posted October 1, 2007
This new law says nothing about your right to smoke. It is not prohibiting your right whatsoever. You can smoke until lung cancer takes you home and my health insurance rates increase to cover your emphysema treatments and oxygen. What it does limit is your right to make me and others breathe that smoke. And it should be that way.
If and when you travel to the state of Florida, you will find that there is no smoking in any restaurant. Are there still smokers living in Florida? Well, if the remains of cigarette butts at any intersection is a clue then yes there are and many of them to boot. But food and the enjoyment of it should not be done with nicotine laded smoke.
If I choose, for my health, not to smoke then I do not have to be subjected to yours. I should be able to go any where and enjoy it free of the smell, that lingering stench that clings to clothes, cars, cats, babies, etc.
My right to live smoke free supersedes your right to smoke where ever you want. It is actually selfish to say I have a right to smoke and blow it into your face while eating. We live in a smoke free world. We were not born with cigars or cigarettes in our mouths. It is a learned behavior and one that I will happily say you can do if you choose. But if I do not want to breathe second hand smoke which has caused cancer in non smoking family members. Then please allow me the right to clean air.
You can smoke outside. You can smoke in your home, your car, at the park, any where but around my food. So please do not call this prohibition by mean spirited religious people. It is a law that says everyone can enjoy their meal and smokers can wait until they go home to light up.
Cliff Sarbel
sarbelcliff@yahoo.com
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Mr. Exum seems oblivious to all of the studies about second-hand smoke. He also doesn't seem to be aware that there will be plenty of "Over 21" venues for both him and the former North Shore Grill smokers.
Surely he wasn't interested in blowing his smoke on children anyway, was he?
Bob Bires
Chattanooga
bires@bellsouth.net
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Why should 30% or less of the population (the smokers) deny 70% of the population (the non-smokers) a clean breath of air?
If a law that keeps people from having a good time is not a good law, then why are meth users getting locked up? Aren’t they having a good time?
Restaurants do a better business in states with a similar law by the way. Most people prefer not to eat a meal in a smoke-filled room or go home reeking of cigar or cigarette smoke.
Stephen Givens
Chattanooga
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Obviously a lot of smokers are going to be frustrated by the new Tennessee law banning smoking in public businesses. However, to equate this law with Prohibition completely misses the point.
This law will protect the 73% of Tennesseans who don’t’ smoke, especially two groups: those who aren't old enough to protect themselves, and those who work in public places and have no way to escape the toxic cloud that forms over a crowd of smokers.
Smoking causes a lot of health problems, some of them fatal. I applaud the state's efforts to protect those of us on the other end of the cigarette.
Mike Crowder
Chattanooga
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Mr. Roy Exum,
I really appreciate your opinion about what freedoms smokers should have, but I haven't been able to walk into numerous restaurants since moving here. I wanted to try out Buffalo Wild Wings at Northgate Mall, but it smelled really bad from all the smokers in there.
I have asthma and every time I get around smoke my lungs lock up and I can't breathe. I was born with this and it's not going away ever.
I enjoy having freedoms too, but not at anyone else's expense. I don't want to knock smokers, I had an uncle who was an avid smoker who died last year. (He had bad emphysema) I have Sjogren's syndrome, where my eyes are severely dry and smoke makes them really hurt. I have been to the doctor to treat scabs on my eyeballs.
Mr. Exum, I really think before you go writing anything you need to think about the countless non-smokers who have to inhale toxins that they don't have the freedom to filter out or the choice to do so when they go into a public smoke den.
Pat Mallard
Lupton City
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Thank you so much for your refreshing articles. I wonder if the well-meaning zealots will keep moving forward and ban perfume and cologne.
Gwen Green
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I have never read so many ridiculously absurd statements in one article as in Roy Exum's comments on the new Tennessee smoking law. He writes as if the purpose of the law is to be punitive toward smokers.
He totally misses the point. The purpose of the law is to protect non-smokers. It is well documented that second-hand cigarette smoke can be lethal to non-smokers exposed to it. Secondhand cigarette smoke contains 4000 toxic substances.
I wonder if Mr. Exum would agree that is is a good law that prohibits driving a car 100 mph down Hixson Pike. I think he would probably agree. Why is that a good law? Because that behavior endangers the lives of innocent bystanders. Exact same principle. It's a good law.
As for smoker's "rights", the Supreme Court has long held that one person's rights do not include infringing on the rights of others. The right to free speech does not include the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theater.
Perhaps I have missed it, but I have never seen it written anywhere that there is a "right" to smoke. Fortunately for the majority of us, the Tennessee General Assembly has had the vision and foresight to enact this important piece of legislation and make this discussion a moot point. Now all they need to do is eliminate the exceptions to the law and finish the job.
Jim Roberts
jroberts89@comcast.net
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I wonder if Roy Exum has actually read the Non-Smokers Protection Act. If he has, he should realize that the law has nothing to do with legislating morality or trying to force people to stop smoking. It has everything to do with providing a safe and healthy workplace where people are not being exposed to a known cancer-causing agent.
To compare this law to prohibition is not accurate. If I choose to drink a glass of wine or a bottle of beer, I will not be a health hazard to anyone unless I decide to drink and drive or disturb others. As you mentioned in your article, the state already has laws to deal with this area. Unlike alcohol, smoking cigarettes inside an enclosed building creates an unsafe and unhealthy atmosphere for employees and patrons.
Local, state and federal governments already regulate many aspects of businesses and restaurants. The Non-Smokers Protection Act is no different than any other "health and safety" regulation that has been placed on a business or workplace. Restaurants or business owners are already required by law to provide a safe and healthy atmosphere for their employees and the general public. If a building has mold or asbestos in the walls, you can not just move into that building, open a business and start serving the general public. Your business would be closed before you served the first customer. In order to serve the general public, you would be required by law to remove these contaminates before opening for business. Second-hand smoke is a cancer-causing agent and should be treated no different.
