Bar Owners May Turn Tables On Smoking Ban Lawmakers
 

Bar and restaurant owners upset about Michigan's workplace smoking ban have a ban of their own in the works.

An organization called Protect Private Property Rights in Michigan says Tuesday that roughly 500 bars statewide plan to ban state lawmakers from their premises. The ban would start Sept. 1.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/28955591/detail.html

I find this rather humorous :) I wonder what the lawmakers will do if this actually happens!

What about protecting the rights of workers to work in a smoke free environment? It's hard to run a bar with no staff. Or maybe they can just wear a big fishbowl-like "Neil Armstrong" spaceman helmet over their heads when they work, so they don't inhale any smoke. :confused::D;):p

The ones who don't want to work in that environment choose to work in the places that remain smoke free?

I go to St. Louis a few times a year on business where smoking in bars is still permitted. I like the food at Ruby Tuesday's, which is near my client and my hotel. I'll only go there at lunch but never at dinner because of the amount of smoke that pours into the restaurant from the bar. I can smell it in the non-smoking section and it plain disgusting. I'm not an employee but I won't be a patron of a place where I allow smoking.

Take their business elsewhere?

I find it interesting that North Carolina of all places is one of only two states (I think) that bans smoking in bars and restaurants, and it's been relatively uncontroversial. Many if not most municipalities had banned it a long time ago.

I'm not a smoker, and I've lived in states with smoking bans long enough that I don't even think about it anymore. It's funny, though, because my kids were watching an old TV show (Chavo) and there was a guy smoking in a restaurant, and my kids flipped, "That guy is SMOKING in a RESTAURANT...you can't do that!". After they pointed it out, it did seem strange to see.

Exactly, it's just not a safe work environment.
Because jobs are so easy to find these days? Some places have managed to find an equilibrium, St. Louis is often one of those, where there are a significant number of smoke free restaurants so that there are actually choices. Even there I suspect most if not all 'bars' are not smoke free and there aren't options.

It seems like it really depends on the area of town and the time of day in STL. But before 9 or 10 even the Hookah bar in the Loop doesn't allow indoor smoking. It's not a great situation there but the local restaurants wanted to avoid a ban imposed on them.
*Waves from Illinois which is the (or another of the) states. Everyone here got over it by now. And those of us non-smokers love it.

Yaaaaaaay for smoke-free environments. Those who choose to smoke shouldn't be able to ruin our health along with theirs.

I love watching the old movies and the old tv shows (as in Perry Mason) .. but am always stuck by how everyone is smoking!

It shocks me now, but remember what it was like then? Most of the adults I knew smoked and there were candy cigarettes for kids and ads on TV (even from the Flintstones!) and the radio and...idk, it was just what adults did. Until the Surgeon General's report came out in the early sixties...

Workers who need the money would accept all kinds of environments. We've decided as a society that it's not OK to ask your staff to breathe asbestos or clean skyscraper windows without a safety line. It's wrong, and it ends up imposing costs on the rest of society when the workers get hurt. Tobacco smoke is no different from other workplace hazards.

Other places have gotten through the ban with no mishaps. Bar owners didn't lose business because of the ban. People just walk outside to smoke then come back in. Restaurants are much nicer because you can actually taste your food, and going out for the night doesn't mean you end up smelling like a chain smoker. I forget it was ever different until I walk into an Indian casino. Soooo smokey!

New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania (might still be in the works), California, I think there are a bunch more too. Michigan is still in the works, but the last I heard the casinos would be exempt, I feel like Ohio also has a ban.

Yep, cultural shifts. Most images showed everyone smiling and having fun with cigarettes or cigars or pipes. Then as you got into the 1970s-1980s, there were less smiles and more images of people frowning or stressed out and smoking. I specifically recall images of stressed out employees running to the side of the building so they can frown, complain, and smoke together. My favorite anti-smoking advertisement from that time was of a stressed out person smoking in the rain while his happy co-workers were inside eating lunch together.

My siblings and I loved those candy cigarettes. But, it was horrible imagery for kids. It's like Big League Chew, that bag of chewing gum that mirrored chewing tobacco. I used to love that gum.

http://mlblogsthemax.files.wordpress...pg?w=200&h=168

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strol...yCigarette.jpg

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...UiF37aDo-pyKle

MA has been smoke-free for quite a long time now. CT has been for a while, too.

There are way more than two states who are smoke free.

Most of the DFW cities have had smoking bans for years. Smokers will generally go to the establishments that still allow smoking or step outside when they need to. A few of the cities have started forcing patrons farther away from the door, though (went from "step outside" to "10 feet from the door" to "25 feet from the door," etc).

When we got a drink tax here in Allegheny County, many of the bars refused to serve the county council, put up their photos so if you saw them on the street you could tell them what dicks they were, and put a note at the end of their computer receipts that said "thank your County Council for this stupid tax" and a few things that were even ruder.

