Smoking cigarettes, if you're over 18, is legal. You wouldn't know it from the slew of laws passed throughout the country in recent years, banning smoking in bars and restaurants, one city ordinance at a time. These bans are indicative of a disturbing trend sweeping the country (and, indeed, other nations in the industrialized world): the seemingly unstoppable rise of the nanny state.
No, we're not shilling for the crooks in the tobacco business. We're just not happy with the government -- be it local, state or federal -- legislating our choices. If a restaurant or bar owner wants to allow smoking in his or her establishment, the decision should not lie with bureaucrats and elected officials. Love it or lump it, businesses are private properties and, as such, proprietors should determine whether a legal act will be banned on their premises.
Customers who don't wish to be subjected to second-hand smoke have that option with or without the invasive law. They can sit in non-smoking areas of restaurants, or go to bars at which smoking is forbidden by right of the owner. If there is a market for smoke-free restaurants -- and we've no doubt there is -- they will proliferate without government intervention. Just as one can change the channel when exposed to an offensive TV show, one can also choose a different restaurant.
To a degree, the new law is intended to protect the employees of restaurants and bars who feel they are at risk of secondhand smoke. But this seems a needless overextension of labor protections. Just as we judge potential jobs on the basis of the compensation they offer, we are also capable of judging them in regard to the exposure to secondhand smoke they may necessitate
Obviously, the elimination of smoking is a worthy public health goal, however, we are receiving mixed messages from the government. Are cigarettes legal or are they not? Perhaps what this country needs is a full-scale referendum on the matter, rather than these piecemeal measures.
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