Columbia Mayor Bob Coble had sent me four e-mails (all of which I just read, since I just got back from vacation) responding to our lead editorial of July 30, which essentially said we’d love to see smoking eliminated from local bars and restaurants, but we didn’t think state law would allow a municipality to take such action.
FYI I am attaching the Attorney General’s Opinion
that holds that the State
has preempted cities from banning smoking in public buildings. The opinion
says that because the State Clean Indoor Act is statewide, it preempts
local governments from a smoking ban by "implication." I think the legal
issue is unclear enough that it should be decided by the Court in
a declaratory judgment action. The Clean Indoor Air Act does not
address smoking bans by cities but regulates where smoking is prohibited. If
the State Legislature had specifically addressed smoking in restaurants
I would feel differently. Thanks
So the mayor is apparently forging ahead. Here’s a followup message:
FYI The Smoke Free
Columbia folks have sent me two ordinances. The first is a model ordinance (with
Columbia filled in) and the second is the ordinance that Sullivan’s Island
adopted (or is in the process). They are very similar. Thanks,
Bob
Well, I wish him luck, but it’s still our position that the Legislature intended to prevent localities from taking this common-sense step. Either way, state law needs to be changed. On this and other matters that naturally fit within the realm of local ordinance, the state should leave communities alone to decide their own rules, as expressed by the governments closest to the people.
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Go Mayor Bob. Given the utterly unreasonable attitude by some on this Blog I now fully support a smoking ban. My change of heart on this issue is due entirely to the Brad Warthen Blog.
Brad, I agree that any smoking ban ordnances should be decided by local governments, if at all.
The real rub, though, is if such bans should be made at all. One might make a pretty good case that the health of the workers in the bars and restaurants over rides the rights of the owners to run their private property establishments as they see fit, setting the ambiance, as it were, to attract any clientele they desire.
However, by what principle does a worker have the right to dictate that his or her boss guarantee that the work they are hired for will be absolutely risk-free. There are any number of jobs that have obvious, inherent risks, risks that are part of the nature of the job (construction, mining, commercial fishing, race car drivers, etc, etc). The pay and compensation for those jobs (and all others, too) takes in the balance between the inherent risks and the availability of laborers willing to assume those risks for the pay offered.
Why shouldn’t waiting tables in a bar be considered a job with inherent risks (from second hand smoke) that reasonable employees should understand is part and parcel of the job? The risks of cigarette smoke have been made public knowledge (by the federal government) for decades. No one should be able to claim ignorance of the risks.
Just as commercial fishers know that if the boat sinks they can’t breath under water, that is, they might drown, wait staff signing up for work in a bar should know that they will have to breath second hand smoke. If they don’t want to take the risk, they shouldn’t ask for the job.
This is a matter between labor and management. Let the waiters and waitresses of the world unite and strike against bar owners who won’t go smokeless, but keep the government out it.
Second-hand Smoke Study Finks No Links to Health Problems
By Mike Wendling
CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief
May 16, 2003
London (CNSNews.com) – A study about to be published in this week’s British Medical Journal indicates that second-hand smoke doesn’t increase the risk of heart disease or lung cancer, but the publication and the study’s authors have come under attack by anti-smoking groups.
Two American researchers analyzed data from an American Cancer Society survey that followed more than 118,000 Californians from 1960 until 1998.
James E. Enstrom, of the University of California at Los Angeles and Geoffrey C. Kabat of the State University of New York at Stony Brook concluded that “the results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke (second-hand smoke) and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect.”
“The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed,” the researchers wrote.
Well, Lee, I object on the principle. To continue the fishing boat analogy:
Passing a ban on smoking in bars is like passing an ordinance that says, “In order to prevent any more fishermen from drowning henceforth all fishing boats must be winched up onto dry ground.”
People go to bars to indulge their vices, and bar owners are in the business of catering to those vices. That’s how they make their money; that’s what their business is about. Some of those customers include smoking as one of the legal vices they want to indulge in. If bar owners think that they can make more money allowing their patrons to smoke in their establishments that should be their business call.
The purpose and nature of this business makes bars and restaurants uniquely different from other places of employment.
However, I suppose that under the precedent that requires fishing boats have life preservers, bar owners might be required to supply their wait staff with OSHA approved face masks for gas / vapor and particulate hazards. While they’re at it, they should also supply ear plugs to protect their employees from loud music and perhaps tinted safety glasses to guard against bright, strobing lights. Of course, the use of these safety devices should be voluntary and subject to legal wavers.
SGM, we both know that the anti-smoking zealots don’t care about science or even health. It is a secular crusade that is just one item of enforcing their behavior on everyone else, in thousands of places these intolerant bigots will never set foot.
Why stop at tobacco smoke?
Why not ban all smoke from the kitchen, too, including exhaust from the range hood.
Then ban all “unnecessary” fattening foods, and all alcohol in restaurants.
