Win for property owners!
Via Brittney, comes this from Smoke Free Tennessee:
The House Agriculture Committee voted 13-1 to kill a bill sponsored by the House’s only physician, Rep. Joey Hensley, to ban smoking in restaurants that employ people under 18.
Personally, I don’t care if a restaurant doesn’t allow smoking. Or if a restaurant does allow smoking. But the key to that is that the decision lies with the restaurant. I don’t want the government making that decision on behalf of those who own restaurant. If you smoke, go to a place that allows it. If you don’t, go to places that forbid it. Reward your side with your dollars. Simple, really. If this bill had passed, there would be a lot of out of work teenagers.
They have a poll on the issue too.
March 22nd, 2006 at 10:24 am
Here here!
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:03 pm
There oughta be a law…
“There oughta be a law.” Those words are the worst words that can be spoken by a citizen or a politician. Those words are the words that are leading us to serfdom day by day. The more laws we have…
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Yeah, scrap the law, but…
we had a law up in Vancouver BC that killed smoking in restaraunts. The local diner suddenly was filled with families on Saturday and Sunday morning, ordering lots of spendy breakfasts and all that. Before the ban, it was filled with surly teenagers drinking coffee and smoking, and not much else.
The ban was killed for being illegal. The restaraunt did NOT switch back. Interesting.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Ben,
The ends don’t justify the means.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:53 pm
And besides, those means could have been (and currently are) reached without a law. The restaurants (or bars, whatever) can ban smoking there if they see fit. Or not. Maybe lots of restaurants are hurting themselves by allowing smoking… if so, let some enterprising fellow ban smoking in his store/restaurant/bar and profit from everyone else’s folly. Just don’t make a law to do it. (I worked at a bar/bowling alley in New York state before and after the smoking ban took effect. Let’s just say that they wouldn’t have gone the way of your diner. They lost a lot of money from that law.)
March 22nd, 2006 at 3:21 pm
If this bill had passed, there would be a lot of out of work teenagers.
The law of unintended consequences.
March 23rd, 2006 at 5:33 pm
I’m on the fence on this. I can see both sides of the issue. Because of the well-documented dangers of second-hand smoke, I tend to lean toward the anti-smoking side of this one. But only mildly. There are plenty of jobs available to teens that don’t involve working where smoking is allowed.
As an aside, smoking is illegal in most bars and restaurants in Toronto, and I have to say, it was really nice. You could spend a night out and not end the evening smelling like an ashtray. As a non-smoker, I like the airport solution: corral all the smokers into a room where they can smoke all they want, don’t have to go outside, but aren’t bothering anyone else.