Quote:
Originally Posted by KSig RC
This may be true (or also may not be), but it really has no effect on the overall 'market force' argument - it's simply not explicitly true to say that, if most people wanted bars to be smoke-free, they would already be smoke free.
There's no doubt your iron workers' local hang-out will be adversely affected, but that's not really relevant to the point I was making.
When I say "realize potential" for what would happen w/out smoking, I mean it in the sense that almost no bar owners have any reliable way to measure the effects of going to a non-smoking establishment, and as such the 'market' (as it were) can't really drive that way. You provide two exceptionally extreme examples, and even there only the iron workers example gives much surety.
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The issue I had when this came up in Pgh were all the people saying "OMG I will SO go out to bars all the time when the smoking ban comes along." For some people that's true, but for a lot of people, not so much. Once the ban is passed, they'll say they don't go out because of parking, or because it's too expensive, or because of the music, or blah blah blah.
A lot of people are just big party poopers, and like to blame their lameness on things that aren't their fault.
Heroin and other such drugs weren't always illegal - they lost their legal status when it was shown that their negatives were greater than their positives. If tobacco is such a horrible drug, why hasn't it become illegal as well? (Yes I know - tobacco lobby blah blah blah.) You can't demonize something and continue to profit from it.