New Orleans Passes Extensive Smoking Ban

a reply to: gottaknow


It's crazy.
The UK has lost thousands of pubs, clubs, bingo halls and lots of other places where people socialise through the smoking ban.
It's sad that's it's totally changed our way of living.....especially our social side of life.
For those of us aged over thirty it's been massive.
For people under thirty I think it will have hardly changed their lives as they have never really enjoyed the freedoms we've had.
My grandkids are going to grow up believing that if you stand near a person who smokes.....you're gonna die.
They won't be able to play indoor games like darts, pool, snooker etc. they've been programmed into socialising on mobiles and tablets.
The smoking ban .....I think....has made a major contribution to communal society.

a reply to: lambros56

The first thing we can expect to happen is the smoking rate will rise exponentially. The credibility of our scientists will be shot and people will publicly laugh at any advice provided by public health practitioners.

But we will recover - as we did from alohol prohibition.

I would't worry overly much about the younger generaton. They were the first to start attending "smoke-easies" - places were alchol is sold are smoking is allowed.

They know how to do it.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: lambros56
Maybe in England the smoking ban has hurt pubs but in large cities here in US that is not the case. There has been a cocktail and bartending renaissance of sorts. Most of this is happening in large cities like New York and Chicago where there are smoking bans in place. I'm not saying the smoking ban has anything to do with the increased interest in classic cocktails but right now is probably the best time to be in the bar business since the repeal of prohibition.

New Orleans has a huge bar scene that influences other parts of the country too. I don't think if smokers are forced to smoke on patios it will hurt their late night industry.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

But we will recover - as we did from alohol prohibition. I would't worry overly much about the younger generaton. They were the first to start attending "smoke-easies" - places were alchol is sold are smoking is allowed.

Thats the funniest thing you said so far, because not having the younger generation smoke is such a horrible epidemic in this country.

Luckily your mentality is the minority and these banning laws will continue to prevail and the control freak will continue to win, lol.

BTW are you hard core smoking freaks willing to pay extra to cover the healthcare rise due to smokers. Yeah I doubt it.

originally posted by: snowspirit
a reply to: kosmicjack

Canada set in most of those same laws at least a decade ago.
Hotels /motels usually have a couple of rooms for smokers, which are also the rooms for people traveling with pets.
No smoking in commercial vehicles either - taxis, buses.
People just go outside to smoke, at a required distance from the building. Usually a few feet.
In the winter we see various employees freezing their butts off smoking outside.

I don't think it affected tourism much, there's a lot of nonsmokers these days.

Correct. I'll just add (as far as western canada goes) that some bars have smoking only rooms that are vented outside. It does obviously get cold north of 49 in the winter so some measures were taken in some cases to make everyone happy - and that was one.

I had to actually check the date on this post because we've had these laws up here for a longgggggg time. Weird hearing about other places who are just dealing with it now.

This thread is driving me to drink, er, I mean smoke. No take backs though, can't un-post it...just dang. LoL! Can we all just agree to disagree?

a reply to: kosmicjack

Can we all just agree to disagree?

On ATS ?!

Surely you jest !

a reply to: interupt42

Smokers have been paying more than non-smokers for health care for decades now. In the United States - there is the master settlement agreement that gave the participating states more than 25 billion since 1998 (They are trying to get the same arrangement in Canada but are just not there yet).

Then there are the rapacious taxes on cigarettes that are supposed to be to pay for extra healthcare

Then in United States - smokers pay more for their health care plans

BTW - antismokers have yet to prove that smokers actually do cost the government more. They have this way of added up exaggerated costs (including the increased cost of grief to the families for their premature death) but they never compare the numbers to anything. Further if, as they claim, smokers die 8 years younger than non-smokers, then you need to consider that the government is saving 8 years worth of pension and health care.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

To All - the fact that this subject is still so controversial when smoking bans started in the 1990s is proof positive that this campaign is doomed to failure!

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

How many cities have reversed a ban versus how many have instituted them?

We'll wait.

It's been a few years since smoking bans started in my home state. They started in establishments that served anyone under 18 and quickly expanded to all businesses. I'm a smoker, and the bans hit after I'd grown out of the bar every weekend phase of my life, but they did change the way i patronized bars and and particularly restaurants.

