John Schultz's Weblog

Wednesday March 08, 2006

Letting the opposition make our argument for us I found some of the comments that the pro-ban people made at the public hearing last night very disingenous.

They say 90% of the businesses in Columbia are already smoke-free based on the existing ordinance, and a signficant fraction of the remaining 10% are smoke-free by the owner's choice, yet they claim workers have no choice in their jobs.

Kim Dude claims that a survey of Mizzou students shows a high percentage of students (high 80s I think, can't find the survey online) would go out more if there was no smoking, yet she has been fighting for responsible student drinking for as long as I can recall. Why give the kids more reason to hit the bars?

Kim Dude also said that bars and restaurants would make money hand over fist from students who want smoke-free environments. If so, why haven't those establishments made that change willingly? Some have gone smoke-free, but maybe the remainder know their clientele better than someone who doesn't run a business.

One young lady, who I believe to be a student and not a mother based on her perceived age, said that second hand smoke is a leading cause of SIDS. I have not heard that claim, but this ban would not apply to homes, so this was simply an emotional appeal to "what about the children?"

In short, this appears to be a method for a bunch of do-gooders (including several government employees funded by our tax dollars) to legislate the use of a legal substance on private property. They want no smoking anywhere, by anyone, but are too afraid to admit it. Instead, they hope to make it inconvenient for smokers to light up where the private property owner has said it is OK.

And for the record, I am a non-smoker.

I do expect Columbia's board of health to rubberstamp this proposal and send it on to the City Council, where hopefully more reasonable minds will prevail. ( Mar 08 2006, 03:23:52 PM CST ) Permalink Comments [1]