corporate and commerical speech is one of the biggest tragedies of our government. Giving money is not political speech, it is commerical speech, and it should not be protected like actual speech (And certainly not by corporations. That corporations are considered "individuals" as a constitutional matter is one of the biggest farces of our governemnt) I don't dispute that paying money is considered a form of speech as a constitutional matter, but it is a backward ruling that has caused great harm to our citizens. Further, times change becasue progress is made, not becasue of what you seem to think are arbitrary acts of activist governemnt. People actually are free enough to think for themselves and reject ridiculous notions of a God that has intent and meddles in human affairs. Atheism or agnosticism are both viable religious theories that public school prayer blatently violates. Thank God for the supreme court protecting atheists! (ha)
As for the redneck, I thought I spent the time pointing out how the externalities of guns are far more serious than those of cigarettes, and that the pleasure of smoking for some exists in reality as a physiological matter(instead of as some sick psychological pleasure of having the potential to kill). And if you could read closely you'd see I'm all for the governmental regulation of cigaretts, just as I am for guns. I'm simply arguing those regulations should take different forms based on teh pleasures they provide for the individual, and the harms they cause to the rest of us.
This creates the ultimate grey area. The air filtration business will be interesting-
-------------------------------
Lights out for smokers
Ban kicks in Jan. 16; bars, some restaurants get reprieve
By Gary Washburn, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune staff reporters Dave Wischnowsky, Gerry Doyle and James Janega contributed to this report
Published December 8, 2005
excerpt:
"... concerned by a provision that offers the hope of a permanent exemption for any place that meets yet-to-be-determined rules for scrubbing the air."
I saw that. The outcome of political negotiation is rarely the optimal one. Sweet Chicago. An air filter and an envelope stuffed with hundreds will be all that most bars need to maintain their character. I can't wait to walk into the California Clipper when I'm back and smell the sweet cancerous smell of political compromise.
Since the anti-smoking crowd is worried about our health,should Chicago's fat people be served at fast food restaurants? They cost money? Will there be a ban or some sort of limitation? Since,Chicago's Public school system is corrupt and dangerous should we ban it? A 46% drop out rate isn't a healthy place for students to hang out in.All those who love Chicago's one party government are welcome to comment.
Yes, they should be served. However the governemnet should impose a sin tax on bad food to deter consumption. First the highest tax on trans-fat (artificaily hydrogenated fats), then the second tier on alcohol, processed sugar and animal fat(naturally saturated).
Further, the fed government needs to impliment severe environmental controls on massive corporate cow pig and chicken farms, which will serve to protect (finally) the environment as well as drive prices for meat up. Those guys get a free pass because they have way too much sway in washington.
If you did all that, maybe it would be much cheaper, as it should be, to eat brown rice and vegtables as opposed to 99 cent cheeseburgers.
Again, this doesn't have to be an all or nothing issue, and I'm not sure why everyone treats it that way.
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