Smoking Bans Redux

[corplinx]

its nice to know which side the marks are on (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100318,00.html)

I'm just not sure a true skeptic can support a smoking ban out of "public health concern".

As we talked about in another thread, if there really is an air quality issue then perhaps it should be handled by a county/city health inspector the same way other health concerns in restaurants are taken care of.

[Suddenly]

Originally posted by corplinx
its nice to know which side the marks are on (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100318,00.html)

I'm just not sure a true skeptic can support a smoking ban out of "public health concern".

As we talked about in another thread, if there really is an air quality issue then perhaps it should be handled by a county/city health inspector the same way other health concerns in restaurants are taken care of.

Except that once you allow for it being a health issue w/r/t air quality, the applicable government could argue that such regulation would be too expensive (those pesky taxes would have to go up) and that an outright smoking ban has the same effect on air quality minus the expense of enforcement.

Then it becomes a balancing test, choose which interests weigh more. Does clean air and less taxes outweigh the right to allow public consumption of a particular consumer product believed to harm the air quality?

Why is it that someone that weighs the former over the latter not a "true skeptic?"

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Suddenly

Except that once you allow for it being a health issue w/r/t air quality, the applicable government could argue that such regulation would be too expensive (those pesky taxes would have to go up) and that an outright smoking ban has the same effect on air quality minus the expense of enforcement.


Typical county health inspectors around these parts go from restaurant to restaurant giving them health scores. In theory, air quality could be just another test item. I'm not sure why air quality would be some new expensive regulation on top of other things.

Once you allow that health inspections are a waste of taxpayer money and that bans solve the issues easier, I guess we could just move for a restaurant ban.

[Suddenly]

Originally posted by corplinx


Typical county health inspectors around these parts go from restaurant to restaurant giving them health scores. In theory, air quality could be just another test item. I'm not sure why air quality would be some new expensive regulation on top of other things. The exactness of the test, etc. is part of the weighting test. There are many variables. Do we allow the inspector to eyeball the air? Does the equipment need to be purchased and maintained? Lots of variables.

Once you allow that health inspections are a waste of taxpayer money and that bans solve the issues easier, I guess we could just move for a restaurant ban.

If resturants in general provided enough of a nuisance, yes you could do that. The police power can be quite broad. However, banning resturants simply because people can be exposed to smoke is seemingly obviously a more invasive restriction upon the liberty of resturant owners than just not allowing smoking, as far as "protecting the public from poor air" goes.

The rights of the resturant owner to do what he/she pleases is in fact something to be weighed, just not held absolute. Since a smoking ban affects those rights less than a resturant ban, with the same effect on air quality (but perhaps a negative effect on revenue - this could harm the tax base significantly vs. enforcement costs of the ban on smoking - more variables) it follows that while a smoking ban may be justified by the above weighting test, a resturant ban most likely will not.

[Aoidoi]

Originally posted by corplinx
Typical county health inspectors around these parts go from restaurant to restaurant giving them health scores. In theory, air quality could be just another test item. I'm not sure why air quality would be some new expensive regulation on top of other things.Seems to me the inspector would have to test this at peak operating times (sat night, for instance). It'd probably be pointless to check air quality in a place when no one is actively smoking...

Once you allow that health inspections are a waste of taxpayer money and that bans solve the issues easier, I guess we could just move for a restaurant ban. LOL, good one.

I'm a bit conflicted on this since I dislike being around people smoking but also dislike the government regulating things. I do feel the need to mention that I have a couple of female friends who refuse to go to bars/clubs/restaurants where there is smoking because they literally become ill (one has asthma and has trouble breathing, the other just turns kinda green and looks like she's gonna puke). Rather obviously from their point of view a total smoking ban would be preferable. I'm not as sure, but I tend to lean in that direction.

[corplinx]

Visual inspections are used to confirm other health hazards. I don't see why second hand smoke should be any different. You can see/smell it. I don't think a health inspector uses special equipment to detect things like cockroaches running across the floor.

[Suddenly]

Originally posted by corplinx
Visual inspections are used to confirm other health hazards. I don't see why second hand smoke should be any different. You can see/smell it. I don't think a health inspector uses special equipment to detect things like cockroaches running across the floor.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. I'd think a question of air quality is going to be tougher as lighting makes visual detection difficult, and going by smell could have unacceptable variance. There could be a different way of going about it, requirements w/r/t a filtering system that would have to pass occaisional tests of it's effectiveness, but that would raise a whole bunch of other problems w/r/t methods, design, running order, etc.

My whole point is that it is a consideration to be weighed. I'm not saying that a city would find regulation expensive, I'm just suggesting that it is not completely unreasonable for a city to weigh these factors and decide that a ban on smoking is the best way to regulate air quality