Comments on: NYC: “Smoke-easies” under siege

By: William Nuesslein

William Nuesslein — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:34:40 +0000

As I understand it, smoking itself increases the probability of lung cancer from 1 unit to 20 units; second hand smoke from 1 to 1.3. In neither case is lung cancer a certainty and incidence is in later years. I don’t believe Mayor Bloomberg’s smoking regulations are justified, although as a non-smoker I appreciate my smoke free environment.

The situation with lead is thousands of times worse. The EPA wants to put in a CPSIA type lead regulation that will increase the cost of replacing a window by $90. We are talking about a minor amount of dust that would be in a house for a day or two at most. Lead is not salmonella, it does not make more of itself. If you start with a tiny amount of lead, it will stay tiny or disappear entirely.

By: Frank

Frank — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:23:59 +0000

“Until, of course, it becomes legal to use force to stop someone from smoking around you because of the known health issues.”

That would be the alleged health issues. I state with no more than anecdotal certainty and common sense, but nonetheless certainty and common sense that if an ordinarily healhty non-smoker is in a night club and another person smokes a cigarette in that same nightclub, no health issues for the non-smoker will arise.

By: gitarcarver

gitarcarver — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:07:46 +0000

Until, of course, it becomes legal to use force to stop someone from smoking around you because of the known health issues.

I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but where I am from the number of times the police are called out to a club is weighed when granting the club a liquor license.

So if they call the police, that gets used against them when going to renew their license. If they don’t enforce the non-smoking ban, that gets used against them.

It is a no win situation for the clubs.

(Of course, I am of the opinion that if a club or establishment wants to allow smokers, let ’em. If enough people complain or stop going to the club, then the owners will ban smoking. But I suspect that I am in the minority on this.)

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:54:05 +0000

@ras: That’s a good idea. It would be the only way to truely protect the club against their own inability to get a customer to stop smoking. Until, of course, it becomes legal to use force to stop someone from smoking around you because of the known health issues.

By: ras

ras — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:23:00 +0000

May I ask, what’s to prevent a club from calling the police for each occurrence, saying “we think we saw someone smoking, you better get here right away!” If, per the mayor, it’s to be a crime to smoke, then surely the crime should be reported.

Equally surely, it would be reckless and dangerous for a private organization, in a public space filled with innocent bystanders, to attempt to deprive an addict of his (or her) drug; such delicate matters should be left to trained police officers. The anti-smoking forces have made quite the case for the horrible addictiveness of tobacco, have they not?