Smoking ban passes second reading

palesunflower asked, "Do you know of a non-smoking bowling alley?"

Yes. In Minnesota. Oh wait, no, after the ban went into effect, those businesses closed!

And what's this "just step outside" garbage? If that isn't a big deal to you, then do it if/when you're bothered by SHS/ETS. But you do not have the right to insist that others step outside, unless you are the owner of the establishment. Moreover, there have been many crimes commited on smokers who were told to "just step outside". In fact, one WWII veteran at a nursing home "just stepped poutside" in Canada....and he subsequently died of hypothermia. A Florida schoolteacher was mugged and killed when he "just stepped outside" for a cigarette break across the street (off school grounds). You'd have to be a homicidal maniac to insist that others "just step outside", especially when you have the choice of going to a smoker-friednly, smoking/nonsmoking choice or antismoking venue. As the Reps have already discussed, many establishments are completely smoke free.

The problem with the logic of just picking and choosing places that privately decide not to allow smoking is that there is not a non-smoking option for every type of establishment. Do you know of a non-smoking bowling alley?

I can live with people smoking outside, I can live with walking through the cloud of smoke as I hold my breath to get into a building. I can't live with a restaurant asking me "smoking or non?" when there is nothing but an invisible wall of air separating the two, and then my non-smoking seat is placed next to a table with an ashtray.

Smokers need to realize that people aren't telling them they CAN'T smoke. Just that you need to step outside. This isn't the crisis situation you are trying to make it out to be.

a smokers 'right' to smoke in a bar doesnt make it my duty to breathe carbon monoxide, arsenic, dioxin, polonium 210 and all ofthe other toxic stuff in ciggys.

Looks like NC is gonna LOSE on the tourist front to Virginia which passed its smoking ban recently

This will be my last post on this subject..thank god..because dammit...WE WON! Ludicrous and bogus arguments of rights of smokers. The "if you don't like it don't come in" argument." The "I have a right to smoke wherever, whenever I want." The "government is gonna tell me how to dress after this passes" argument. The "hey this doctor wrote this book that says second hand smoke is a myth and I know how the anti-smoker brain works" argument. That one really cracked me up MichaelJMcFadden. What a doofus!

I'm here to tell all of you..STICK IT! I'm sick and tired that you think I have no right to patronize a public place of any kind and suffer the effects of your smoke that is absolutely in the air with no recourse except LEAVE! "Go to another place that doesn't allow smoking and leave me alone" as you idiots like to advise. Look..I get it. Your ticked your smoking anyplace anytime is being inconvenienced. That's what bugs you. FACT: Your smoke makes my hair and my clothes smell the stench of an ashtray. FACT: My eyes burn like hell the whole time I'm around you smoking. FACT: Residue accumulates on the utensils, glassware, heck THE FOOD PREP! Here's homework for you..take a glass wipe with you to your bar of choice where everybody's smoking, and ask a bartender for a fresh glass hanging in the rack. Wipe it!! It'll blow your mind! Bartenders, waiters, waitress', and cooks have the right to work in the cleanest air environment as possible.

Look..what you do in your house, your car, whatever, is your business. But when the smoke off your cigarette and smoke expelled out of your lungs into the environment in a closed PUBLIC PLACE, where other people are, WHERE KIDS ARE!!...THAT'S WHERE YOUR RIGHTS END AND MY RIGHTS BEGIN!!!..PERIOD!

How in the hell a smoker (or those who claim they're non-smokers..yea right) thinks it's his RIGHT to smoke anywhere anytime is thankfully over. I travel all over the country and many states don't allow it to all's delight from what they tell me. I know I don't have to worry segregating smoke filled clothes with fresh ones on my business trips...how refreshing now NC is going to put a stop to this lunacy.

...i rest my case...;-)

TooKatz asked, "Time to come clean, lobbyist. Who writes your PAYCHECK?"

No one TK. I've been doing this on my own for a good number of years as you'd have seen if you bothered to read the first two sentences of the preface of my book at www.Antibrains.com Having a book and being a smoker are my only two "competing interests" - unlike the team of professionals who push these bans and get their paychecks from either Big Pharma or Master Settlement Agreement "laundered" tobacco money.

carbon lib, again, if you're capable of reading more than three or four sentences, you'll find the answer to your first question right at the start of my book. Heh... I must have been psychic to know you guys were going to say this stuff, right? Nope. It's just that those are the things that are ALWAYS said when someone can't come up with a rational argument against what I've written.

