Revoke Smoking Ban In Toronto?

[JohnLarue]

You'll have to come up with at least one single reason for all of us to want to revoke the ban. "Because you'd prefer it", is as convincing a waste of breath as your smoke is.

I'll happily support your right to buy and smoke your chosen drug, but never where you make others share it. And if I see you lighting up where I am, I'll use every means available to make you butt out.

The one single reason is that it is every persons right to determine if they wish to smoke or not.
Smoking has been part of life in bars since Sir Walter brought the weed back to England hundreds of years ago.

As for the health argument there are probably more people getting ill because they are now forced to stand outside in the rain or snow to have a smoke , than the whining "I do not like second hand smoke" crowd.

This is not about health issues , its about some very aggressive people who feel that they can control the behavior of others and who are willing to accept anything less than total victory.

Ban smoking in the restaurant, OK I do not like smoke around me when I am eating,
Ban smoking in a bar. Its a bar for Christ sakes! Watch out these zealots will soon dislike the effect of hard liquor and figure its OK if the public is only served beer and wine.
A compromise would have been a separate smoking room or smoking on the patio. But noooo, they want that outlawed too
A new law dictates a person can not smoke in their own car if there is a child in the vehicle. Yes I can see the logic, and I would not smoke in a car with a youngster in it, but LET ME make that choice (its my car and my child (theoretically))

While you can pretend you have taken the high road on the smoking issue, just remember these same zealots who like to control you behavior may decide that they do not approve of your hooker hobby and take that up as their next crusade

 

[tboy]

I would ban the sale of tobacco at retail outlets across Canada.
I wouldn't criminalize the act of smoking itself or possession of any quantity of tobacco. I would just force people to drive to Indian reservations to get their fix or make them drive across the border and purchase 50 cartons to last them for the next year.

Petty institutional harrassment like that would reduce tobacco consumption by 80% in this country.
Smoking is such a pointless, stupid, weird activity for people to engage in.

So can be said about:
Drinking
Bungee Jumping
Skiing (snow and water)
Motorcycle riding
Car driving
Skydiving
Sex with contraception
rollerblading
Bicycling on city streets
Skateboarding
Hang gliding
Eating fast food
Drinking coffee
eating fried foods
Eating red meat (cows being the number one source of methane in the world)

etc etc etc etc

...While you can pretend you have taken the high road on the smoking issue, just remember these same zealots who like to control you behavior may decide that they do not approve of your hooker hobby and take that up as their next crusade

or your fast food diet (which has already begun), or your coffee habit (no drive through bylaws are starting up), no drinking in public, (and they've already started with drinking with the new lower tolerance levels for blowing a 24 hr warning....you wait, total ban is coming) etc etc etc.

A great many members here at TERB jump all over me about "a police state" and how you start down a slippery slope if you allow any forgiveness, well, I hate to break it to you, but it started with smoking a long time ago, sooner or later they'll get around to something YOU do.....then let the whining begin....

 

[james t kirk]

Only morons smoke.

As far as I'm concerned, they can add a $50.00 on each pack.

Banning it in public places was the best thing they ever did.

No-one has the right to smoke, to pollute the atmosphere, to subject others to their poison.

Besides, here's the best part, and really, the only part that matters - It will never be reversed. If anything, it's going to get more all encompassing. No smoking on patios - coming your way.

 

[oldjones]

…edit…
While you can pretend you have taken the high road on the smoking issue, just remember these same zealots who like to control you behavior may decide that they do not approve of your hooker hobby and take that up as their next crusade

And when the hooker hobbyists force their sloppy seconds on me just because I choose the same sports bar or country music tavern then you'll have a comparison.

When smokers don't exhale, then and only then, they won't be abusing the rights of everyone else.

When exercising your freedom is an assault on someone else's freedom you can expect to be limited. When the smokers come up with a public smoking proposal that doesn't require others to endure their wretched byproducts, they'll have lotsa support for their right to smoke. But from the OP right on down, the proposal has been, "let me smoke where I want and you STFU about it".

