You know there are some downsides to this otherwise wonderful transatlantic relationship. I cannot help but suspect that the decision to ban smoking in restaurants by the Mayor of New York has, in turn, inspired some of own moral entrepreneurs:
A bill to make lighting up in restaurants and cafes illegal, cutting the number of deaths from passive smoking, is to appear before parliament.
MP for Harrow West Gareth Thomas says he hopes MPs will back the legislation on Monday to “protect both children and adults from a very serious health threat”.
Ah yes, Children. They’re doing it for the Children! Bless Mr.Thomas for he is the Guardian and Saviour of Our Children.
“Breathing other people’s tobacco smoke actually presents more of a risk than living or working in a building containing asbestos,” he said.
Yes but nowhere near the risk of living or working in a building containing busybodies with legislative powers.
Meanwhile a gaggle of the usual suspects are lining up eager to lend their support.
“[Restaurants] need to take action now if they’re not to lose customers fed up with breathing in the toxic fumes from other people’s cigarettes. Going smoke-free will almost certainly increase their trade,” said Judith Watt of SmokeFree London.
Well, then a legal prohibition is not necessary, is it. If smoking bans will improve trade then any restaurant owner left to his or her own devices would be mad not to ban smoking from their own premises.
At least 165 bar workers die each year from inhaling customers’ smoke, estimates a United States-based passive smoking expert James Repace.
More than 600 office workers and 145 manufacturing workers are also killed annually from passive smoking.
The total number of deaths exceeds those who died during the Great London smog in 1952.
We all know the old saying; there’s lies, then there’s damnable lies and then there’s completey bogus statistics fabricated in order to advance a political agenda.
But Simon Clark, the non-smoking director of Forest, the “voice and friend of the smoker”, says the decision to ban smoking should be made by restaurant owners and not by law.
He described the bill as the work of a “small group of fanatical anti-smokers – and I would put Gareth Thomas in that group – who basically want to interfere, not just with people’s lives, but people’s businesses”.
Brave resistance from a brave few but probably to no avail. After all this is Tony Blair’s shiny, new Britain and we must all be re-made in His image.
My thoughts turn to the British soldiers in the Gulf who have displayed their customary elan and professionalism in freeing the Iraqis from tyrrany. Perhaps they could come home now and perform a similar service for their increasingly beleaguered countrymen.
Good post, David. Yes, I recall writing about this situation myself about six months ago when the Bloomberg ban was first in the news. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that the same thing is being tried here.
Note to our American friends – please refrain from giving our Nanny Statitists bad ideas!
BTW, good to see fellow bloggers on Saturday night. I have more or less recovered.
I’m sorry to see that you’re being afflicted with the anti-smoking people as well. They just did the same thing in Dallas. I don’t get into Dallas very often, but now I’ll be less inclined to dine in one of their restaurants because of this. Not because I’m a fan of smoking, but because I’m a fan of choice.
You hit upon the same thing that I did when this was first brought up. If there’s really such a market demand for non-smoking restaurants (and bars), why didn’t we already have them?
The NYC smoking ban has now claimed its first life.
Too bad it was the wrong one.
Didn’t they already cure everyone from smoking with the advertising ban? What, it hasn’t worked? Shock horror!
Funny how the ‘control freak’ weasels who hate freedom and want to impose their petty regulations on everyone (Belgians, anyone?), appear to be stealing quite a march in terms of personal liberty here, on the courageous and free anglosphere; in contrast to the above, the Belgian parliament recently voted to legalize personal posession of cannabis.
Where’s our much vaunted love of personal freedom now? The US definitely isn’t about to take any steps like this; when it comes to currently illegal recreational substances, they’re nanny-state to the max. The UK, for all the occasional youth-vote-winning pronouncements is pretty similar (though less crazed)…. so where now our ‘inherently freer’ anglosphere societies?
No doubt there’ll be plenty smart comebacks to this… my main point is just that it’s dangerously complacent to think you have a monopoly over liberty, and stupid to write off whole nations or cultures as uninterested in personal freedom.
A_t,
Well said.
How’s that for a smart comeback?
I must say, after going to clubs in California and British Columbia, it’s nice to come home not reeking of smoke. Many of the places that I went to had either roof-top or backyard smoking areas, so the addicted could indulge.
Why should the ‘right’ to pollute the air I breathe overrule my ‘right’ to breathe clean air? If it was an issue of corporate polluters versus individuals, I suspect that the tone of the debate might be a bit different.
To quote some else (I’ve forgotten whom) ‘Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.” There should be no ban on smoking, but banning forcing other people to smoke with you seems reasonably to me.
🙂 flummoxed there, David!
DD… the difference with corporate polluters is, you can’t just walk out of the immediate area; keeping out of a club’s easy… stepping out of the earth’s atmosphere is less so.
As people have pointed out, it should be up to businesses to decide. If you love coming home smelling clean, that’s fine… if you place enough of a premium on it, and enough other people think the same way, then some smart club owner will ban smoking all on his own, and then you can choose to patronise his club. Personally, i don’t smoke cigarettes any more, but clubs seem wrong without a certain amount of smoke in the air. I’m willing to take the small extra health risk that smoke poses for now, but if i ever get uncomfortable with the whole smoke thing, i’ll just avoid places that are smoky, or if it’s a favourite haunt i don’t want to give up, try to petition the owners for a smoking ban/well ventilated non-smoking area.
On pure health/social responsability grounds, if they weren’t so damn useful, you could make a *far* better case for banning private petrol cars, on the grounds that their users impose their fumes on people over much wider areas, and moving away to a car-free zone is nigh-impossible in this day & age.