Michael Thompson wrote:
In terms of the worker safety argument, like it or not, workers choose to work there. That's a fact. (Many of them are smokers anyways. I know this, I've worker in bars and restaurants, too.) To boil down the argument to unemployment versus "the risk of contracting heart disease, stroke or cancer" is hyperbolic and melodramatic. Workers have choices, just as patrons did (before the ban). If the ban is (was) truly an issue of worker safety, it's a half-hearted attempt. I would expect people like Mr. Halfhill to lobby their city council person on Monday about noise ordinances and long hours and mandated breaks and proper temperature in kitchens and all that. Keep us posted on the status of that lobbying. If such lobbying doesn't occur, I'm afraid the smoking ban will look like a ban of convenience for a handfull of people and not really about "worker safety" as it was touted.
"Worker safety" is the only argument that holds any weight for me regarding the ban. I agree that patrons have a choice as to whether or not to patronize an establishment. As a non-smoker I've long made choices as to where to go based on how smoky it is. If I want to see a show at, say, First Avenue the artist has to be intriguing enough to me to overcome the haze at the club and the smell of smoke that lingers in my clothes afterwards. It's part of life.
As to workers having choices you're partly correct. There is, however, a class argument in all this. There are definitely people that are in situations where they have to take whatever job is offered to them. Apparently, it's ok that those people occasionally have to work eight hour shifts in a room full of carcinogens.
Also, there's the reality that regardless of "choice" the state has mandated that no one smoke at anyone's place of employment unless they happen to work in a bar or restaurant. To turn around your argument regarding what smoking ban proponents should be doing I ask smoking ban opponents whether or not they're lobbying to repeal the Clean Indoor Air Act? If not, why? Since everyone has total control over where they work (or so I've read) if one finds a high paying executive job at a "smoking" office they can pass on it because there will be a "non-smoking" identical job across the street. Apparently.
Jim McGuire Como
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