NC Smoking Ban. Good or bad?

I don't smoke but what do you folks think of the proposed NC smoking ban? You think the gub-ment would ever propose a ban on smoking for folks in cars, at home etc.?

SAL

 

RE: Smoking

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/4856263/

 

opcorn::cheers:

 

RE:

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/4856263/


N.C. House passes limited smoking ban
By EMERY P. DALESIO
Associated Press Writer
Posted: Apr. 1, 2009
Updated: 1 minute ago

RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina House has approved a bid to ban secondhand smoke from restaurants and other businesses where children are present.

Lawmakers in the country's top tobacco-growing state voted 72-45 on Thursday to send the proposed limit on secondhand smoke to the state Senate, where top leaders said they expect the limited smoking ban to pass.

A broader proposal that would have banned smoking from all workplaces, including bars and restaurants, was changed Wednesday. The measure now would ban smoking in businesses that employ or serve anyone under age 18, but not to most other businesses.

The already weak enforcement provisions survived efforts on Thursday to make fines for businesses that break the law even more rare.
The smoking ban is a personal quest for its lead sponsor, lung cancer survivor and House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman. The Davidson County Democrat said he could delay consideration beyond Wednesday based on whether he counts more supporters or opponents on hand when the roll is called.
A similar effort narrowly failed in the House two years ago, as the trade group representing the state's 16,000 restaurants successfully protested an exception for private clubs.
But this year, the state's restaurateurs are neutral on the issue, which this time includes private clubs, and health advocates have marshaled money and grassroots networks to overload House members' offices with e-mails and telephone calls.
"We believe the vote count is pretty close, but we do believe we have made significant headway this year and we think the vote (House) will go in our favor," said American Heart Association lobbyist Betsy Vetter. "We think the Senate likewise will vote in our favor."
If North Carolina's smoking ban is approved this year, the state would become the 35th - and perhaps one of the most unlikely - to join a national trend of segregating the one in five Americans who smoke.
For decades, the state's politicians protected both cigarette makers and the thousands of tobacco growers whose crop was worth $686 million to North Carolina farmers in 2008 - nearly half the value of the entire U.S. output and 80 percent more than the next largest producer.
But times are changing. An Elon University poll last month found about two-thirds of North Carolinians backed a ban on public smoking indoors, and eight in 10 said they consider secondhand smoke a threat to their health.
It's a feeling shared across the tobacco-growing South.
Despite a 400-year history with tobacco that turned Virginia into the richest colony in pre-Revolution America, the state's first substantial limit on tobacco use was signed into law this month. Kentucky and South Carolina, two other leading tobacco states, have also allowed local regulations of indoor smoking. Tennessee is one of three states that exempt restaurants and bars that don't admit people under the age of 18 or 21.
Wednesday's vote in the House will take place the same day the largest federal tobacco tax increase in history takes effect. Congress also is stirring with legislation that would let the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco.
Opponents of the North Carolina smoking ban argue restaurants and other businesses should choose for themselves whether they want to welcome or turn away smokers.
"A lot of people talk about restaurants, but it reaches all small business," said Fred Bone, a lobbyist for Greensboro-based Lorillard Inc., which makes Newport cigarettes. That includes his family's used car lot in Rocky Mount, which employs smokers as the only mechanic and the only salesman, he said.
"We don't need to ban a legal product across the board," Bone said. "You simply have a property rights issue - should a person be able to smoke in his own business?"
Not if anyone else is close enough to inhale his smoke, say smoking-ban advocates like Steven Adams, who owns the Peak City Grill and Bar in Apex. The ex-smoker prohibited smoking inside his eatery when he opened three years ago both because 80 percent of the public are nonsmokers, but also out of concern for his own health and that of his workers.
"I actually bought the idea that you could let the market dictate. But I guess if the alternative that if you had signs that walking into this restaurant can be hazardous to your health, then customers would have a real choice," Adams said. "It's got to be hazardous."
The smoking ban is a personal quest for its lead sponsor, House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson, a lung cancer survivor. He said he plans to use his position to jockey the legislation through a vote that could be close. He said he could delay consideration beyond Wednesday based on whether he counts more supporters or opponents on hand when the roll is called.
"It will be close," he said. "We'll be looking at who's here and who's not here."

 

I'm all for it. Take your high tax cigs outside.

 

very bad as it limits yet more freedom.....not only on the consumer level but at the business owner level.


just more soft tyranny from the dems

 

Actually in some ways it allows the business owner to regulate the clientel easier. Ban the smoking and let in the rug rats and the family type business. Allow the smoking and restrict the establishment to noone under the age of 18. I can see good and bad in both cases. While I don't mind what I would call considerate smokers (unlike an incosiderate chain smoker, who can't even stop long enough to eat for smoking) I'm not a fan of the rugrats running rampant as you often find at CiCi's, Golden Corral and the likes.