Explain to me why my pleasure in a titty bar should be spoiled by having to breathe the smoke some cancerous cretin at a neighbouring table is blowing my way. Why should my free choice of view—or his—be limited by restricting a specific section to noxious drug users? CB was never the same after they swallowed my favourite seat into the smoking section.

Free speech in public has always been limited; famously, one cannot shout "Fire!" in a crowded bar. In fact I cannot shout at all, or dance, or otherwise annoy the other customers. Why should I be allowed to annoy them with smoke? And just imagine how welcome I'd be if I fired off an uncontrollable fart every few seconds. Or the gun I carry legally. Sorry, there's just no general case to be made for 'smokers' rights'. Except in private.

We'll consider your remark about owning children and therefore having a right to abuse them in your car as a momentary excess.

But, since you asked, I'm fed up with having second hand smoke blown at me on patios. If the smokers and the managers can't figure out the seating so it isn't inflicted on others then smoking should be banned there too. Although I'd be content with "it's OK on a patio as long as no one complains, if they do, the cigartette goes out immediately" but fat chance for that sort of civilized approach.

If all smokers had always been that mannerly, we wouldn't have banned them at all.

 

[Jimmy Beam]

Smoking obviosly is disgusting.

I can taste it on a girl's pussy if they are a smoker. Yuck.

And though I dislike the government telling me what I can or cannot do for the most part they are getting this one right.

 

[WoodPeckr]

I think we should allow indoor smoking in bars/clubs/strip clubs at the very least.......otherwise people do it anyway..

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/fashion/03smoking.html

This is one of the most stupid ideas to come out in awhile.
Sounds like something Big Tobacco is backing.

 

[Jimmy Beam]

This is one of the most stupid ideas to come out in awhile.
Sounds like something Big Tobacco is backing.

I was thinking about that flick Thankyou for not smoking. Very funny movie.

 

[tboy]

....

....The bars are a conundrum for sure.If you allow them too do what they want then every bar will be a smoking bar.
Then the non smokers with be forced too breath in the second hand smoke.
.

I call the bullshit card on this one.....that's like saying that every bar MUST have dance music or every bar MUST serve good wines or that every bar MUST have pole dancers. It just isn't so.

What you WILL have is some clubs that will cater to one group, other clubs or bars that will cater to others and another club or bar that will cater to someone else.

Just like there are restaurants for chinese food, some for sushi, some for italian, and some for med.

 

[oldjones]

If you start with a smoking club tboy, and complained when you were refused a liquor licence, then you'd have a case. But if you want to introduce the same disgusting, harmful substances into the air into a place that's open to all, that's quite a different kettle of smoked fish.

You could make the case if it was the music, not the smoke that people were complaining about: I may be sufferting in the titty bar that only plays hip-hop, but I'm not being harmed. Warning me with a sign is good enough for matters of taste preference. I am being harmed by the smoke, because of my innocent fondness for titties, which the owners are exploiting. If we allow this, next thing you know they won't be cleaning the washrooms and overcharging for beer, (no water available).

Why would anyone imagine they can just dump their garbage anywhere and the rest of us hafta suck it up? Second-hand smoke is garbage, plain and simple. If you must make it, keep it to yourself.

 

[blackrock13]

So can be said about:
Drinking
Bungee Jumping
Skiing (snow and water)
Motorcycle riding
Car driving
Skydiving
Sex with contraception
rollerblading
Bicycling on city streets
Skateboarding
Hang gliding
Eating fast food
Drinking coffee
eating fried foods
Eating red meat (cows being the number one source of methane in the world)

etc etc etc etc



or your fast food diet (which has already begun), or your coffee habit (no drive through bylaws are starting up), no drinking in public, (and they've already started with drinking with the new lower tolerance levels for blowing a 24 hr warning....you wait, total ban is coming) etc etc etc.

A great many members here at TERB jump all over me about "a police state" and how you start down a slippery slope if you allow any forgiveness, well, I hate to break it to you, but it started with smoking a long time ago, sooner or later they'll get around to something YOU do.....then let the whining begin....

Oh, TB, most of those activities you listed are ones that don't affect bystanders unless the skydiver lands on your patio when you're BBQ'ing. Bike ban, get real.