‘S why it’s gotta be a matter of principle, but we’ve gone a long way down the road of no return already. I was only half way kidding about the OSHA thing.
But they’re only light weights when it comes to intolerant bigotry. You should see some of the people in some of the places I spend my days. There are some really scary, Orwellian corners in the world, and I’m not talking about Sacramento either. Compared to most places, Columbia, SC is Kansas, Toto.
When will Mayor Bob get around to making it legal to discriminate against smokers in hiring even when they only smoke off the job, just as the EU has done? The way the persecution of smokers has been ratcheting over the past 30 years, we’ll probably be at that point in just a few short years.
EU employers free to refuse jobs to smokers
By Andrew Bounds in Brussels
Financial Times
Updated: 9:11 p.m. ET Aug 4, 2006
Employers in Europe are free to refuse smokers a job, confirming their status as the continent’s last pariahs.
The European Commission, which has presided over a vast array of anti-discrimination legislation in the past six years, has confirmed that it does not cover tobacco users.
Asked whether a job advert saying that “smokers need not apply” breached European law, Vladimir Spidla, the commissioner for employment and equal opportunities, said it did not.
“A job advertisement saying that ‘smokers need not apply’ would not seem to fall under any of the . . . prohibited grounds [under EU legislation],” he added in a written reply to Catherine Stihler, a member of the European parliament. CLICK THE HEADLINE FOR THE REST OF THE ARTICLE.
There are already US companies firing employees who smoke, and refusing to hire smokers.
Lee, the language of the CNSNews (which by the way, is not a legitimate news outlet) article says “The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed”. That is not exactly a ringing endorsement.
What did the doctor quoted believe to begin with? Does it take five years instead of one to see health problems? That article is vague at best.
Lex, smoking is a choice, not something you are born with. Are employers allowed to discriminate against White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis? Is that bad too? If you make the choice to smoke, then you shall suffer the consequences.
Most people with HIV make choices, too, but you can’t deny employment to them, because AIDS is a politically favored disease.
Some political views are not protected, even if there is no expression at work. Just witness the teacher fired here for a letter to the editor of Connecticutt newspaper, where he scolded black parents for wanting segregated classrooms. Their racism was untouchable.
Smoking is a choice. In America, it is supposed to be the free choice of the smoker and those around him, not bluenose bigots miles away who just want to dictate behavior which does not affect them.
As I travel around Columbia, I’ve noticed many things that need attention. Why in God’s name does the Mayor chose smoking as a major important issue? Let state law decide and let the Mayor do something for Columbia, talk about a stink hole, this is it.
No, I don’t smoke.
Preston, how can you so blithely ignore the obvious? If you make the choice to smoke, you AND EVERYONE AROUND YOU shall suffer the consequences. People don’t have the option of deciding only for themselves whether to smoke. They decide for everyone in their vicinity. To deny that is to deny the painfully obvious.
Other people are unable to choose other places to eat where there is no smoking?
Is the smoker being asked to refrain, and refusing to do so? Or are the other patrons unable to handle such a minor social interaction that they want to make their inconvenience a crime, enforced by armed police?
Brad, easy now. I was defending you by saying smoking is different than say, being black. I don’t consider it discimination to ban smokers from places, as Lex does, because smoking is a choice. We’re on the same side here.
I also agreed with you that second hand smoke is bad. Was my post that confusing?
Viet Vet. You’re right about the needs of Columbia. Why on earth doesn’t the Mayor do something about those @#$% RR Tracks on Assembly Street. It is just maddening to have to deal with that mess year after year after year.
Brad, let’s do a segment on the RR tracks. That’s my biggest pet peeve about Columbia.
Second-hand Smoke Study Finks NO LINKS to Health Problems
By Mike Wendling
CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief
May 16, 2003
The do-gooders can look at China as an example. The government decided the population was too high, so they outlawed more than one baby per family. As a result, families want sons who can carry on the name, so girls are aborted routinely until a son is born. Some may reasonably say this is an extreme analogy, but we start with smoking, seatbelts, cellphones, fatty foods, alcohol, SUVs, and eventually it may lead to babies. The funny thing is there are 350 million current smokers in China. Less sex, more smoking. Is that it?
Less freedoms equal a better world? You anti-smoking folks have to stop inhaling whatever it is you’re smoking.
Think this through, please. I’m behind enemy lines and on the side of the terrible trio over here.
You would honestly give up a freedom just so you can sit near the neatly lit bar of your local Applebee’s? No modestly priced riblet basket on Earth is worth exchanging for a gift from democracy.
If there is such a demand for smoke-free restaurants, why don’t we see more of them? Why don’t the anti-smokers build such businesses and get rich?
Lee, we are seeing more and more and more smoke-free establishments all the time. And many are making out quite well.
Capital A, I’m just trying to hold the line. The terrible trio wants to revert back to the 50s. That would be a disaster.
