Wisconsin: Smoking is now banned in Bars, Taverns, and The Workplace

[Revolution]

SUPERIOR - Signed by Governor Jim Doyle last year, Wisconsin's statewide smoking ban in bars, hotels, and restaurants law took effect Monday.

Wisconsin lawmakers say they wrote the new law to include indoor workplaces and enclosed public areas.

http://www.fox21online.com/news/smoking-ban-hits-wisconsin-bars-restaurants

It went into effect 3 days ago. There are so many things wrong with this, I don't know where to begin. This owner of a bar says it better than I could.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUDd8ZQpYvU&feature=player_embedded#![/youtube]

She's right about wintertime. Watch things begin to heat up around Oct/Nov. Though, I'm already seeing people outside bitching legitimately while they smoke. I'm actually also seeing cops roll by the bars 4-5 times every few nights. They just glare at those standing outside exercising their rights. I know what's coming too. They can't control outside on the sidewalk, so they'll start citing people for littering just to fill their stinkin' kauffers.

This is a clear breach of freedom. Went into effect THE DAY AFTER INDEPENDENCE DAY!! How's that for cruel irony? I actually went to my local watering hole yesterday. Talked to some of the bar backs. One was telling me that he's going to lose 1/3 of his business/tips most likely. I was talking about making bars "Private clubs" Charge 8-12 bucks for a little plastic card membership, and make it a free establishment. Emphatic no. That guy seems scared to death, actually. I don't blame him. Fighting against stuff like this is tough. I understand him being worried about his livelihood. However, sometimes it is necessary.

Truckstops are the same way now. Can't smoke in any of those. I know because my father works at one. Employees who even walk on any ground not deemed "acceptable" to smoke outside on the premises are subject to punishment. It used to be that you could smoke in the restaurant, the convenience area, and truckers could smoke basically everywhere but the bathrooms. Including the theatre, and entertainment room.

Things are not the same anymore, and it's all because of prohibitionists. They are the ones who are behind this thing. The thing about these animals is that they don't stop. The fight to banish booze is not over with them. They're making strong headway on tobacco, (and it'll get worse) and the VERY NEXT thing these shits are going for is what they deem to be unhealthy food/drink. Look what has happened in San Francisco, California? Vending machines are no longer allowed to carry carbonated drinks, or even flavored water! Instead, it is being instructed that these machines carry crap like soy milk, and rice milk.

California's economy isn't bad enough already, right? Wisconsin's economy isn't bad enough already without Emperor Doyle gumming up the works even further, right?

I cannot tell any of you how infuriating this kind of stuff is to me. I can only keep typing...

[IassaFTots]

That same rule killed Dallas's bar scene.  They were doing good business, now the peeps go to the suburbs, two of which will more than likely never ever change to non-smoking.

[Revolution]

What makes it exponentially worse for us personally is we're a small, small town of about 9-12 thousand people.

[RightCoast]

I lived on the Cape and worked in a bar when Mass. passed their smoking control laws. Everybody said the bars were all going to shut down because of it - none did. It was great not smelling like smoke every night and even better bouncing out the drunks that thought it was funny to light up (with a strongly enforced $10,000 fine for every infraction the owner made it clear people would get fired if he was fined).  Same thing now that I'm in CT. Why should I have to smell your smoke? Health issue or not, I don't want to be in the same building with smokers.

City bans are a lot different because they truly do effect the businesses in city limits - so let's just make it a nation-wide ban and be done with it.

[formerlurker]

The Wisconsin Restaurant Association and the American Lung Association support the new law and state Senator Bob Jauch says 80 percent of Wisconsin residents back it.

Seems like it is largely supported legislation.

[Hawkgirl]

As a non smoker, I think it's great that it's been outlawed out of restaurants.  I hate the smell of smoke and smokers....

[Revolution]

^

Same thing now that I'm in CT. Why should I have to smell your smoke? Health issue or not, I don't want to be in the same building with smokers.

That might be, guys, but it really shouldn't be an "I don't like" type of thing. It should be a "Constitutionality" thing. Just like I wouldn't agree with carving hunks of fat off of obese people. Of course, I'm going to an extreme here, but it's only to drive the point home. It may be that some obese people are unpleasant to look at/smell. Doesn't make it right to seclude them from society or make them out to be less of a person than the average non smoker. I have heard, and witnessed both.

