Smoking Ban - Effective December 1
The smoking ban is finally coming into effect on December 1 and I should be thrilled. Although it IS a step in the right direction, it doesn't put us where I'd like Houston to be. All this incarnation of the smoking ban does is ban smoking in restaurants.
Oh joy. Most restaurants I go to in Houston don't allow smoking anyway. And if they do and they don't have it properly ventilated so that I can't smell even a smidge while I'm eating - I just won't go there.
So my real beef is this: The industry owners are complaining because they believe a ban on smoking in ALL public places is going to hurt their business. I have two reactions to that.
1. So what?! F*#% you if you think I'm going to sit around and be okay with the argument that you making money is more important than me not getting lung cancer.
And 2. No wonder they think that - non-smokers aren't giving them enough reason to believe that this isn't the case.
What I mean by #2 is this: It seems to me that, rare cases aside, the assumption is that smokers want to be allowed to smoke and non-smokers want smokers NOT to be allowed to smoke. The further assumption is that smokers will no longer frequent places that ban smoking, AND the reality is that non-smokers KEEP GOING PLACES, EVEN IF SMOKING IS NOT BANNED. I wish what industry owners were really thinking was 'if we DON'T ban smoking, we'll lose the 75% of our customers who are NOT smokers' rather than 'if we DO ban smoking, we'll lose the 25% who ARE smokers'.
There must be some way to organize people for a couple of weeks so that they stop going places that allow smoking. My fear, however, is that people are mostly full of s*!^ and don't really care about the ban enough to stop going to clubs for a few weeks.
Oh joy. Most restaurants I go to in Houston don't allow smoking anyway. And if they do and they don't have it properly ventilated so that I can't smell even a smidge while I'm eating - I just won't go there.
So my real beef is this: The industry owners are complaining because they believe a ban on smoking in ALL public places is going to hurt their business. I have two reactions to that.
1. So what?! F*#% you if you think I'm going to sit around and be okay with the argument that you making money is more important than me not getting lung cancer.
And 2. No wonder they think that - non-smokers aren't giving them enough reason to believe that this isn't the case.
What I mean by #2 is this: It seems to me that, rare cases aside, the assumption is that smokers want to be allowed to smoke and non-smokers want smokers NOT to be allowed to smoke. The further assumption is that smokers will no longer frequent places that ban smoking, AND the reality is that non-smokers KEEP GOING PLACES, EVEN IF SMOKING IS NOT BANNED. I wish what industry owners were really thinking was 'if we DON'T ban smoking, we'll lose the 75% of our customers who are NOT smokers' rather than 'if we DO ban smoking, we'll lose the 25% who ARE smokers'.
There must be some way to organize people for a couple of weeks so that they stop going places that allow smoking. My fear, however, is that people are mostly full of s*!^ and don't really care about the ban enough to stop going to clubs for a few weeks.