Comments on: Outdoor smoking bans

By: Deoxy

Deoxy — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 18:19:16 +0000

I personally abhor most laws regulating personal behaviour… but I have little problem with bans such as this, as thy are not PERSONAL behaviour: they affect others. Apply same logic as public decency laws.

Snuffing, as best I can tell, would affect no one else, as would chewing nicotine gum (if you don’t spit it on public property). Even chewing tobacco has a fairly solid case (though less solid than the above). But smoking in public is a very PUBLIC activity, which every nearby citizen partakes of, willing or not. It seems that the proper way to deal with this would be local laws.

By: Peter Eipers

Peter Eipers — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 16:10:07 +0000

These smoking bans, in order to be worrisome, need to be enforced. Otherwise it is as if they don’t exist. I work for a major academic medical center, where people sit outside the hospital door on benches with metal “no smoking” plaques riveted to them. You guessed it- they sit on the benches, smoking…

By: Jeffrey Boser

Jeffrey Boser — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 15:04:42 +0000

I have a friend, an asmatic, who has trouble even at restraurants and stores who don’t allow smoking.

The reason, smokers go right outside the door to smoke. Right outside. So getting in and out FORCES close exposure to smoke.