Seems like it is largely supported legislation.

The election of a certain community organizer to the Presidency was also largely supported...

[formerlurker]

^

That might be, guys, but it really shouldn't be an "I don't like" type of thing. It should be a "Constitutionality" thing. Just like I wouldn't agree with carving hunks of fat off of obese people. Of course, I'm going to an extreme here, but it's only to drive the point home. It may be that some obese people are unpleasant to look at/smell. Doesn't make it right to seclude them from society or make them out to be less of a person than the average non smoker. I have heard, and witnessed both.

The election of a certain community organizer to the Presidency was also largely supported...

You equate imposing second hand smoke on someone to looking at an obese person?   why?

[Hawkgirl]

That's not a fair comparison.  A person being obese doesn't affect me, really.  A person smoking near me does, in that I would be ingesting the smoke.  

[RightCoast]

There isn't really anything that compares except possibly walking through a public area with a boom-box (yes I said it) on full blast - Oh. wait...that is already restricted, precedent perhaps?

[debk]

Happened here 2 years ago.

What some bars did, was not allow anyone under 21 in at anytime, and kept the smoking. They do incredible business.

While comparing a smoker and an obese person may not seem logical .... it actually is.

Just as smoking is being banned....so are things that contribute to obesity....like no carbonated drinks, or sugar-added drinks, etc, in vending machines in SanFrancisco. Or salt in NYC.

It's a slow erosion of our rights. Where does it stop?

I'm not an advocate of smoking....though I live with 2 smokers and bitch at them all the time about it.....and while I think it's nasty and don't want it blowing in my face....I do wonder if it's all that harmful to a non-smoker. I've known people who have gotten lung cancer and never smoked, as I'm sure others have known people who have, too.

And while I might have given up "real" pop and switched to Diet years ago.....it was MY choice. And that's the way it should be.

Not the government telling us we are not going to have it.

[RightCoast]

My opinion nobody has the right to walk into a room that I'm in and start smoking.  Just like the other night when I was at the Sting concert and the bitch next to me wouldn't stop talking, I told her - nicely - to STFU.

Now if they try to say people can't smoke in their own house or in the car then I'll be right next to you defending that.

[debk]

My opinion nobody has the right to walk into a room that I'm in and start smoking.  Just like the other night when I was at the Sting concert and the bitch next to me wouldn't stop talking, I told her - nicely - to STFU.

Now if they try to say people can't smoke in their own house or in the car then I'll be right next to you defending that.

It isn't that I disagree with your point about smoking.....I don't.

My only point is....the government started with smoking because it was "nasty" to all of us who don't smoke....so it was an easy move to make....compared to restricting foods to people.

Now that the smoking ban is well on it's successful way....now they are going after specific foods.

How are you going to feel when you pull into MickeyD's, order a Big Mac and a large fries and be told...
"So sorry, Mr Randy....you had a Big Mac and fries a month ago, you don't qualify to have them for another 5 months!" ?

It isn't a question of whether or not the government will start to control our dietary intake...they are already starting to in places. Just read the whole thread on the vending machines in SanFrancisco.

[Hawkgirl]

My aunt, who was a non smoker, but married to a smoker, died two years ago of lung cancer.   Smoking does effect non smokers.  Second hand smoke also causes lung cancer.  Deb, if I were you, I'd insist they stopped...Good luck doing that!

[debk]

My aunt, who was a non smoker, but married to a smoker, died two years ago of lung cancer.   Smoking does effect non smokers.  Second hand smoke also causes lung cancer.  Deb, if I were you, I'd insist they stopped...Good luck doing that!

I have...and I get nowhere. 

[Zeus]

My aunt, who was a non smoker, but married to a smoker, died two years ago of lung cancer.   Smoking does effect non smokers.  Second hand smoke also causes lung cancer.  Deb, if I were you, I'd insist they stopped...Good luck doing that!

to second hand smoke brings…a whole host of health problems." Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, But the simple fact is that despite the Environmental Protection Agency's infamous and fraudulent "thumb-on-the-scale" ruling in 1993 which held the second-hand tobacco smoke was a Class A Carcinogen, the very worst kind, actual scientific evidence for harm to non-smokers is scant, at best.

