Discussion Forums > Politics
2012 US Presidential Election
zherok:
--- Quote from: Ixarku on November 12, 2012, 11:41:08 PM ---I have no problem with a license system for bars or restaurants that allow smoking. Establishments that serve alcohol already have to have liquor licenses, at least in the state of Florida, so it's not like it'd be much of a stretch. The logistics are solveable, the rest is just details. And local municipalities or counties should have the discretion to decide how many licenses to issue, so if one county wants to promote a non-smoking environment, they can choose not to issue any licenses at all, or very few. The point is to allow communities to decide for themselves.
--- End quote ---
You don't have to go back that far to a point where smoking sections in restaurants were practically ubiquitous. =/
We can talk about choice, but I wonder how much of a chance you'd have at being able to work in the restaurant industry where they didn't opt to cater to 20% of the population. Restaurants were certainly willing to contain both options within the same establishments in the past.
Ixarku:
--- Quote from: zherok on November 12, 2012, 11:46:49 PM ---You don't have to go back that far to a point where smoking sections in restaurants were practically ubiquitous. =/
We can talk about choice, but I wonder how much of a chance you'd have at being able to work in the restaurant industry where they didn't opt to cater to 20% of the population. Restaurants were certainly willing to contain both options within the same establishments in the past.
--- End quote ---
I'm older than a lot of folks here, old enough to have actually eaten in a restaurant that had a smoking section. And I've been to plenty of Metal shows where the smell of weed or cigarette smoke was enough to make me sick. I dunno, personally I'm tired of the whole smoking versus non-smoking debate. Either ban it outright like we have certain other harmful substances or give the smokers space within reason to do their own thing. This halfway thing of eroding their rights a little bit at a time is the same kind of tactic the conservatives use when pushing to change abortion laws, or when pushing to get religion more imbedded into various aspects of life, and it bugs me.
zherok:
--- Quote from: Ixarku on November 13, 2012, 01:23:31 AM ---I'm older than a lot of folks here, old enough to have actually eaten in a restaurant that had a smoking section.
--- End quote ---
I was 11 when California enacted the first state-wide smoking ban in 1995. I've eaten in a restaurant that had a smoking section too. Plenty of states that didn't enact it until much later, actually. Or at all, yet. Apparently Arizona wasn't until 2007.
--- Quote from: Ixarku on November 13, 2012, 01:23:31 AM ---Either ban it outright like we have certain other harmful substances or give the smokers space within reason to do their own thing.
--- End quote ---
Given how successful banning substances actually is (never mind things like marijuana, just think of prohibition) I'm not sure how useful the first option would be.
Regardless of whether it's acceptable in private places, I can't say I miss it from public ones. And I'm not sure the right to practice smoking automatically entails having to cater locations to their habit either.
Burkingam:
No, I'm against making cigarette illegal for the same reasons I'm for pot legalization. All it would do is give more money to organised crimes while we send people to prison for ridiculously small offences. But not making it illegal doesn't mean we should make it as easy as possible to smoke and as hard as possible to quit. I don't think we should ruin smoker's life in general but I do think we should discouraged and marginalize the act of smoking itself.
Nikkoru:
We're making more of an impact eliminating smoking as an addiction than any other recreational drug. and it's precisely because they're legal that we can do that effectively.
As for a license system, no. For the same reason a coal mine can't have a license to ignore regulations because "freedom".
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