I'd rather put up with the smoke than the screaming mimi's, unless the place looks like a chimeny during the middle of winter in Alaska when you open the door.


BTW...the proposed ban doesn't bother me anyway as I dip.


Craig

 

It is happening already. I forget where, but I know somewhere in Maine (I know - I am full of facts today!) you cannot smoke in your own car if there are children present.


ETA -
*The ND Senate recently voted (in Feb I think) to approve a restriction on smoking in a car when a child is present - even if parked on private property. Last I heard that was going to the state house.

Chip... chip... chip.... Do you know what that sound is??

 

Yes, the chipping sound is the sound of your rights being sliced away as a piece of roast beef is sliced...........or the same chipping away one may have heard as the eastern NC Indians chipped away at their arrow heads.........

 

Business owners care about one type of customer.....paying ones.


If an owner wants to regulate behavior in his/her business, then he/she should be free to do that and accept the consequences without the hand of the government coming down.

 

Totally for the ban in public places.

And, having cropped tobacco as a kid, I have no love for it. The farmers growing it have known for years that King Tobacco has a limited shelf life, and they got tobacco settlement payouts. Other crops should have been planted and harvested.

 

Maybe we could plant brains.

 

If they banned smoking in the bars, how would us poor guys tell who the loose women were???? 8)

 

lmao:lol::lol::lol:

 

So I guess making pot legal is out?

 

Totaly agree,
Look I don't infringe on others who do not like my Smoking. I have lived in a State that Banned Smoking. I found it Odd that you can actualy smoke in most places here.. The Ban on Smoking put a Lot of Buiseness on Slow mode. Especialy Dunkin Doughnuts. There we used to Meet every Morning , and every Night to haveCoffee, a doughnut or in My Case a Pepsi. and enjoy the company we had. smoking a Cigarette was part of the Atmosphere..
When Florida Banned that We never went Back. D7D lost a Large Group of a Gaurenteed set of people , that were ther 2 times a Day. / The Chineese Resteraunt was in Termoil for a while until;l people got used to it. I stil Find it strange that I can go to a resteraunt and they still have a Smoking section. But Look if you are goin to Ban something. I say Ban the Drunkin fools out there causing Crashes and Deathon the highways. Leave us Smokers alone. and Quit Raising the Taxes on Cigarettes. Heck . If you want to tax something Tax Marijuana. there you will make a Fortune in Taxes. I don't smoke that stuff. but if they made it Leagle it would be Taxable. and then people would not have to hide it. 75% of the People I know have or still do Smoke that stuff.
I don't Drink Eigther. so Tax that and Ban that. It only Kills your Liver and other Innocent People. Smoking just kills the Smoker. Hey we should Ban the People who don't Smoke From patronizing the places that have smoking in them. Yea. A Reverse Ban. That would be cool.
Now ya'll. Your turn to give me griefe. come on I can handle it. Cause I still Love ya. Hoof.

 

So tax and ban all the things you don't do, but leave the ones you do alone? And as for smoking just kills the smoker and the drinks kill other people yeah lots of people die as a result of drunk driving, but if I had to choose whether I was going to sit next to a smoker or somebody drinking a beer next to me I'm going to pick the beer every time. See my reasons below.

Look, if you are old enough to buy cigs and you want to smoke them I don't have a problem with that in the least. It is involuntarily being exposed to the smoke from a person's cigarettes that I have a problem with.

http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/factsheets/factsheet6.html

 

:iagree: :shock:

 

It has nothing to do with smoke. Forget the emotional attachment or disdain to smoke and look at it objectively. Do you want the government making decisions such as these on behalf of business owners?

Do liberals want the government to run everything? Good grief.

 

i am not getting into this debate again, i have totally made my views clear, there are those that want the government to ban the things they want banned but once that gate is opened it will not shut, you can not pick and choose what you want banned, once you let the government make the decision for you, they always will. Personally i think if this is all about children being around smoking, does not that responsibility fall on the parents or have parents now being taken away the right to protect their children themselves? Personally i think this thing is like any other, those that do not agree with it believe it can never happen and hold their tongues, while the fanatics that are against a legal substance in an adult atmosphere are the loudest and most vocal. Most smoking and drinking occurs at night, why the crap are your children hanging around at that time anyway???? Every restaurant has a nonsmoking section ya know and if you are taking your children into a bar at night, then shame on you.