Crowds of smokers congregating on the sidewalks.
I walked down King Street earlier this evening and passed about ten people milling about outside of Cumberland’s, smoking in the vestibule. Please tell me how it’s better that smokers are now standing around outside bars and restaurants rather than inside enjoying themselves with a beer and a smoke?
A few steps later, at the corner of Liberty Street, another pocket of kids were puffing away. I think I’d prefer them to be inside. Then I could choose whether or not to go into a business that allows smoking. I probably wouldn’t take my kids into Cumberland’s, but I don’t have much choice when it comes to walking down the street.
Stupid nanny state rules.
16 Comments
Stephanie, you are right. It is not safe for young people to be out on the street at night when they could sitting safely inside. Smoking bans are a dream come true for rapists and pedophiles. Young women, please do not leave drinks unattended while you go outside for a smoke. Smoking bans can have a lot of unintended and horrifying consequences. Smoking bans should not be happening in a free country especially when they are based upon such insideous propaganda.
No Stephanie, you are NOT seeing the effects of a nanny state rule. You are seeing small groups of self-centered, selfish individuals who don’t give a crap about other people. Not a bit.
They used to smoke inside and ruin everyone’s evenings and now this minority CHOOSES to congregate in an obnoxious manner outside and pointedly block passage on public sidewalks. They create polluted clouds of exhaled poison that polite, caring, healthy people have to walk through or around. Who is wrong here?
Direct your comments and “anger” at the addicted idiots who seem determined to making it difficult for you and your children to walk down the street.
Yeah, I like the smoking ban.
Chucker –
No, we are seeing the effects of a nanny state rule. The small groups of self-centered, selfish individuals who don’t give a crap about other people WOULD NOT BE OUTSIDE if the smoking ban were not in effect. Cause and effect, my friend.
Ruin EVERYONE’S evenings? Chucker, I don’t know you, but I doubt you know everyone. Since when are you Everyone, Chucker?
Unless they are actually space aliens, the “idiots” would be incapable of exhaling polluted clouds of poison at caring, healthy people on their own. It takes cigarettes to do that, and these idiots, by and large, do not make their own cigarettes. They buy them from others who do. Blame those that make them.
Yeah, you like the smoking ban because it suits YOU, Chucker. You, you, you, it’s all about you.
Liberals like you, Chucker, like the rules until they no longer suit them.
I don’t like the smoking ban. It forces unsuspecting people to think like you do.
All Y’all,
I’m torn. I’m not a smoker now, but I have smoked. I believe if you want to smoke, drink, or whatever else, you have the right to do it as long as your right doesn’t infringe on my rights not to. I could choose to go to a restaurant that doesn’t allow smoking (bars of this nature don’t seem to exist) but VERY few restaurants are smoke-free nor have effective non-smoking sections. I understand why, the margins on restaurants can be notoriously thin so any chance to turn away customers is to be avaoided. So, what’s a people to do. If we ban smoking to reduce second hand exposure, we help public health (a great argument if we had a public health care system) and we make the dining environment more pleasant (most smokers I know don’t like the idea of eating and smoking at the same time).
Do we have to go for absolutes? Why isn’t there a ban on smoking in restaurants, but not one in bars? I know, double standards and you lose the argument about public health. I don’t like the infringement on the rights of one for the rights of another but I also enjoy being able to go to Gene’s Haufenbrau and other great spots without having to choke up a lung when I leave.
Could you ask bars and restaurants to have a license to make a location a smoking facility, a tax so to speak? Money goes to sesation programs. Those that want that clientelle can charge them an additional fee for the pleasure of the haze? Again, a Nanny state rule with the T word attached, that would never fly.
There are no good solutions but the law isn’t always about what’s fair, it’s about the will of the people.
I enjoy the ban as I don’t smoke but I recognize that it impinges on someone else. Cann’t we come up with a system that encourages public health without stripping away the rights of our fellow citizens? What’s next, mandatory population control? There are good arguements for that too but it’s not on the table for discussion. I know- the analogy is a stretch but even for one who likes the effects of the ban, I don’t think it’s necessarily the best route to a solution.
In direct response to “Chuckers” comment, we smokers are not “idiots” and you are being disrespectful by saying so. Yes, I will give you that smoking is an addiction and that it can lead to medical problems, but it is our choice to smoke, not yours. I resent the fact that you are calling us “stupid addicts”. Do you know me? Hell no, because if you did, i probably wouldn’t give such a narrow-minded, sterotyping person like yourself the time of day. I’m sorry that you are a disrespectful “humanitarian” and that you feel that smokers are a detrement to this “free” society, but it’s MY choice to smoke and if you don’t like me smoking on the sidewalk because it has been banned inside the bars and restaraunts that are open to the public, then stay home.
My comments about thoughtless smokers are still the same but I do apologize for using the term “idiot.” That was uncalled for and I should not have done that.
(I looked again and see I did NOT call anyone “stupid.”)
