🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <djdow-0807951922400001@aragorn177.acns.nwu.edu>, djdow@nwu.edu
wrote:

>In my view, a comparison of a business owner's decision to permit smoking
>with a decision to ban men from his restaurant is not well taken. There's
>a bit of a difference between basing dicrimination on a habit or on fairly
>unchangeable bilogical traits. 
>
>We don't need to pull the heavy weapons out on this issue. Smoking is a
>voluntary activity that causes many non-smokers a bit of annoyance, and a
>few non-smokers real problems. Simple courtesy dictates that smokers not
>inflict their smoke on others. Unfortunately, courtesy is not so simple
>these days, so we are reduced to using the law.

Smoking is voluntary, more or less.  But remember that it's a habit promoted
by a powerful industry.  It's addictive, and the tobacco companies know and
exploit this fact.  It's got a long history in the US, and they exploit this
fact too.  Every red blooded American has a little tobacco juice in their 
veins, tracing a fragrant path back to colonial Virginia.  It's truly an all
American national addiction.

Today, smoking is the "forbiden fruit".  It's a shortcut to rebellion.  It's
the quick way to defiance, in a culture obsessed with rebelling and being
independent.

People come to smoking for multiple reasons.  People start smoking to act 
"cool", to keep off weight, to piss others off, and increasingly, I think,
to affirm their sense of community (the community of smoking people). 
It's not like ecstacy or crack or speed; it takes time and effort to
become a smoker.  People start smoking for social resons, and people who
insist that *all* restaurants be nonsmoking are forgetting this fact.

Also, about restaurants:

I bet that most restaurant owners were afraid their regulars who smoke would
stop coming, and were oblivious to the fact that people were not going to their
restaurant because of the smoke.  (Note also: there's a correlation between
the smoking ban and an increase in restaurant business, but it's not a causal
relationship.  In recent years, the food's gotten better; also, there are many
more cheap ethnic restaurants.  Current employment patterns militate against
people cooking for themselves nightly, so more people eat out.)

>Jon's free enterprise argument suffers from the usual defects of absolute
>positions - nice theory, bad reality.  In thiscase, the economic analysis
>is unrealistic because it assumes unimpeded flow of economic information
>and absolute ability to adjust one's economic behavior.  Simply put, the
>analysis fails completely in a one restaurant town.  It fails less
>completely in a place like Chicago, where greater choice exists.  My sense
>is that an economist would be able to analyze the matter better -
>something about failure at the margin,
>
>My suggestion is to permit smoking on Tuesdays and Fridays.  8)=

Sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it?  Friday night is smoking night.

-- 
John Kawakami, nonsmoker, johnk@crl.com, http://www.crl.com/~johnk