What evidence there is comes from epidemiological surveys which are notorious for their fallibility when they rely on individuals to self-report what they do and how they do it. Then there is the issue of correcting the surveys for non-smoke related biases such as diet, exercise, and family history when trying to pin down the health effects of one component, like tobacco smoke, that a person might be exposed to in some unknown quantity. And this assumes the sample size of the survey is large enough and diverse enough to have any significance to begin with.

More importantly, what little correlation with adverse health effects these studies may indicate flow from this simplistic assumption: If non-smokers living with smokers die sooner - or more get cancer or heart disease - when compared to similar non-smokers not exposed to smokers, then second-hand smoke is the cause. You might as well roll with the Monty Python test for a witch – does she float? – with that kind of scientific rigor.

In 2003, author Michael Crichton called out the tobacco smoke scare mongering in a widely noted address at Cal-Tech on the topic of scientific fallacies of the day. Crichton observed that pressure-group tactics and an appeal to consensus, the notion that "everybody" believes something, has replaced actual scientific evidence in far too many public policy disputes. He explained:



In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had "committed to a conclusion before research had begun", and had "disregarded information and made findings on selective information." The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: "We stand by our science….there's wide agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure it isn't even a consensus of scientists that Browner evokes! It's the consensus of the American people.
…

As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don't want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you'll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions.


Not surprisingly, Crichton developed this theme into his current novel, State of Fear, which explores the explosive notion that scare-mongers exploit the "consensus" view of environmental dangers to their own personal benefit.

The second-hand smoke kills crowd seems to sense that they need a fallback argument as holes are punched in their "consensus" view and now turn to the notion that it is simply good economics to ban smoking. Ban smoking and smoke-hating people will flock to restaurants, setting off a boomlet in nightlife. Or something. But this supposes that restaurant operators across the county now willfully resist adopting a no smoking policy despite the money that will make r this.

Blowing Second Hand Smoke

[Hawkgirl]

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/ETS

Does exposure to secondhand smoke cause cancer?
Yes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), the U.S. Surgeon General, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have classified secondhand smoke as a known human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent) (1, 3, 5).

Inhaling secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in nonsmoking adults (4). Approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths occur each year among adult nonsmokers in the United States as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke (2). The Surgeon General estimates that living with a smoker increases a nonsmoker’s chances of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent (4).

Some research suggests that secondhand smoke may increase the risk of breast cancer, nasal sinus cavity cancer, and nasopharyngeal cancer in adults, and leukemia, lymphoma, and brain tumors in children (4). Additional research is needed to learn whether a link exists between secondhand smoke exposure and these cancers.

[Revolution]

Thanks you, Zeus. I actually have a few different links I was ready with in the (inevitable) event the discussion went to ETS. Like this one:

http://www.forces.org/evidence/evid/second.htm

Many, many good debunking, and pointing out of the fraudulent "sciences" scaremongers use. However...

http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/23399/Scientific_Evidence_Shows_Secondhand_Smoke_Is_No_Danger.html

I think I like this one from an M.D. better. I always refer to this when in debates about this topic. I may have to start referring to the one Zeus posted though.

[Thor]

The second hand smoke research is skewed. Just like the Glow-Bull warming. However, citizens have bought into that, hook line and sinker.

My problem with it is property rights. If a place wants to allow smoking, then, by all means allow it. Let the clientele decide. On the converse side, people that don't smoke don't have to go to places that allow smoking. Pretty simple, huh?? Minnesota did the same thing back in 2006 or 2007, I forget. Since I rarely go to bars or taverns, it doesn't bother me. Even though I DO smoke, I don't typically enjoy the smoke smell at restaurants while I'm trying to eat. However, if the wait for food gets to be too  long, then sometimes it is nice to be able to go grab a smoke. When the service at restaurants is good, the food (salads, whatever) comes fairly quickly, I don't miss it. My ex mother in law used to light up in the middle of a dinner at her house. I had to insure that I sat far away from her. Her house, her rules.