And if you click on the "ETS Exposure" section of the book you'll see that no one is "poisoning" anyone else with their smoking.

betsyk, sanitary regulations are in place to protect people from hidden dangers that are very, VERY, real and immediate in their impact. There are many cases every year of death by food poisoning. There are virtually no cases where the cause has definitively been secondary smoke exposure.

Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"

There is no such thing as "smoker's rights." Environmental tobacco smoke is carcinogenic and causes adverse health effects to those who are exposed, even if they do not themselves smoke. No one has the right to cause such harm to someone else. So, if you want to smoke, do it where your smoke does not infringe on anyone else. And, in the meantime, God gave you an ashtray - keep your butts in your cars and stop flicking them out the window. Why are smokers such selfish slobs?

Just because some people choose to make and sell tobacco does not make it an honorable way to make a living. Making and selling a product that you know harms and kills people is shameful, not honorable. We don't need to honor the tobacco heritage of this state by continuing to put up with the adverse effects of it. And those who make money from the tobacco industry have such an obvious conflict-of-interest that they should have no credibility in the policy debate.

If you don't want to be around people who smoke, don't go to establishments that allow the patrons to smoke. It's as simple as that. We are adults.

If you don't want to work in a place that allows smoking, don't work there.

If you don't want to eat or drink at a place that allows smoking, don't go there.

There is not need for Orwellian legislation.

Ban it, there is nothing worse than having someone come down and sit beside of you and light up while you are eating dinner. I mean they dont smoke while they are eating so why would we want you to smoke while we are? I've started walking by people's table and passing gas when they do this when I'm eating. I dont want to smell your nasty smell and I'm sure you dont want to smell mine. Hey when in Texas

Yes, i agree. Why don't our Rep. find something to with their time like this "Short fall budget" that happen over night. Least call back Mike and ask him what happen to our money.

EIBeachBum, what I am objecting to here is not the law itself, but the hypocrisy of the law! Our government wants to legally ban smoking inside businesses, while it continues to tax smokers at the checkout counter! Until we totally ban the sale of all tobacco products, then this law is definitely two-faced.

fine.....let obama smoke all he wants.....just don't let him make ME smoke too.....and don't tell me to go to some other place just cause he's in there smoking...

Alaskan 1 wrote:


"Obama smokes. Democrats tell him not to smoke. The man is not disciplined enough to stop smoking is the man who is going to save us."


Precisely. President Obama is an adult who pays taxes on the cigarettes that he buys. I have no problems with the recent $1.00 federal tax on cigarettes, but I do have a problem on any law that bans smoking in a place of business, such as a restaurant or nightclub. I see that kind of intervention as government going too far across the line. If a person is old enough to buy alcohol and tobacco products, then the law should allow that individual the choice of smoking or not smoking inside a bar or restaurant. Only President Obama can stop himself from smoking, no law is going to do that for him. Remember what we read and heard about Prohibition? It failed miserably in its heyday, and it will not work in 2009....

It is about time! I hear the “nattering nabobs of negativism” and invite them to visit along the NC coast and enjoy one of the many fine restaurants or martini bars that have already discovered that keeping tobacco smoke outside is great for business. The available evidence argues that even a total ban will not damage business, quite the contrary, non-smoking establishments are the popular trend and are thriving. Is it not time to stop obfuscating and move on?

michael, so...let me get this str8.....you're saying that smoking is NOT harmful? and that it should be the RIGHT of smokers to poison others with thier drug addiction?

??

The bill still contains the following language:

"allow local governments to adopt local laws governing smoking within their jurisdictions that are more restrictive than the State law."

so if Charlotte and Raleigh wanted to ban smoking in bars, taverns, pubs, dance clubs etc. they could.

A dozen or so municipalities in South Carolina have extended their smoking bans to bars. What do they know that NC legislators dont?

It should be illegal to smoke anywhere that it may come in contact with others.