To say I'm a zealot or trying to impose my rights over yours is not accurate either. At no point does this law prevent you from smoking. You can still smoke outside, in your house, in your car or walking down the street. This law just limits where you can smoke. just like I'm limited on when and where I can drink alcohol.
To say we should just leave smokers alone since they are trying to enjoy something to themselves is not exactly factual either. Someone is breathing the second-hand smoke coming from that smoker. Chances are. that person does not smoke and does not want to breathe the second-hand smoke.
While I can't predict what will happen in the months to come either, I hope this law will help educate people about the dangers of smoking tobacco and possibly quite. If you choose to smoke, that is your right. But, to say this law prevents you from smoking is just not true.
Vince Butler
Hixson
vincebutler@comcast.net
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When comparing Prohibition to a new law concerning the new smoking ban in public places, the two really aren't alike. When someone decides to drink a beer, glass of wine, or shot of whiskey, those particular beverages don't enter my body when someone else partakes of them. However, when someone puffs a drag off a cigarette, cigar, or pipe...then exhales smoke into the same air that I am breathing, carcinogens are suddenly thrust upon me and my lungs without even smoking.
If a person wants to smoke, do so at home or in your car where no one else will be sharing the air you pollute. I am in full agreement with this new law...it's about time non-smokers are able to go out and breath freely.
If smokers are complaining about the new law, how many non-smokers are celebrating.
By the way, don't worry restaurant owners about losing business from your smokers, we non-smokers may be more inclined to visit your venue now that the smoke has cleared.
Scott Watson
East Ridge
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I personally don't care if you smoke yourself to death, but I do mind the fact that I have smoker's lungs and
have never smoked a single cigarette. That I do mind a lot.
I have this because of inconsiderate smokers who go around talking about their right to smoke. Well, let me tell you something I have just as much right to breathe and now thanks to people like you and all the other smokers in the world I don't breathe well and looks like I never will so thanks for nothing.
Ronda Martin
qwilter1@yahoo.com
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The wrong-headedness of the new anti-smoking legislation is not primarily due to a lack of respect for smokers' rights ... rather, it is the lack of respect for property rights that bothers me.
As someone else pointed out, smokers can (for now, until the next jihad by the lifestyle police) still choose to light up at home, in their cars, in over-21 bars, etc. But that's not the point.
If I own a restaurant, or any other sort of retail establishment, it is my right to control my property. That includes the right to ban people from smoking, OR to allow people to smoke. My responsibility is to communicate the policy clearly; then, potential customers can come in or go somewhere else as they see fit. It's called freedom of choice, and it used to be the way we did things in this once-free country.
Up until yesterday, business owners could exercise their private property rights in this regard. Now, those rights have been violated by the Legislature and the governor. Perhaps an appeal via the court system can right things.
Or, maybe the court system has lost sight of private property rights as well. In the wake of the ridiculous Kelo v. New London decision, I'm not optimistic. This day may turn out to be as infamous for its death knell to the property rights of business owners as Kelo was to the rights of homeowners.
When will we wake up and realize that the "nanny state" can't solve every problem known to man ... but it can and will continue to erode the rights we once used to hold dear? Soon, I hope (Google Ron Paul!) - because America, "the land of the free" is fast becoming unrecognizable.
P.S. I am not a smoker - never have, never will.
Joe Dumas
joe@joedumas.com
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I wasn't going to get into this smoking ordeal, but I have to come to the defense of Mr. Exum. It seems to me that these "non-smokers" feel they have all of the rights in the world and the "smokers" are scumbags who have no rights and should be nailed to the cross.
I get so tired of these people who come to our city and state from other parts of the who knows where, that they didn't like, and decide to make our city a "better" place by dictating to us what is best for us. People in Tennessee have been smoking for over 400 years and, yes, people have died. I know of people who have stopped smoking years ago and, you guessed it, have lung cancer. I know of health "nuts" who took such good care of their body they had a heart attack.
If non-smokers are so scared of the inevitable, they should live in a glass bubble and not go out into public at all. After all, second-hand smoke is not as bad as airborne diseases you can pick up, and often do, not to mention pollution.
One man in an article against Mr. Exum mentioned the state of Florida as being a non-smoking state. My husband is from Florida and lived there all of his life when it was a good state. People could live and be free as we could here in the past. But, the "snow birds" decided to retire in Florida and make it a better place, in their minds, so hence the ban on smoking was put into effect.
Believe this or not, smokers pay taxes just like anyone else and should be afforded the respect of living their lives without being persecuted for their habits. The smokers didn't complain when they had a smoking and non-smoking section in restaurants and other public buildings, but the non-smokers were not happy with that. They had to complain like babies because someone was enjoying a right to do something they didn't like.
Someone also mentioned alcoholic beverages. That seemed to be OK with them, but they have probably never had a loved one killed by a selfish drunk driving a car not to mention abusive family members that are treated terrible and penniless because of a drunk spouse.
Since Tennessee is so tax crazy and greedy, I think they should go up on the taxes of beer, wine and other spirits as much as they have cigarettes. After all, if the smokers have to pay more, why shouldn't the drinkers. I think everyone should be treated the same and this seems fair to me. Of course, I realize that a lot of the "officials" enjoy their cocktails, but maybe they need to put out a little more money for it in their love of tax increases on cigarettes, for the schools, of course.
I'm sure if in Tennessee and Georgia, and even Florida, if it were put to a vote, this non-smoking ban would never have made it. Nothing should be made a law unless the people vote on it regardless of what it is. That's what America is all about. For the people, by the people...
Bettye Clark
Clarkgb1@aol.com
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