California city bans smoking in public places

[OldSand]

Calif. City Bans Smoking in Public Places 2 hours, 8 minutes ago

 

 

 

CALABASAS, Calif. - No more smoking in the park. Lighting up on the sidewalk could bring a fine. Dining on the restaurant patio? Don't bother asking for matches.

 

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One of the strictest tobacco bans in the nation went into effect in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas last week, making smoking off limits in public places where someone else might be exposed to secondhand smoke: indoor businesses, outdoor businesses, parks, outdoor cafes, even apartment building common areas.

 

"We just don't want anyone blowing smoke in someone's face. Unfortunately, what smokers do is harmful to everybody else. People should have the right to breathe clean air," said Mayor Pro Tem Dennis Washburn.

 

California air-quality regulators declared secondhand smoke a toxic air pollutant earlier this year.

 

The city took it a step farther, declaring secondhand smoke to be a public nuisance and approving an ordinance banning smoking in all public places ? indoors and out ? where people might congregate.

 

Hotels can still allow smoking in up to 20 percent of their rooms, and smoking can be allowed in approved designated areas at shopping malls and work places in the upscale city of 23,000 residents.

 

But if a nonsmoker asks a smoker to stop, the smoker must snuff it or face a possible fine in the hundreds of dollars or even a lawsuit.

 

"We salute Calabasas for raising the bar," said Jim Knox, a legislative advocate for the American Cancer Society in Sacramento. "Smoke regulations can play a very important role in reducing public exposure to harmful secondhand smoke."

 

Nationally, hundreds of U.S. cities and several states restrict smoking. In California, where communities have been at the forefront of smoking bans, San Francisco last year banned smoking in parks and stadiums, and oceanfront communities' smoking bans have inspired others in Florida and Delaware to designate smoke-free beaches.

 

Among the states, Colorado lawmakers last week approved a statewide ban on smoking in most public building, and New Jersey's Smoke-Free Air Act, under fire from bar owners because it exempts casino gambling floors, goes into effect April 15.

 

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[Dodge]

This is f***ing absurd.

[OldSand]

I was thinking, you can't smoke inside, you can't smoke outside...they might as well lock up all the smokers in ghettos.

[Buckeye]

Why not just make cigarettes illegal at this point? It could happen one day in this crazy country.

 

And why is it no one seems to get or understand that the report that has been used to "prove" the connection between second hand smoke and cancer is fallacious as hell? And yet the Surgeon General on down keep using that same report to back up this bulls*** agenda.

[MarlinFan10]

You can't smoke in restuarants in Florida, which was an awesome decision. Hopefully Coral Springs can make something like this.

[Shaq-Man]

And why is it no one seems to get or understand that the report that has been used to "prove" the connection between second hand smoke and cancer is fallacious as hell?

 

what do you mean?

 

can you explain?

[roman totale]

I don't have the precise details to hand, but basically it involves the use of numbers that are not actually statistically significant using any kind of analysis of variance.

 

The study shows that cancer-rates in second-hand smokers is X, the rate in those not exposed to second hand smoke is Y. The difference between X and Y is not statistically significant. However, X is Z times the size of Y, so the anti-smoking brigade go around telling everyone that if you are exposed to second-hand smoke you are Z times more likely to get cancer. Scientifically, it's complete BS.

 

I'm a non-smoker, by the way.

[The_Punisher]

This is Grrrreat for America, and I hope they do it everywhere.

[Accord]

They should just completely ban the sale of cigarettes.

[Buckeye]

I can't believe you guys actually like this. Wow.

 

I guess self-important people who can go to non-smoking sections to get away from smoke have to limit other people's freedoms. Okay, let's ban loud cars, cars with fautly exhausts, loud colored clothing, people with body odor and people with loud voices as well.

 

Pretty much the same thing.

 

I am a non-smoker. And I think this is horrible for America. Let's limit the freedom of people because we don't like something based on some report that's untrue. There has NEVER been a report that proves second hand smoke causes cancer. The test used in all studies and by all reports is fallacious. It doesn't prove there actually IS a connection. And yet, we take it to be wrote because most people, frankly, don't like the smell of cigarettes.

 

Go to the non-smoking section then, or don't go to bars period. A lot of places, bars and resteraunts, are LOSING BUSINESS because of this crap. Because all these awesome non-smokers who can't stand going to a bar that has smoking in it wouldn't be caught dead in that bar WITHOUT smoke.

 

This is fascism at it's worst.

 

From Wikipedia:

Controversy

Some controversy has attended efforts to estimate the specific risk of lung cancer related to passive smoking. In 1993, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a report [7] estimating that 3,000 lung cancer related deaths in the US were caused by passive smoking every year. The Congressional Research Service issued a report that cast strong doubts on the veracity of the study.

