We argue till we’re blue in the face that restaurants and bars are private property and should be free to set their own policy about smoking. We get to hear all about how non-smokers rights trump smoker’s rights and public smoking should be banned. Well next door in Colorado they did.
Bar and restaurant owners objected but the anti-smokers got their way. The result, as predicted, is empty bars and restaurants. The flood of new business from the non-smokers didn’t happen. The smokers stayed home where they could still light up with a beer.
That’s the reality.
Quote:
Bill Johnson
Rocky Mountain News
The issue is no longer just about smoking.
Passing a state law outlawing smoking in most public places was, by this comparison, the easiest thing to do.
The law was not required to address the inevitable hardships such a bill was destined to inflict.
There was clapping and backslapping on the floor of the state Senate the afternoon it passed there. But none of that really matters now, when the issue is one of how it impacts people's lives.
They are men and women who once ran tiny, yet prosperous, packed-to- the-kegs establishments, who now tend mostly empty bars. The looks on their faces would be no different had their roofs actually fallen in.
They call me. What am I supposed to do, I ask? Write about it, they respond.
What has happened is a statewide tragedy, sponsored by the government. And where are all of the people, they all want to know, that the government promised would flock to their now-smoke-free bars? …..
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...870793,00.html |
Years ago a horse thief was hanged because stealing a cowboy’s horse was in effect stealing a cowboy’s livelihood. Today non-smokers can steal a business owner’s livelihood without accountability. Maybe it’s time for lynching to come back into vogue.