[PatriotGame]

As a non smoker, I think it's great that it's been outlawed out of restaurants.  I hate the smell of smoke and smokers....

I agree.
I used to smoke but got a 'brain fart' in 1992 and quit because...well...I am quite confident that smoking is detrimental to a person's health. Chewing Copenhagen on the other hand was fracking wonderful. Nothing like a Cope 1st thing in the morning, after a meal, during ALL day, with a home crafted beer, etc. Quit that ten years ago too but could start again tomorrow!

A smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool...

[Revolution]

And yet every public pool one goes to, there has undoubtedly been some kid who pissed in there. You may have even swam through "warm spot" at some point. The whole point here is that you don't beat the kid's ass and ban him/her from the pool. It's one of life's many little things one has to deal with. It may be unpleasant, and distasteful, but all you really have to do is go home, and take a shower.

See what I mean?

My problem with it is property rights. If a place wants to allow smoking, then, by all means allow it. Let the clientele decide. On the converse side, people that don't smoke don't have to go to places that allow smoking.

That's fairly simple to me, and I agree 100%

Chewing Copenhagen on the other hand was fracking wonderful. Nothing like a Cope 1st thing in the morning, after a meal, during ALL day, with a home crafted beer, etc. Quit that ten years ago too but could start again tomorrow!

I find it quite odd that I can smoke like a chimney, but dislike the taste of chew. I've tried dippin' a couple of times, but it just isn't for me. Something about the way it burns my gums, tastes, or something. I don't know. Maybe I just don't like the feel of it in there.

[formerlurker]

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/ETS

Does exposure to secondhand smoke cause cancer?
Yes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), the U.S. Surgeon General, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have classified secondhand smoke as a known human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent) (1, 3, 5).

Inhaling secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in nonsmoking adults (4). Approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths occur each year among adult nonsmokers in the United States as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke (2). The Surgeon General estimates that living with a smoker increases a nonsmoker’s chances of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent (4).

Some research suggests that secondhand smoke may increase the risk of breast cancer, nasal sinus cavity cancer, and nasopharyngeal cancer in adults, and leukemia, lymphoma, and brain tumors in children (4). Additional research is needed to learn whether a link exists between secondhand smoke exposure and these cancers.

Since this was ignored, I will bump it up again. 

[Thor]

Since this was ignored, I will bump it up again. 

and I stated that the data is flawed. I liken it to the data we got from the Glow-Bull warming crowd. The bigger fact is that second hand smoke cannot be directly attributed to cancer, IMO. There are MANY environmental factors that are left out. Radon exposure ( a MAJOR contributor), exhaust fumes, chemical exposures, etc. I recall a Doctor in Houston that was intentionally skewing the data because if he decided that a person smoked or was exposed to cigarette smoke, he would mark that on the death certificate, regardless of the REAL cause.

I will admit that smoking is NOT good for anybody. I question whether or not second hand smoke actually causes the damage people claim it does. I've been on BOTH sides of the fence as far as being a smoker or non-smoker. Does second hand smoke stink?? HELL YES!! Does it do damage?? Possibly. There is data out there to debate what the Control Freaks  are publishing. I WILL say this: since the Government has mandated that a certain chemical be added to cigarettes in order to make them extinguish themselves, I have noticed that I have had more lung problems and difficulty breathing. Before that chemical was added, it seemed as if smoking bothered me some, physically, but not to the extent it does a year or so later.

[IassaFTots]

I WILL say this: since the Government has mandated that a certain chemical be added to cigarettes in order to make them extinguish themselves, I have noticed that I have had more lung problems and difficulty breathing. Before that chemical was added, it seemed as if smoking bothered me some, physically, but not to the extent it does a year or so later. 
 
 
 

I wonder if those American Spirits have the same thing????

[debk]

I wonder if those American Spirits have the same thing????

Apparently they all do....

M and T have both been coughing more lately....and neither one of them used to very much.

I just told M what you said Thor....and he agreed he'd been coughing more but he thought it was the air quality we've been having here. I was really good, and didn't tell him that yes, MY air quality was being affected.  :innocent:

I say frequent prayers hoping they will quit. So far it isn't working...but I keep prayin'....