 

Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and groups representing growers, distributors and marketers took legal action, claiming that the EPA manipulated scientific studies and ignored accepted scientific and statistical practices. In 1998 United States District Court Judge William Osteen vacated this study, declaring it null and void in a 92-page decision, that found that the EPA had manipulated results and violated scientific norms in order to to achieve its previously determined conclusion that passive smoke was harmful. Osteen's decision was overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 2002 on the technical grounds that the report was not a reviewable agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, and the EPA classification of tobacco was ultimately left intact. Because of this, the findings in Osteen's report are still used to argue that the issue of ETS is driven by politics rather than science, and that research on passive smoking is largely junk science.

 

There you go. Also, they go into this same issue on Penn and Teller's: bulls*** in the first season. It's really interesting how many people believe what is, IN FACT, a myth of second hand smoke and it taken as factual science.

 

Here's the thing: I KNOW the tobacco industry is corrupt. But, it is UN-AMERICAN to infringe upon the liberties of others, especially when your reason for doing so is a dirty lie. And yet, people are for limiting freedom for this crap. If legislation like this keeps going through we don't need to worry about those freedom-hating terrorists, because the real freedom haters will be us.

 

Especially since taking away cigarettes will be the same thing as prohibition in the 1920's, and we all know how awesome that turned out. Speaking of which, if we can outlaw cigarettes, who's to say alchohol shouldn't be next? I mean, alchohol kills a hell of a lot of people right? And those figures which show drunk drivers who have killed themselves or others in auto accidents are most likely true. Plus, it seems unfair to say, "Hey, we understand you're addicted to cigarettes, but we gotta' take them away." By doing that you're opening up a new drug trade.

[FutureGM]

I would love to see smoking banned. It has no usefulness, and I'm sure that secondhand smoke is real. The ingredients used in cigarettes aren't any less harmful to those who have to breathe the air around someone who is smoking. The fact is, smoking isn't much more than a legal way to commit slow suicide.

[Buckeye]

I would love to see smoking banned. It has no usefulness, and I'm sure that secondhand smoke is real. The ingredients used in cigarettes aren't any less harmful to those who have to breathe the air around someone who is smoking. The fact is, smoking isn't much more than a legal way to commit slow suicide.

 

 

You're sure, but with no proof, which means you're not sure. And there hasn't been test ONE which has proven what you "believe" to be correct.

 

So is drinking, you for banning that, too? Let's outlaw fatty foods, as well. If people want to "kill themselves slowly" then who are you to adjudicate how they do it?

 

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it should be against the law.

[wanks1212]

I'm also a non-smoker who finds this law retarted.

[Dan Maroone]

I would love to see smoking banned. It has no usefulness, and I'm sure that secondhand smoke is real. The ingredients used in cigarettes aren't any less harmful to those who have to breathe the air around someone who is smoking. The fact is, smoking isn't much more than a legal way to commit slow suicide.

 

 

 

Yet you want pot legalized. Who can understand you guys. I think a more realistic way to look at it is you want to impose your views on others with the excuse that "you know better than everyone else".

 

 

We either live on a free society or we don't. I'm a non smoker, but I belevie if you want to smoke you should have a right to do so. This is just another example of facist California in action.

[Dodge]

Fact: More people are killed by aliens every year than are by second-hand smoke.

 

I can't believe some of you loonies support this law, and even the outright ban of smoking.

[OldSand]

You know how many things are out there that we are exposed to daily that slowly cause cancer? Second-hand smoke causes as much cancer as exhaust gasses and chlorine in drinking water. What about the heart attacks caused by fatty fast-foods? Should we outlaw Burger King and McDonalds too?

 

I understanding banning smoking inside a restaurant because you are in a confined area, but to ban smoking in open areas is crazy. They wanted to do this (or they have already not even sure) on campus at FIU, where they wanted to ban smoking in the bench areas around the dorms...I agree with Buckeye, it's un-American.

[MarlinFan10]

I'm asthmatic and on a few occasions I've noticed complications after being in situations where people have been smoking near me. So yeah, I don't want people smoking in public.

[FutureGM]

I would love to see smoking banned. It has no usefulness, and I'm sure that secondhand smoke is real. The ingredients used in cigarettes aren't any less harmful to those who have to breathe the air around someone who is smoking. The fact is, smoking isn't much more than a legal way to commit slow suicide.

 

Yet you want pot legalized. Who can understand you guys. I think a more realistic way to look at it is you want to impose your views on others with the excuse that "you know better than everyone else".

Actually, you're wrong. I'm conservative on drug issues. I certainly don't want pot legalized. I don't see the benefit.

 

Don't always assume that because i'm liberal, it means that I support all positions of the average liberal.

