Anti-smokers to City of Peoria: Shut the Hell up do what we tell you to do
I bet you didn't know that
That's just one message I'm getting from today's Journal Star article about the start of a campaign to get local government to ban smoking in restaurants and bars
Historically, Peoria has held its own as a rough-and-tumble town.Prostitution , for instance, was a widely accepted, yet illegal business in the city up into the late '50s, said Bill Adams, a town historian.
"Peoria was known as a wide-open town," Adams said. "This was a place where all the action was: gambling, drinking, prostitution, and all those sorts of things."
Next time I see a lady smoking a cigarette in a bar or restaurant, I think I go up and inform her of what anti-smoking activists think of her.
That's hardly the only insulting thing said in this article. Kathy Drea, director of public policy for the
"The city council or county board will always make a statement that it will never happen (in their town)," Drea said, adding "every single place that we've ever gone now has a smoke-free law."
When I broke this story a month ago, I quoted documents that reveal how closely tied the Peoria City/County Health Department is to this well-organized and not-very grassroots campaign. What restauranteurs are worried about is that even if the Peoria City Council says "no" repeatedly to these people, the allies of "Smoke Free Peoria" in the health department will make sure that any restaurant or bar that allows smoking will fail their health inspections, by taking points off for every ash tray they find that isn't spotless, for example.
Anyone who has owned or managed a restaurant -- or any business for that matter -- knows how arbitrary a health or safety inspection can be.
Cross posted to Peoria Pundit.
20 comments:
I'll just start calling you Bill "Colorful rhetoric for me, but not for Thee" Dennis. You're allowed hyperbole, but when people you don't like start doing it, you get all literal on them.
You may be interested in joining the Smokers Liberation Front
L.L.: Even a broken clock is right twice a day, I suppose.
Wow, LL, Bill and I are all in agreement about the Big Brother tactics. Next thing you know, the big powers in Peoria will be banning foie gras and trans fats in all restaurants.
I'm a non-smoker, but come on folks, people go to bars to have a drink and, yes, even have a smoke or too.
Let the proprieters decide. Geesh.
Anonymous #1 is right about your hypocrisy regarding your rhetoric )("How many Jews have to die, Congressman LaHood?").
Batten down the hatches, Bill. You are on the wrong side of this issue, and I have no doubt that Peoria will join Chicago, it's suburbs, Champaign, Urbana, Springfield, Bloomington, and all of the others that have banned smoking.
Kill yourselves and drive everyone's insurance rates up in your own homes.
I'm a Romeo y Julieta man, myself.
Restaurants and bars are public places. Their employees should be protected.
Those that can't abide by the obvious and overwhelming scientific facts of secondhand smoke should start a private club or go into another line of business.
Lovie,
Working in a mine is a choice.
Do you advocate abolishing rules for mine safety?
good point skeeter. How about this comparison too, if a bar had open asbestos and people still wanted to go there, would we let them without requiring the bar to abate the asbestos? my point is that public harm is public harm even if people want to engage in it. kill yourself in a private club or in your home, but let me go to a public place in peace and safety.
Originally posted by Skeeter:
"Working in a mine is a choice.
Do you advocate abolishing rules for mine safety?"
That's what I love about your posting - simple, but HIGHLY STUPID.
Here's why:
1. Ever been in a working coal mine operation (sub-surface)? I have.
Unlike a restaurant, just because you might want to go make a visit to a working mine doesn't make it happen. You don't get in just because you walk through the door.
There's real training required, even for approved visitors. Unlike any restaurant I've ever been to.
Mine operaters have seriously big time money invested in the mines and certainly the equipment, and mining is no business for dummies (and the pay scales prove that, regardless of union/non union status). In fact, if you're not willing or able to learn in that business, they don't want you.
Working in a mine is a Choice? Not in the real world, it's a business (and the employee salaries reflect it), and if you are going to work there, you better be ready to LEARN, because that's a primary requirement.
Last time I checked, there's no qualifications checking at restaurants, except that you sometimes are asked to wait to be seated.
Use a better anology next time.
Let me get this right:
Initially, it appears that you have forgotten the restaurants have employees. Those employees are exposed to poisonous gas when working in a smoke-permitting restaurant.
Answering further:
If a company offers training, then that company must be run in a safe manner.
But if a company offers little or no training and low wages, it can poison the workers?
Is that really your argument? That you can poison a poor waitress but not poison a union mineworker?
Lovie,
You might want to go into a restaurant. If you did, you would staff forced to inhale smoke.
We don't make mine workers inhale poison and we shouldn't demand that restaurant employees inhale poison.
Education has nothing to do with it. We all know that it is poison. The only difference is that you don't care about poisoning some poor waitress.
You guys really need to get over yourselves. This is a case where public good far outweighs your personal rights. WHy do I have to wear a seatbelt when driving a car??? Because lots of other people die from not wearing them. But yet I have to wear one and can be fined a pretty fair amount of money for not doing so. Does that make it right??? Maybe, maybe not. But the point is, that its something I have to comply with so that insurance rates stay down. (at least thats the logic people always use when justifying seat belts)
Personally, I think you guys put way too much into the mine anology. The blogger was simply stating that the mining industry is dangerous and therefore has rules. He wasn't debating the ethics of mining or how easy/hard it is to become a miner.
