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Smoking Ban Affects On Local Business

The smoking ban interferes with local commerce. For those of you that don't get out much or watch TV or read the newspapers or talk to people, there has been a rash in the last few years, in the U.S and around the world, of cities banning smoking in public places. OK, fine, it makes sense -- no smoking on airplanes, offices, public buildings during the day, restaurants, etc. Those are places where people have to be and work, in relatively confined spaces, both smokers and non-smokers. And of course I'm especially for a ban on smoking on a place where there's kids around. It hurts no one for smokers to have to go outside and smoke during the day (although I have known some smokers who have gotten sick from having to stand outside in the rain or freezing cold to smoke. Now if that's n ot irony then I don't know what is.
I believe the main reason these bans are going into effect is not based on health concearns, that's just the platform being used, but it's because cigarettes smell icky. If they smelled like flowers, there would be no smoking bans. "It's icky. Let's ban it!" Most people say that health risks are the main reason for banning smoking in bars. But this is arguable if you are anti-smoking you believe it is very harmful. If you are pro-smoking, you believe the effects are negligible. Basically, we shouldn't believe data that says secondhand smoke is "bad, bad, bad" when it's put together by the "Smoke-Free America" people, any more than we should believe the Philip-Morris cigarette company bigwigs when they present us data that says it's not very harmful. Yes, if you totally saturate a lab rats' lungs non-stop for days on end with cigarette smoke, it will die. So, given that the effects of secondhand smoke are arguable at least, why hurt people's income because of it? Why alienate and belittle a huge sector of people for an arguable cause? It's not just about the health risk, don't let them fool you. It's the fact that they think it's icky, they...