Before the bans hit, when I'd go out to eat I'd order a drink ( usually a beer), check out the menu and order, eat my meal, smoke a cig and then decide if I'd like desert or a cocktail ( both of which are two of the more profitable items at a restaurant) sometimes both. If the restaurant had a nice bar to go with it, I'd move to the bar and maybe have another drink while watching sports or shoot a game of pool. Now when i go out to eat i still order a drink, but i ask for my check as soon as my meal arrives and refuse to even consider a desert or cocktail after a meal. I'd say my average ticket size has decreased by 20-30% since these bans passed.

As far as bars go it's more of a hassle than it's worth to even go to one I've noticed. Even though I'd been spending much less time in bars then when i was younger, i could still be convinced to go to one if there wasn't anything else to do before the smoking bans. If you find me in one now, it's doubtful if you leave and come back a couple of hours later I'll still be there. There's just not a point to stay there any amount of time if i have to go out and smoke. And for the weekdays the occasional stop by the bar ,drink a couple of beers,shoot a couple of games of pool or darts to unwind from a rough day just doesn't happen anymore. Used to do that two or three times a month. After the ban, I don't even bother. I'd rather grab a six pack at the convenient store for the price of 2 beers at a bar and head on to the house. I could have done that pre ban of course, but the inconvenience of having to go outside, and possibly lose my seat totally erased the value of socialization that made me willing to pay the bar owner's premium over buying it myself.

Those saying that it should be the business owner's decision are of course right. Non smokers don't have to patronize a business that allows smoking. Smokers aren't even allowed to create a business that caters exclusively to them. How is that fair?

At least i spend way less money eating out and in bars now.

a reply to: kosmicjack

here is a website for you on the repeal of smoking bans in the United States

www.repealsmokingbans.com...

If you are sincerely interested in smoking bans and the undemocratic way in which they passed, I would suggest this paper by Yale University

digitalcommons.law.yale.edu...

The paper classifies types of smoking bans and then thoroughly discussed the deleterous effect of the Ohio Smoking Ban

Fanatical anti-smokers have now reached the point of being an unelected shadow government that ties the hands of elected legislators. This issue in not just affecting smokers by a long shot.

This paper goes far beyond the discussion of mere smokers rights vs anti-smokers rights - it threatens to topple democracy itself and throw us all into some socialist government with public health being in ultimate control.

Its an extremely interesting paper for anyone to read and it will give you an entirely new perspective on the entire issue.

Once you see the scam - you can never unsee it!

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: lambros56
a reply to: Krazysh0t

I don't believe other people smoking affects your health.
I think its a load of rubbish.
I seen some stats somewhere that said two in every eighty thousand people die from passive smoking.
Now I don't know if that's true but either way, in all my life I hardly know many that have died from smoking never mind passive smoking.
Also a high percentage of cancer sufferers actually die from complications caused by the chemo but that hardly gets a mention after death.
Both my parents smoked as did I and my siblings. We also had a coal fire for the first twenty years of my life.
None of us have had a smoke related illness at all.

Smoking is now classed as anti-social......
I believe the smoking ban is anti-social.

I'll tell you straight up that it effects ME when I'm in a smoky establishment. My breathing ability decreases. I know this for a fact since I've lived with it all my life. So you are 100% wrong. It DOES harm other people. Stand outside and smoke.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Ho hum - yet another asthma diva heard from.

However did people manage to live before smoking bans - I will tell you how they managed to live.....with far less asthma and allergies, is how!

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: Krazysh0t

Ho hum - yet another asthma diva heard from.

Actually I am the same one you disparaged earlier. You know it is highly insulting that you are so callous to other people's disabilities especially considering that you are breathing out the smoke that I have no choice to breath. Oh wait. Why am I responding to you again? I already bid you adieu since you are such a sociopath on this issue.

However did people manage to live before smoking bans - I will tell you how they managed to live.....with far less asthma and allergies, is how!

Many of them were bed ridden and died young. Stop making up revisionist history. You aren't supposed to make a disabled person's life more difficult as an able bodied person. This is why we have access ramps for paralyzed people. This is why you don't make smoky rooms full of cigarette smoke for the people with breathing problems. Especially when the answer, to go outside, is so easy to do. Is costless and only takes 5 minutes out of your time. Apparently people aren't dying in Ontario smoking 25 meters from an establishment even in the abysmally cold weather, so I don't see any valid reason you can have to complain about it, outside of selfishness. So again. goodbye. I do not wish to speak to someone so selfish as you.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

No you are very very much mistaken in my post. I am very concerned about asthma. What I said is very very real.

