No reason to let it happen without a fight. I like your reasoning on this. Private business should not be told what to do in these matters. If the non-smoling majority don’t like it, they don’t have to patronize those establishments. That’s the free market at work. I’m sure those businesses would opt for private establishment smoking bans of their own if it meant the bottom line was red instead of black.

And another thing, the nonsmoking may be a majority of the populace, but it’s not a majority that is pushing for this kind of legislation but a minority that adhers to nanny statism over individual rights. Not every non smoker is a nanny stater.

It is pretty obvious that the government can and will regulate drugs. Marijuana has been deemed to have no value to society and has been banned all together. Best I can tell tobacco is at least as dangerous and easily more addictive. So all I can say as an x-smoker is be glad you are not chased down by cops and thrown in jail for your vice.

Smoking bans are full of crap, but in today’s world be glad you can still smoke them in the privacy of your own home.

…but isn’t the fact that restaurants are considered “public accommodations” call into question your assertion that “No one has a right to eat at a privately-owned restaurant”?

And I’m not sure of the Federal vs State thing, but it would seem that Federal law does create such a right.

Mind you, I’m not asking you whether you like the law. I’m pretty clear on that point.

I forget who said it but here is my fuzzy remembry of it:

“In a few years, marijuana will be legal and people will be secretly growing tobacco in their basements.”

to get marajuana than tobacco. If you’re 18 and over it is de facto legal, de jure legal in the 1st district, to possess up to four ounces of pot, but illegal to possess any amount of tobacco if you’re under 19. Same is true with alcohol except with alcohol its 21. Crazy.

How many places still allow smoking? It seems people can now go nearly anywhere they would want to go without having to endure cigarette smoke. It’s not like people have to go out of their way to search for non-smoking alternatives.

On that basis, I have to question the need for the law. If cigarette smoke were everywhere one turned and allowed in most public facilities, I might agree with the law and part ways with most here. Though I feel there are and will likely always be too many more important matters to address.

There are infinitely many things that are not only of much more danger to the public but also much harder for people to avoid (like Chinese imports). Also, as much as I hate the smell of cigarette smoke, there is no smell on the planet that has EVER made me sicker than onion rings! I believe the smell does more damage to my stomach than cigarettes do to my lungs. Of course I’m not on any campaign to ban them.

…the Nanny State with sticks, but it’s awfully nice to be able to come home after a night out at the bars without reeking like an ashtray. It’s also GREAT to not have to worry about getting burned or lit on fire by someone waving their cigarette around. It hurts.

Just sayin’.

And I fear as Reese does, that we are moving inexorably in that direction. The good intentions (so called) that pave the road to Hades are merely the obfuscations and justifications of petty tyrants who live in fear of all they cannot control.

More words of wisdom on this from Charley Reese.

“In fact, since the traditional definitions of liberals and conservatives have been made obsolete by modernity and its muddy thinking, we can even redefine them. A liberal is person with a burning itch to run other people’s lives; a conservative has no desire to do so.

Look at our current society. People who think smoking is bad are not content to quit the habit themselves; they wish to forcibly prevent others from smoking. People who think eating trans fat is bad are not content to avoid it themselves; they want to ban it. People who think owning a gun is a bad thing want to prevent others from owning guns. People who think using certain drugs is bad want to prevent others from using them. People who dislike the Confederate battle flag wish to prevent those who like it from displaying it. And so on and so forth.

In every case, prevention is translated into a denial of choice, and what is freedom but the liberty of making one’s own choices? The more areas of our lives in which we are denied the freedom to choose, the less liberty there is. Totalitarianism is the denial of all choices. We haven’t gotten to that point yet, but we seem to be steadily marching in that direction, led, of course, by liberal reformers who wish to save us from ourselves. That’s why I say that authoritarianism, not democracy, is the direction the world is headed toward. ”

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese360.html

“In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero