The American Heat and Ventilation Association just released a major caveat: NO HVAC system is equipped to create smoke-free conditions. This is borne out by the ridiculous attempts at creating non-smoking sections in restaurants (or bars that serve food). Even when it seems as though smoke is not reaching me in the far corners of such places, I wind up smelling like a tobacco factory once I leave the place.
Now to the sky-is-falling libertarians who believe jack-booted government thugs are about to invade their castles and slay them in front of their children because they're smoking: give up now and go quietly...or snuff out those cancers sticks and protect the lives of your children whose lives are not yours to destroy, especially before their lungs are fully developed. This overreaction is really something to watch. In the last year alone, we've bombed more than 10,000 innocents to smithereens in a country we claim to have "liberated." We're watching every clean air and clean water rule and regulation thrown out even as we turn over the setting of our energy policy to oil and gas producers, and we watch public education destroyed by first starving it to death in the name of "leaving no child behind," then point fingers at its failure as the reason to privatize it. The only reason smoking is legal in this country to the extent that it has been is because tobacco producers and cigarette makers stormed Congress 200 years ago and set in motion a legalization and subsidy system that protected these cancer-makers and spent billions marketing the addictive nicotine carriers in every arena possible - starting with sexy signs and carried through by radio sponsorships and overwhelming smoking and alcohol consumption in motion pictures and television from 1915-1970. And now again in the 1990s and beyond. So, first, they - all of them - addict the nation to tobacco, then suddenly declare it to be some sort of inalienable right to poison the air and lungs of our children and other adults even as we kill ourselves slowly and not-so-slowly by inhaling those gases for 20-40 years each. Now, after a decade of enlightenment and discovery that by way of the lies, deception and manipulations of nicotine and ammonia in their products, big tobacco has conspired to addict generation after generation of young smokers marketed through sex and cartoon characters, and we finally see the folly of our ignorance and corruption, so that states which rely far more on tourism and travelers than Minnesota for their income have eliminated smoking altogether in all public places. And the rewards have been great - even for the naysayers who spoke of doom to their well-being and bottom lines. A precipitous drop in smoking everywhere - in New York, between 15% and 20% in the first year of its ban - and increased revenues and traffic for retailers who thought they'd be on skid row in a week. This in remote wildernesses of New York, California and Florida. Suddenly the other 80% of adults who've had to avoid patronizing most bars and restaurants are able to enjoy the drink and cuisine in the same haunts as their smoking pals. The question for all of here in Minnesota: why such resistance to this windfall idea to ban smoking in bars and restaurants? Habit. Addiction. Change. Libertarianism. Pure selfishness. One or all of the above may apply, but none of them is reason enough to keep from protecting the public's health and safety. No analogy has yet been raised that makes me hesitate for even a second that we really have no choice in this matter anymore. It's a bit like Catholicism in its claim: once you've been enlightened by the truth, you are at pains to remain in the state of grace without conversion. Heaven will be denied you. Well, talk about overreaching, but we with our feet firmly planted in reality know that we are responsible - for each other and for the health and future of our city and its children. A smoking ban is merely one step, but a wildly important one. Andy Driscoll Crocus Hill/Ward 2 ------ . on 5/21/04 1:01 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > --- Erik Hare <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "if places really want to allow smoking they have to provide ventilation of > a certain rate, etc." > > Perhaps one way to approach the problem would be to establish clean-air > standards for indoor spaces. Rather than ban smoking, just establish > standards for pollutants. You can't have more than a set amount of noxious > substances in the air. That way, if ventilation systems can reduce the > danger of smoke to acceptable levels (assuming there are any), a restaurant > owner could allow smoking if he/she were willing to provide adequate > ventilation. > > Charlie Swope Ward 1 _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