Many of you keep saying that I as a non smoker have the responsibility to avoid all of you inconsiderate smokers. First, I find that pretty obtuse and that you should be trying not to offend me, but I will look past that. Have you ever looked around at all your fellow smokers??? You guys are everywhere. If buildings ban smoking there you are right outside all the exits with a nice cloud of smoke surrounding you. By your logic, I shouldn't enter those buildings because in doing so I have to go through smoke.
Maybe I should just stay home so that I can avoid getting lung cancer. That would be pretty unthoughtful of me to inconvenience a smoker by trying to breathe in the same area. Sorry for being rude. It's your world, I'm just passing through.
You guys amaze me at your twisting of the truth. All so you can keep your god given right to kill yourself and those around you. Pathetic.
As much as I disagree with Skeeter on many topics, he is dead on with regard to the effective tact in implementing a smoking ban in restaurants and bars.
Our country, since the late 19th and early 20th century, has placed a great deal of emphasis on occupational safety and health.
Cases in point: mining, meat packing etc. Our law enforcement officers, a typically dangerous profession, must be provided with basic safety materials (i.e. a bullet-proof vest). Even in one of my prior retail jobs in an office supply store, the corporation was required to provide me with a lifting belt at their expense to ensure my health and safety.
The general public can argue about its 'right' to smoke all they want. You still have that right but not when it endangers the occupational safety of workers around you. The problem they face is that the federal government (Surgeon General) has issued a statement on the effects of second-hand smoke with regard to employees working in those environments and there asssessment was "it's bad" and the only remedy was "Don't allow it".
Personally, I think they should leave it up to business owners. Let them choose: eliminate smoking or install air purification systems that reduce environmental second-hand smoke levels to nil. Then they can determine the economic impact of either choice.
Donna,
Have your non-smoking friends checked out the hospitals and grave-sites in their neighborhoods? I would tell them to look early. It is much easier to find a good oncologist BEFORE they need one.
There is no debate. Smoking causes cancer. That is fact. If you want to inhale the smoke on your own, feel free. I couldn't care less. But don't make others do it.
Donna,
If a meatpacker doesn't want to deal with safety issues, he can find another job.
If an ironworker is worried about fall protection, he can find another job.
If a miner is worried about poison gas -- Find another job.
That's your solution?
Donna-
Skeeter is right in this regard. In this country, we expect employers to take steps to protect their employees health and safety from occupational hazards.
This federal government has determined second-hand smoke to constitute an occupational hazard. Therfore the employer is expected to remedy that hazard to the best of their ability. At this time, that consists of expensive air purification systems or banning smoking. It is more cost effective to simply ban smoking.
You argument about the desire to work in a hazard for more pay is pretty irrelevant to the discussion. Our system does not allow for that. Mine owners could and did find immigrant workers to work their mines for more hours, in more hazardous conditions and for less pay. For some reason, we as a society decided it wasn't healthy to allow employers to risk occupational health and safety simply because some poor schmuck needed the money that badly.
Donna,
You are going to go through each employer and determine if they are necessary?
If they are not, then you are going to deny them safe working conditions?
That makes sense to you?
You've decided that meatpacking is necessary? How did you reach that decision? I know a lot of healthy vegetarians. By your logic, they should be denied a safe work place.
Your distinction makes no sense at all. If you are going to work in America, you should have a reasonably safe environment. We are not going to expose American workers to poison gas whether in a mine or a diner.
With regard to your personal experience: If you could pay a mine worker more to go into that mine without breathing aparatus, we would still say that he ought to have it, because we are a civilized country and in that civilized country we don't pay people more to be denied basic safety. We are not China.
If you like smoking -- fine. Go smoke. I honestly could not care less.
But just as American society will not tolerate miners going into a mine without breathing aparatus [see China for contrast and their views on mine safety], also we will not allow restaurant workers to go into poison.
And finally, if you think that cig. smoke is not poison, then you are in deep denial. It is. It will kill you. If you happen to die of lung cancer, you will be one of the lucky ones, since palate cancer is a far worse way to go. It is your choice though. I am not going to stop you.
Donna,
Please distinguish mining from restaurants, or concede that your goal is to abolish all worker safety programs.
Skeeter-
The problem you have here with your typical 'Donna' in society is one of two things:
1) They don't see second-hand smoke as a harmful thing. Therefore they do not believe in protecting workers from it.
-or-
2) They don't see servers (waiters, bartenders, bus boys) as real occupations. Therefore they do not feel they are deserving of occupational protections.
The facts when presented logically make it hard to fault banning smoking.
1) A server is a type of occupation.
2) The federal government now considers second-hand smoke to be an occupational safety and health issue.
3) There are only two (2) viable remediations for second-hand smoke. Smoke prevention or Air purification.
4) Indoor air purification systems that can effectively treat a typical bar/restaurant of second-hand smoke are fairly costly.
You make the call but I imagine small businesses are likely to err on the side of no initial cost and see how their business is affected.
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