I have trouble with the lowering of the 24 hr limit for a whole pile of lim its but will there'll be a total ban on drinking outside your house or forced abstinence, Doubt it. Coffee is my drug of choice but I think banning drive-through is a good thing. They're seldom faster screw up traffic flow on a busy and and 'ffs' get out and walk for exercise.

 

[hesitant]

I would be the first one to report this shit
if you are addicted to tobacco, fucking chew it or swallow it or shoot it up your vein, don't make me breathe it

Another anti-smoking nazi heard from... I have news for you, smokers have civil rights too... and when they go after vehicles I will be suing.

I still want the Government to refund the fees I paid to belong to 3 private cigar clubs that have since been put out of business... It wasn't like the non-smokers were being impacted by these clubs, yet very viable businesses have been shuttered... with lots of negative spin-off consequences. Aloowing specialty clubs to remain in existance would boost the economy. It isnt like you would be forced to either partonize these establishments or apply to work there...

what is next in society radical vegans demanding we close butcher shops, meat and deli sections of supermarkets since being in the presence of diseased slaughtered animals is unhealthy for them?

Finally, on the point of hypocrites... the fact is those who griped they would be subjected to smoke is clubs mainly didnt go to clubs before the ban, nor are they going in greater numbers after the ban, but fewer smokers are patroning clubs, preferring to stay home or patronize clubs that ignore the law. This places those establishments who enforce the rules at a competitive disadvantage...

Now lets hear the flood of people who say "Oh no, I go to clubs now when I didnt before...". I'd be happy to post the financial numbers to disprove your claim when you come out of the woodworok

 

[Hammerstein]

Only morons smoke.

Oh really, pretty sure most people would agree the following are not morons.......
http://www.jusonline.nl/smokers/gallery01.html

As far as I'm concerned, they can add a $50.00 on each pack.

Banning it in public places was the best thing they ever did.

No-one has the right to smoke, to pollute the atmosphere, to subject others to their poison.

Tell you what I'll quit smoking when you stop driving, buying products that are mass produced as well as made in foreign countries,
can stick to a 100 mile diet, recycle, properly dispose of electronic goods, stop cranking the air condition up on the hot summer days
turn the power off for items not being used, etc etc......

Till then.....

And Jimmy it was Thank YOu For Smoking......you were close but no cigar for you

 

[oldjones]

Frankly Hammy, you're kidding yourself if you think that anyone you're not gagging with the fumes cares a rat's fart whether you smoke. Just keep all that smoke to yourself, there's agood boy.

But if you breathe it on me or anyone else, you're picking a fight the numbers say you're gonna lose. You've already lost; don't make it worse.

But if you promise only to exhale into a garbage bag, I'll support you in a campaign to smoke wherever they can accpommodate your crap-sack. Just not in the seat in front of me at CB OK?

 

[tboy]

Oh, TB, most of those activities you listed are ones that don't affect bystanders unless the skydiver lands on your patio when you're BBQ'ing. Bike ban, get real.

I have trouble with the lowering of the 24 hr limit for a whole pile of lim its but will there'll be a total ban on drinking outside your house or forced abstinence, Doubt it. Coffee is my drug of choice but I think banning drive-through is a good thing. They're seldom faster screw up traffic flow on a busy and and 'ffs' get out and walk for exercise.

You missed the point blackie, we were referring to actions that were not necessary but harmful or dangerous. NOT to others, just ourselves.

As for OJ:

Funny, you don't equate going deaf as being harmful? Go into some of these dance clubs and the music IS causing permanant hearing loss......I forget the exact number but it is around 95 db that permanant hearing damage occurs.

BUT you did not address the undeniable fact that as adults, and legal business owners, that we SHOULD have the god given right to decide what type of club we want to operate and who our clientele are......

Just wait: you all doubt it now but it is coming believe me, a ban or surcharge or increase in taxes on something YOU enjoy doing. Just don't come whining here when it happens........

What's that saying?
When they came for the jews, I didn't care cuz I'm not jewish
When they came for the blacks, I didn't care cuz I'm white
When they came for the italians, I didn't care because I'm not italian.

When they came for me there was no one left to say anything.

Sooner or later, they'll hit you and when they do? You'll feel the SAME way us smokers do...