As far as the smoking ban is concerned, PA has one, but there are TONS of ways to get a waiver, which pretty much shoots a hole in their "we did this so the workers would be protected" argument. They did it under pressure from anti-smoking interest groups, who (of course) now seem to have forgotten all about the workers who are working in bars that are still smoker friendly.

The only absolute is that if you have smoking in your establishment, children under 18 are not allowed in the smoking area. EVER.

There are all sorts of bars and all I can say is if you don't want to work in a smoking bar, don't apply there. If you had a perfume allergy you wouldn't work at Ulta, and if you had a peanut allergy you wouldn't sell them at the ballpark. Around here, what I've seen is the bartenders who work in smoking bars are for the most part, people who've been doing this a LONG time, have a following and could go to another job in a non-smoking bar if they wanted to. The places with the horrible working conditions, misogyny and constant turnover are the corporate-owned or catering-to-college-kids non-smoking bars.

Colorado moved to smoke free restaurants/bars while I was there for my nephew's wedding. Was really funny watching everyone smoke as much as they could before midnight as if it would hold them over forever. Living in CA, I love the fact I can go into a restaurant and not have to smell the smoke. When my son was little he had major problems with respiratory distress and could not be around smoke at all. We were free to take him out to eat with us without having to stress over the situation.

DaffyKD

Tiki Ti
 

California has a very strict smoking ban, but we were in a tiny (12-seat) bar called the Tiki Ti, and they allowed smoking. Why? Because they had no employees; the 3 people that work there are the owner and his two sons. It felt so retro!

My SO smokes, and even he appreciates Pennsylvania's smoking ban, which has cut his smoking down significantly. Plus there's also a ban on indoor smoking at our house, which also helps.

I want to say most of TX is smoke free now (at least EP, HOU, DFW). AFAIK TX left it up to Counties/cities to ban it instead of making a state wide law banning it. It's not bad smoking outside here since the coldest it ever gets here is 40 degrees in the dead of winter. I want to say there are more non-smoking states than smoking states these days anyway.

Thanks to you and everyone else. FWIW, I was looking at this chart from The Wiki:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...g_bans.svg.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ng_ban_key.svg

I read too quickly and just focused on the two pink states -- NC and Vermont. I didn't catch that the white (which is what lots of states are) is in the center of the Venn diagram.

But I still say that if NC of all places -- Tobacco Road, the State that Tobacco Built -- can go tobacco-free in bars, restaurants and public buildings without much controversy, any place ought to be able to.

Though not statewide in Idaho, in my town there is no smoking in bars. Which is great except the smokers stand right outside the door so if you want to go in or walk on the street you have to walk through their cloud. I have crossed to the other side to avoid them, no one enforces the 25 foot rule, not even on campus. However the Boise State campus has gone smoke free, which is kind of interesting as Idaho is kind of a Libertarian "I do what I want" state.

I doubt many lawmakers wear huge buttons that say "LAWMAKER", and most are relatively unknown outside (and maybe inside) their districts.

I'm not a smoker and I don't like being around it, but I actually like the way that PA does it..

Restaurants and bars are exempt from the No Smoking law where 80% or more of the sales comes from alcohol, and where anyone under 18 isn't allowed. In other words, you're allowed to smoke in bars that are only open at night.

I don't really have an issue with this. After attending many college parties where people were smoking, I got used to it. Don't get me wrong.. I'd much prefer to not be around it at all, but I also think establishments where people are drinking and will be staying for hours and hours on end should allow it. The only time that I'm truly bothered by people smoking around me is when I'm eating. And if you can't get through a 45 minute meal without a cigarette, it might be time to pick up some of that special gum they sell at the pharmacy.

Oh, and that's definitely New Hampshire :)

Michigan's has been in effect for well over a year. The only place it is allowed is in the casinos. This is what the bars and restaurants are upset about. They've lost a lot of business to the casinos.

If the concern is for the workers, then why would casinos be exempt? If we really care about workers, then we wouldn't allow mining or steel mills or a lot of the other extremely dangerous jobs out there. It is all about who is in the back pockets of the politicians. Shoot, I worked as a counter girl at the dry cleaner and the chemicals I was exposed to were downright scary.

I think the market should dictate things like this. Yes, there is a market for smoke free restaurants and bars. There is also a market for those that allow smoking. Smokers can choose to work in the places that allow smoking. Given that 22% of the population smokes, it would follow that 20% of the bars and restaurants could allow smoking.

LOL :o

(It's been a long day.)

Apples and oranges. In mills or mines, the danger is inherent in the job. There is nothing about serving people food or drink that requires breathing smoke.

I think concern for workers is part of the equation (and I agree with those who say finding other jobs is often easier said than done), but I think there are other concerns as well.

And I wouldn't exempt casinos . . . if we had them here.

