keeveek: Voting over private places is sick. It's just like I and my friend voted how should you paint your walls in your house or restaurant or which car should you buy.

I am a strict non-smoker, but I see forcing private owners to do something against their business interest is something I wouldn't ever choose over my own convenience or health. I wouldn't want to be told by strangers how should I run my business.

That's all I'm gonna say :P
keeveek: Your statement about smoke in bars was just like you would say workers in coal mines should work in coal free environment.
Pubs were smoked in most places, so saying banning smoke is ok because it's for employees health is like saying banning coal is good for coal miners work.

But yeah, it's good when employed pub worker gets unemployed, because tons of smokers go elsewhere (bigger pubs that have separate rooms for smokers and non-smokers) instead of small pub that HAS TO BE non-smokers only and is almost empty now.

Let me clarify. "we" banned smoking in pubs in Poland unless you have separate rooms. And as you may guess easily, bigger and richer (as usual) could afford making separate rooms and they have the most amount of people now.

Small bars that are strictly non-smoking, because they can't aford expanding on two separate rooms, had to sack most of their staff due to lack of customers (how come?! people wanted non smoking pubs!!!), and it's more difficult to start a bar now, because you have to meet strict regulations and your non-smoking customers have smoking friends, so they won't go to your place anyway.

Oh yeah, market is a bitch.

keeveek: But they do. They choose to stay with their smoking friends in smoker's clubs instead of not having friends at all :P

If a bar has separate smoking and non-smoking rooms (with good ventilation of course), non smoking rooms are almost empty...

In non-smoking only pubs smokers smoke outside, and that's the primary difference :P

JAAHAS: The next move could be to ban smoking near entrances as that exposes those standing in line to get in.

Coelocanth: That's actually occurred here in BC. It's illegal to smoke within a certain distance of an entryway to a public building. Can't recall the distance offhand. I think it's 3 meters.

Darling_Jimmy: And that seems excessive to me. It is not such a problem in my town but where do people smoke in a densely populated area like Vancouver, where entrances are all within 3 meters of each other, in the middle of the street? It's as if someone is trying to legislatively bully people into quitting.

keeveek: Voting over private places is sick. It's just like I and my friend voted how should you paint your walls in your house or restaurant or which car should you buy.

I am a strict non-smoker, but I see forcing private owners to do something against their business interest is something I wouldn't ever choose over my own convenience or health. I wouldn't want to be told by strangers how should I run my business.

That's all I'm gonna say :P

JAAHAS: About the smoking friends choosing the pub; I can't understand why any non-smoker would like to be exposed to smoke just to please addicts that are clearly not concerned about your health, but that is also a case of nobody "forcing" anyone to do anything yet people choose poorly and the society has to pay the bill or limit smoking even more.

Coelocanth: That's actually occurred here in BC. It's illegal to smoke within a certain distance of an entryway to a public building. Can't recall the distance offhand. I think it's 3 meters.

orcishgamer: ...rather get dutch ovened ...

Coelocanth: I'm not familiar with this phrase, but it did make me laugh out loud.

orcishgamer: A dutch oven is when you pin the blankets over you and someone else (usually a sibling or a SO) and fart. It's the height of mature humor and never results in a quarrel.

orcishgamer: This shit happens all the fucking time, you not only accept it, you prefer it. You simply don't think about it. Businesses are required to serve you potable (i.e. safe to drink) water and maintain minimum cleanliness levels in their kitchen. Certain types of food cannot be served. Instead of you having to be sick and sue (or your estate sue should you die) we, as a society, vote preemptively to tell them how to operate. Likewise we tell them, as part of zoning, when they can be open, we tell shops that sell certain items (e.g. porn, guns, etc.) to whom they may sell.

While you're right, you do want to limit this to only the most desirable things, we do tell people how to run their private businesses. The idea we shouldn't is "sick".

xyem: What is being discussed is harm one group of customers is doing to another, where the latter knowingly subjects themselves to it unnecessarily.

orcishgamer: As it stands, people can bloody well smoke fine at bars, many even have covered patio areas for just this purpose. There was never going to be a "both sides win" solution

orcishgamer: I'm just sorry, but acting like it's a choice to not go anywhere where there was smoking (back in the 90s) is about like acting like black people had a choice to not go to establishments that discriminated back in the 50s.

orcishgamer: I'm just sorry, but acting like it's a choice to not go anywhere where there was smoking (back in the 90s) is about like acting like black people had a choice to not go to establishments that discriminated back in the 50s.

orcishgamer: That's not a real choice. As it stands, people can bloody well smoke fine at bars, many even have covered patio areas for just this purpose. There was never going to be a "both sides win" solution and the "free market" had totally failed to provide any kind of solution, that's when its 100% our right as society to ask ourselves if we need to simply make a inviolate rule about it.