No takers on the railroad mess? Let’s have a bake sale to raise money to remove this scourge of the capital city.
The railroad built all the cities in America.
They rarely come through town at street level, inconveniencing a few people for 5 minutes a day at known times, which are easy to avoid.
If “we are seeing more and more and more smoke-free establishments all the time,” and if “many are making out quite well,” why do we need additional bans? It seems like patrons are voting with their feet, as it should be.
I’m certainly not advocating that we “revert back to the 50s.” I just think that the laws that are now in place are more than adequate and have reached what should be considered their reasonable limits.
Demanding more restrictions is not “hold[ing] the line.” It seems that the motivation is more to follow an avant guard trend than to do right by bar and restaurant owners and patrons.
Sorry, bud, but I don’t have a dog in the fight with the RR track issue since I reside in that great void between Newberry and Camden called Fairfield County. I think The State still uses the Pony Express to delivery its dead-tree edition to the area, and its reporters and editors believe that they need passports and visas to cover the news there.
Well this explains why we still have RR tracks crossing Assembly Street, even right before USC football games! There just isn’t enough interest to spend the money. Sigh.
SGM, you are taking a position of moderation and accomodation. That won’t do, man. The anti-smokers want a total ban on smoking, and they intend to get it by a series of compromises that they have no intention of honoring.
Amazing how things might have turned out if the opponents of the anti-smoking Nazis had taken them seriously back when they were agitating to get a non-smoking area on airplanes and had simply fought them all the way. Instead, as Lee says, since then it’s been a neverending series of little steps further and further persecuting smokers. As soon as they get their latest little demand, it’s right on to the next one. These people are simply fanatics who will not rest until they achieve total tobacco prohibition.
I don’t smoke.
Compromise only works when the two sides have the same basic goal and only differ on how to accomplish it or the order of the tasks, and both have honest intentions of keeping the bargain.
Liberals follow the dishonest socialist model of compromising as a means of moving forward to the next demand and compromise.
Lex writes:
“… it’s been a neverending series of little steps further and further persecuting smokers. As soon as they get their latest little demand, it’s right on to the next one. These people are simply fanatics who will not rest until they achieve total tobacco prohibition.”
What’s the problem? Sounds like progress to me. This is called incrementalism. And the right uses this tactic also.
It’s a dishonest subversion of the democratic process by socialists.
The success of the clean-air partriots in their tireless efforts to free many public areas from the tyranny of the tobacco nazis is a good example of how grass roots efforts can be highly successful. This effort has made life much better for millions of Americans. And this effort has largely been devoid of major government intervention. Most of the movement has involved voluntary restrictions by businesses large and small. Of course most government buildings are smoke free, but the beruaucrats at all levels are mostly followers, not leaders.
Another example of grass roots success in making life better was featured in today’s (Aug 12) State Editorial Page. That is the new primary seat belt law. This long overdue measure has saved dozens of lives already and it doesn’t cost us a thing. Thanks to those who have toiled away tirelessly for decades to finally put the whole driving thing into some kind of perspective. The ongoing slaughter on the highways dwarfs the minimal dangers we face from a handful of Islamic radicals. (Sadly because of neocon bumbling this handful is a much larger group than before, but I digress). And who says liberals don’t have ideas for making the world a better place?
Maybe, rather than beating our heads against the entrenched propaganda machine in Washington liberals could bring about positive change more effectively at the local level. Perhaps, just perhaps, these local successes will serve as a model for bringing about positive change in policy at the national level eventually. As these two examples show, sometimes good things do come to those who persevere in fighting the good fight.
Thank you, bud, for an almost satiral example of Brave New World, where the intolerant anti-smoking bigot relable themselves and everyone and everything exactly opposite of what they really are.
Bud, For the sake of auto safety, Bush and Rove conspired to drive up gasoline prices. Due to the expense, less people will drive less miles, and ergo fewer accidents. When is Bush going to get credit for that brilliant stroke of genius? Improved safety and improved energy conservation. Brilliant!!!
Good point Dave. This is an example of the free market at work. Gasoline prices certainly are a big factor in the drop in traffic deaths. That’s the silver lining in the disruptive effects of the price increase.
Better a price increase due to genuine market forces, than a tax increase that fills the treasury with more money to use on socially destructive programs.
Lee and Dave, I’m actually going to agree with this. Increasing gasoline prices do serve as incentive to the development alternative energy sources while reducing the amount of driving and hence traffic crashes, deaths and injuries. Where we will probably disagree is that I believe the government should play a roll in this process. Reliance on the vagaries of the market alone for alternative energy sources may not be enough.
The vagaries of political and bureaucratic motives are far worse.
This looks more like a smokescreen, to take attention off the cost overruns of the land grab known as “Three Rivers”.
The smoking pendulum has swung too far. Maybe folks should start smoking as a form of rebellion. One thing I love about S.C. is that we don’t like to be dictated to, live and let live and all that.