While I agree with you (in terms of the casinos), I think this argument falls short. There's a difference between on-the-job dangers, and those that are brought on by employees. If I'm looking for a part-time job, I could work at Subway, McDonald's, the ice cream shop down the street, I could babysit my neighbor's kids, or work at a dry cleaners. I might look at all of those and think, "Which will cause me the most harm?" and eliminate the dry cleaners from the list. I'm still left with 80% of my original options.

However, let's say smoking is allowed in all of those places. Now my possibility of getting a job has gone from 100% down to 0.

I'm not arguing that smoking should definitely not be allowed anywhere, I'm just making a point that you're really comparing apples and oranges.

Jinx, MysticCat! :)

I think there would be less backlash if they banned it in the casinos also though.

There is a county here that has also banned transfats from being used in restaurants, which I also think is B.S. I just think that should be the business owner's decision, not something that should be regulated. I also think that should be the choice of the person who goes to a restaurant. If someone wants to eat transfats, they should be allowed to.

This I will agree with.

This is a personal choice. I can order something from the menu that is good for me, or I can order something that is bad. Or I can go to a different place. If I'm eating out at a restaurant, I don't expect that the food is going to be good for me, anyway.

If they want to require restaurants to put the calorie count on the menu, I can deal with that (although I still don't completely agree with it). But demanding that they serve certain items, or don't include fats/sodium/carbs etc. in the food is ridiculous.

Exactly.

:confused::confused:


http://www.google.com/url?source=img...VWZ6koy9yX-K-g



No?

I think MC means casinos on "US" land, not casinos on reservations. All the rules are different on reservations. That's why they did an exemption for the "other casinos" in Detroit. There was fear that people would go to the reservation casinos to gamble then because our laws don't apply there.

I took it to mean "I we had them in NC".

Harrahs Cherokee is very decidedly NOT smoke-free. They do have a smoke free room, and it was worth spending $15/ hand Blackjack for that.

This, and I did think of the Harrah's in Cherokee. Yes, it's in NC, but it's not subject to any NC regulation.

But Isn't the closet reservation casino in Mt. Pleasant? That's a far haul to make just so you can smoke at your slot machine. People were worried that smokers would just go to the Windsor Casino to gamble.

Dee this thread is making me laugh because some people obviously have no clue what this group is trying to do.

They want bar owners to have a CHOICE to go smoke free or not. They want their customers to have a CHOICE if they want to go to a smoking or smoke free bar. There are a few bars in the area where it would be stupid for them to allow smoking because they have gotten busier. Then there are the hole in the wall bars that have lost business (even closed) because the majority of their clientele are smokers.

The bar that I go to lost a TON of business after the ban. Once they decided to protest the ban, the bar is once again busy.

And if we're going to talk about safety for employees, let's ban alcohol! How many times have I seen little waitresses get knocked around trying to break up a bar fight between drunken idiots? Or how about strippers? I mean, they put themselves in danger because guys are groping them and they could be molested while giving a lap dance.

There's danger in every job. I work at a company that does job recruiting (which has become huge in our area). How easily could an employee go ape shit when they've been laid off, fired, or an assignment finished?

Rick- you can't smoke in Windsor Casino either. And let's talk about the ventilation system at the casinos. I'm a smoker and have trouble breathing in there. I stink like an ash tray, WORSE than the smoking bars, when I leave.

That must be some sort of secret thing to make you gamble more, because the brand spankin' new casino here in Pittsburgh is the same way. And I go to the smokiest, hole-in-the-walliest, dive bars in town.

No, we actually get that.

Yeah we get that too. But see technically bar owners have always had a "CHOICE" to do that and for the most part, haven't. Instead bars and restaurants had magical non-smoking sections where a high back on a booth somehow kept the smoke from wafting over it.

And that's a result of any sort of legislation change. But is it actually the case that the bars closed due to smokers or due to the economy. People threatened doom and destruction in Illinois as well and while I know some bars shut down, many more have done well and new ones have opened. The hole in the walls still exist too, and they literally put a picnic table outside for the smokers.

That's a shame. Their patrons won't ever get used to the change and won't come back after they're force to comply with the law.

98% of the time, alcohol will not cause problems for an employee. There is no second hand vapors that will give her liver disease during the average course of her job.
That's assault and the police should have been called, there's already a law that protects against that.

What. If they're molested during a lapdance that's illegal and again, there is a law that protects against that. This argument doesn't make sense.

There are laws and protections against that. But simply working there isn't giving you cancer.

Which is why Illinois didn't exempt casinos. There's no way to separate non-smoking from smoking because even special ventilation systems to crap. Private clubs, fraternal organizations, and home based businesses are all included. Because there's no effective way to prevent that. Hotels and nursing homes are about the only workplace that get to have "smoking rooms" and tobacco shops are exempt. That's it.


So in short: we do understand, we just disagree with you.