Stephanie, I understand your frustration at walking through a cloud of smoke on King St. I had to walk through clouds everyday coming in and out of campus buildings just to attend classes. I don’t, however, believe that the answer is to send the smokers back inside to cramped, typically poorly ventilated spaces that they share with non-smokers. I doubt you avoided smoke outdoors before the ban, and that won’t change now. You could avoid the smokey insides of bars with your kids before the ban, but non-smokers who enjoy a beer, game of darts, or concert as much as the next guy who smokes, didn’t have a choice. I personally relish the fact that after a night out now, I can come home without having to febreeze my clothes and shower before bed. And when I wake up in the morning I still have my voice and don’t have to clear my throat every few minutes all day long!!
I, too, like coming home from a night out smoke free. Who would have thought that I could get a beer at AC’s and not have to shower before going to bed because I smelled so bad? But there were smoke-free bars before the ban. Why do we want people huddled around the front of buildings smoking? To the city’s credit, they tried to account for this by requiring a 15-foot buffer from the front door of a business, but that’s completely unreasonable on King Street. I just think it’s dumb, especially because now my kids and I both end up reeking of smoke after just walking down the street.
Stephanie,
Being first an American soldier, and second an American citizen, i believe that i am justified in pulling up my little soap box and spouting my opinion freely. There are tens of thousands of American men and women currently away from home and loved ones, fighting for the freedoms that the people of this country have taken for granted for a lifetime. Who are these people that live in a country but are ignorant to the tennets on which it was founded. Freedom of expression, speech, religion, race, and creed are the basis of everything this country stands for. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are so eloquently written that every american should stir the word freedom into their morning coffee and inhale the word Independence in with eat hit of their cigarette. This is not an issue of public health. Everyone knows ciggarettes are harmful to smokers and non-smokers, however in the spirit of Justice and Equality, let us meander to the realm of extremes and absurdity. To cut off an American, tax-paying(yes cigarettes are taxed greatly), law abiding citizen from indulging in a time-honored habit is not only unconstitutional but it is absurd. Let us do away with automobiles so that pedestrians do not have to breathe in the harmful Carbon-based by-products. Let us outlaw fast food chains or restaurants that use animal fats which are high in access calories and low in nutritional value. Let us do away with any other luxury that we have come to rely on which is ultimately harmful to ourselves or those around us. The point is, I smoke and when I smoke I am not concerning myself with the health risks, I passed the stage of affirmation when I smirked at the large obtrusive warning label on the side of the package. No group calling themselves Americans should ever tell an American what he/she can or cannot do within confines of the tenets of the American Constitution. If you dont smoke and you are tired of going out to places filled with horrible, noxious cigarette fumes, DONT GO IN. Henry David Thoreau once wrote that, “man leads a life of quiet desperation.” When I stepped off that plane in July,after 18hrs of flight, having given a year to my country’s efforts to spread its strong message of freedom to the people of Iraq, the only thought in my mind was, “I desperatly need a cigarrete.”
I personally am happy about the smoking ban, since I am allergic to cigarette smoke, I can now actually try to go out and have a good time instead of shortening someone’s night out at the bar that I am with, because my nose and eyes can’t take the smoke in the air and I need go home.
For health reasons I am happy that I can enjoy a night out with friends, dinner and drinks and not have to worry if I am going to be able to breathe the next morning.
This ban is all about EMPLOYEE rights. As a patron, I don’t have a right to breathe smoke-free air in a private business any more than smokers have a right to smoke in the public library. However, employees DO have a right to smoke-free air in their workplace. No brainer. Seriously, NO BRAINER. Have the smokers over at CP been smoking inside and forcing the non-smoking staff to breathe the poison? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Noel taking it outside, so I’m guessing not. That is as it should be.
Oh, and everyone should try humming the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” while reading Daniel Bayer’s comment. Awesome.
Hey Otto–
Give Daniel Bayer a break. He busted his rear end for this country, and probably got shot at.
Jeff
The people who push these smoking bans through think that it will actually make fewer people smoke, or smoke less. The smoking is not going to go away, it will just change venues - in this case the sidewalk. I remember before the ban, there were many fine dining restaurants downtown that did not permit smoking. Any bar or restaurant has always been free at any time to ban smoking. Those who chose to not ban smoking could be considered “smoker friendly” by their own decision. Now, if I am a person who does not smoke, and hates the smell of smoke, am I going to give my hard earned money to a business that forbids smoking or a business that encourages smoking? Well apparently if I am a typical Charlestonian then I am going to go the the business that openly supports smoking and bitch about it, and make everyone around me miserable, and create a crowd of thousands of people blocking the sidewalks, blowing smoke into the faces of people that would never be in a bar in the first place - children and nuns, etc. And then, instead of allowing bars to apply for a high priced smoking license (HELLO, TAX REVENUE OVER HERE, HELLO!!!) we just refuse to admit that it just isn’t working. The smoking isn’t going away.
“The people who push these smoking bans through think that it will actually make fewer people smoke, or smoke less.” - No we don’t, we just don’t want be forced to inahle your smoke while we’re working.
” He busted his rear end for this country, and probably got shot at.” - That doesn’t make him right.
“This is not an issue of public health” - Yes, it is.
All those people who are for smoking are total idiots!