There has been an 800 % increase in the incidence of asthma since the 1960s and a comparative increase in the rate of allergies.

Back when everyone was exposed to smoke - asthma and allergies were comparatively rare.

Many scientists have put forward the HYGIENE Theory - You see man has been surrounded by smoke since the very beginning and our respiratory system developed in the presence of massive amounts of smoke generated when we burned organics to heat our homes and cook our wood.

That smoke is absent in the lives of children today - Asthma is a condition of hyper-sensivity of the respiratory system simply because the respiratory system was not challenged in childhood when the respiratory system is developing.

They have proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that children of smokers - exposed daily to second smoke - have far less asthma and the greater the number of cigarettes smoked in their presence - the greater the protective effect.

Here is a link for you that includes links to all the epidimiological studies as well as the laboratory studies proving the theory and providing a biological explanation.

People did not go out wheezing with red eyes in bars in the 1950s and 1960s when smoking was prevalent.

The very think you hate may be the very thing you need the most!

I find it ironic is all

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

Link? What link?

Besides, it doesn't matter. My lungs aren't going to change now and become easier to breath around smoke if I change. It is what it is, and I have a right to participate in bar life too.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Why yes - as a matter of fact, people have frozen death in Ontario by just stepping outside to have a smoke.

And smoker's who, just take outside, are subjects of crime when they leave a club that has bouncers for security. Smokers have raped, robbed and shot, just taking it ouside.

Yes People die due to asthma and other respiratory ailments - and smokers did not CAUSE their disease. We should not take responsibility for it and neither should we live our lives as if we have the same disease.

Would you sit in a wheelchair the rest of your life in sympathy for all the people who are paralyzed and can't walk?

Why should I stop smoking because someone, somewhere has asthma?

People who have respiratory ailments have an equal responsibility to protect themselves as anyone else. Why do they choose to enter an environment where smokers are present, if they have asthma and they know that smoke affects them.

Are they stupid or are they merely using their illness as an excuse to bully and control others?

Tired of Control Freaks

originally posted by: TiredofControlFreaks
a reply to: Krazysh0t

Why yes - as a matter of fact, people have frozen death in Ontario by just stepping outside to have a smoke.

Got any stats to back that up?

And smoker's who, just take outside, are subjects of crime when they leave a club that has bouncers for security. Smokers have raped, robbed and shot, just taking it ouside.

Couldn't you go sit in your car with the door locked?

Yes People die due to asthma and other respiratory ailments - and smokers did not CAUSE their disease. We should not take responsibility for it and neither should we live our lives as if we have the same disease.

You aren't, I'm just wanting you to be considerate of my situation and not smoke in a place where smoke can build up and reduce the overall cleanliness of the air.

Would you sit in a wheelchair the rest of your life in sympathy for all the people who are paralyzed and can't walk?

Why should I stop smoking because someone, somewhere has asthma?

This is a TERRIBLE comparison. I'm just asking that you stand outside and smoke. I'm not telling you, you can't smoke. Stop putting words in my mouth. This is one of the reasons I stopped responding to you originally. It's insulting.

People who have respiratory ailments have an equal responsibility to protect themselves as anyone else. Why do they choose to enter an environment where smokers are present, if they have asthma and they know that smoke affects them.

Because smoking is a choice that YOU make as an individual. You don't make the choice to smoke for everyone. So I shouldn't have to share your smoke because I didn't make the decision to smoke.

Are they stupid or are they merely using their illness as an excuse to bully and control others?

Tired of Control Freaks

Textbook selfishness.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

you call me selfish - you have asthma and you therefore demand that all smoking stop in ALL restaurants and bars, leaving no place for me to smoke and socialize with my friends without having to listen to your non-stop whining.

I call you a bully who likes to control others and punish them because they choose to do something you disapprove of.

I have already posted a link in this thread outlining smokers who have been victims of crime - you should have read it when I posted it. I do not wish to post more links for someone who doesn't bother reading them

Tired of Control Freaks