Smoking Ban: A Snuffing Away Of Our Rights
I have spent a great deal of time reading comments and arguments regarding the smoking ban proposals and have to shake my head in utter disbelief. How have we gotten to this point in time? It is definitely a world gone mad with the rules going even crazier.
I don’t even think smokers are saying that smoking is healthy or a good choice for anyone. But that isn’t even what the smoking ban is all about, though some can’t seem to get a grasp on that. They are too busy arguing about the effects of second hand smoke as defined in some report or other. Yeah, but what does that have to do with smoking bans in private businesses where customers are there by choice? There by choice rather than necessity?
It is one thing to ban smoking in government owned facilities where the public might be forced to go to do business, but quite another to do so in a bar or restaurant that no one has to go to in the first place. It is then, because it does happen to be a privately owned business, that the owner(s) should have the choice of going smoke-free or catering to the smokers and smoker friendly consumer if they so choose. That is the true issue! The right of the business owner to decide whether the business will serve the non-smoker or the smoker and smoker friendly — not the issue of whether smoking or second hand smoke is good for anyone ever.
If smokers wish to get-to-gether and share second hand smoke, what is that any business of the non-smoker? No one is asking them to partake. No one is forcing them inside the door of a business where smokers gather, so why should they feel they have a right to go inside and demand there be no smoking because they have decided to be there?
This is not a thing about a smokers’ rights or a non-smokers’ rights, but rather, the rights of the business owner to cater to the customer of choice!
Shouldn’t a simple sign on the door that indicates it is a business that caters to smokers be a clue to non-smokers that can’t (or won’t) tolerate smoking to turn around and go somewhere else? If not, why not?
(We don’t live in a socialistic country yet, but looks like we are headed there or worse. May we stop ourselves in time.)
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