[Buckeye]

I'm asthmatic and on a few occasions I've noticed complications after being in situations where people have been smoking near me. So yeah, I don't want people smoking in public.

 

 

Well, you have the same option as everyone else to escape it, though. Don't go to smoking areas. Or, better yet, let people smoke outside. I HIGHLY doubt you're so asthmatic you can't go outside if people are smoking. If so, I'd consider getting an oxygen tank to carry with me everywhere else the air stinks in this world.

[wanks1212]

I would love to see smoking banned. It has no usefulness, and I'm sure that secondhand smoke is real. The ingredients used in cigarettes aren't any less harmful to those who have to breathe the air around someone who is smoking. The fact is, smoking isn't much more than a legal way to commit slow suicide.

 

Fine, if smoking should be banned at least partially because it supposedly has no usefullness, then you have to ban other "vices" that also have no apparent usefullness such as drinking, smoking cigars, chewing tobacco,any type of sex not intended to produce a child, and eating unhealthy food when healthy food is available. Because, you know, none of those activities have any real usefullness either.

[Guest Fritz]

I'd love for cigarettes to be banned.

 

Legalize weed in its place, tax the crap to high hell, and make money for the government.

[Buckeye]

I'd love for cigarettes to be banned.

 

Legalize weed in its place, tax the crap to high hell, and make money for the government.

 

 

So, you expect them to do something with weed they already do with cigarettes, with the EXACT same people running things (because, let's face it, the tobacco industry would become the weed industry in a second)?

 

Smart.

[Guest Juanky]

You can't smoke in restuarants in Florida, which was an awesome decision. Hopefully Coral Springs can make something like this.

This is Grrrreat for America, and I hope they do it everywhere.

They should just completely ban the sale of cigarettes.

I would love to see smoking banned. It has no usefulness, and I'm sure that secondhand smoke is real. The ingredients used in cigarettes aren't any less harmful to those who have to breathe the air around someone who is smoking. The fact is, smoking isn't much more than a legal way to commit slow suicide.

Please tell me each and every one of you is joking.

[Accord]

You can't smoke in restuarants in Florida, which was an awesome decision. Hopefully Coral Springs can make something like this.

This is Grrrreat for America, and I hope they do it everywhere.

They should just completely ban the sale of cigarettes.

I would love to see smoking banned. It has no usefulness, and I'm sure that secondhand smoke is real. The ingredients used in cigarettes aren't any less harmful to those who have to breathe the air around someone who is smoking. The fact is, smoking isn't much more than a legal way to commit slow suicide.

Please tell me each and every one of you is joking.

 

No, i'm not.

 

Most smokers are well aware of the health risks and most smokers actually WANT to quit smoking but simply don't have the will power to do so because they're so incredibly addicted to nicotine. Being completely prevented from buying cigarettes would be doing a lot of people a favor and i'd bet most of them would thank the government for passing such a law. I know this from personal experience, I have several family members who want to stop smoking but can't, they've tried the patch, the gum, all that crap. They'll quit for a few days or a week and then the temptations are too much that they'll go out and buy a pack. The only way most people will ever be able to quit smoking is if the sale of cigarettes are banned and they're physically not able to go into a store and buy them.

[Buckeye]

You can't smoke in restuarants in Florida, which was an awesome decision. Hopefully Coral Springs can make something like this.

This is Grrrreat for America, and I hope they do it everywhere.

They should just completely ban the sale of cigarettes.

I would love to see smoking banned. It has no usefulness, and I'm sure that secondhand smoke is real. The ingredients used in cigarettes aren't any less harmful to those who have to breathe the air around someone who is smoking. The fact is, smoking isn't much more than a legal way to commit slow suicide.

Please tell me each and every one of you is joking.

 

No, i'm not.

 

Most smokers are well aware of the health risks and most smokers actually WANT to quit smoking but simply don't have the will power to do so because they're so incredibly addicted to nicotine. Being completely prevented from buying cigarettes would be doing a lot of people a favor and i'd bet most of them would thank the government for passing such a law. I know this from personal experience, I have several family members who want to stop smoking but can't, they've tried the patch, the gum, all that crap. They'll quit for a few days or a week and then the temptations are too much that they'll go out and buy a pack. The only way most people will ever be able to quit smoking is if the sale of cigarettes are banned and they're physically not able to go into a store and buy them.

 

This is fascism at it's best.

 

So, you think the government should hold people's hands and tell them what they can and can't do? How lame. Smokers know the risks. They know BEFORE they start now. Let them have the freedom to do it.

 

The same kind of logic can and should be used to ban the sale of alchohol then. Nobody seems to want to defend that, though, do they (please someone say they want alchohol banned)?