 

[tboy]

No-one has the right to smoke, to pollute the atmosphere, to subject others to their poison.

Ah but but we DO pollute the air and so do you. Via vehicle exhaust which produces infinitely more toxins and causes more harm than all the smokers who ever have smoked do.......

 

[oldjones]

Another anti-smoking nazi heard from... I have news for you, smokers have civil rights too... and when they go after vehicles I will be suing.

I still want the Government to refund the fees I paid to belong to 3 private cigar clubs that have since been put out of business... It wasn't like the non-smokers were being impacted by these clubs, yet very viable businesses have been shuttered... with lots of negative spin-off consequences. Aloowing specialty clubs to remain in existance would boost the economy. It isnt like you would be forced to either partonize these establishments or apply to work there...

what is next in society radical vegans demanding we close butcher shops, meat and deli sections of supermarkets since being in the presence of diseased slaughtered animals is unhealthy for them?

Finally, on the point of hypocrites... the fact is those who griped they would be subjected to smoke is clubs mainly didnt go to clubs before the ban, nor are they going in greater numbers after the ban, but fewer smokers are patroning clubs, preferring to stay home or patronize clubs that ignore the law. This places those establishments who enforce the rules at a competitive disadvantage...

Now lets hear the flood of people who say "Oh no, I go to clubs now when I didnt before...". I'd be happy to post the financial numbers to disprove your claim when you come out of the woodworok

Do tell us more about the cigar clubs. All the whining with bad analogies like closing butcher shops isn't helping the case, but that's not to say there isn't one that can be made. Just like for cannabis cafes. But to get the law changed you'd have to show banning them was not in the public interest and allowing them was. Any argument based on free choice for smokers has an uphill struggle against the history of happy willingness of smokers to deny the right to free choice of breathing to anyone else.

 

[hesitant]

You missed the point blackie, we were referring to actions that were not necessary but harmful or dangerous. NOT to others, just ourselves.

As for OJ:

Funny, you don't equate going deaf as being harmful? Go into some of these dance clubs and the music IS causing permanant hearing loss......I forget the exact number but it is around 95 db that permanant hearing damage occurs.

BUT you did not address the undeniable fact that as adults, and legal business owners, that we SHOULD have the god given right to decide what type of club we want to operate and who our clientele are......

Just wait: you all doubt it now but it is coming believe me, a ban or surcharge or increase in taxes on something YOU enjoy doing. Just don't come whining here when it happens........

What's that saying?
When they came for the jews, I didn't care cuz I'm not jewish
When they came for the blacks, I didn't care cuz I'm white
When they came for the italians, I didn't care because I'm not italian.

When they came for me there was no one left to say anything.

Sooner or later, they'll hit you and when they do? You'll feel the SAME way us smokers do...

Tboy, you may not have to wait long, towns are moving to ban fast food joints... Imagine no Mickie Dee? I for one an joining many of these fanatics who want to limit the rights of others... on whatever legitimate grounds they can find, since we have now turned into a society of whiners, let them have a taste of what I had...

Know what is really funny, softdrinks are a greater health hazard than smoking... and now proposals are springing up to ban them in schools and tax the hell out of them... lets make them cover soda coolers front doors and ban advertising them... revenge can be sweet...

 

[tboy]

Do tell us more about the cigar clubs. All the whining with bad analogies like closing butcher shops isn't helping the case, but that's not to say there isn't one that can be made. Just like for cannabis cafes. But to get the law changed you'd have to show banning them was not in the public interest and allowing them was. Any argument based on free choice for smokers has an uphill struggle against the history of happy willingness of smokers to deny the right to free choice of breathing to anyone else.

blah blah blah blah...spoken like a true brainwashed drone....

I bet when the government was promoting smoking you were right up there with them hailing smoking as the beall cure for what ails you?


There was a documentary out which contained interviews with some of the politicians involved with the anti-smoking campaign who acknowledged it was a brilliant piece of propaganda. They admitted openly to the camera that smoking wasn't the major cause of lung disease and cancers etc and that since they couldn't go after the real culprits (cars, industry etc) they went after something they COULD go after.

So, if you don't mind the old bait and switch, I guess you won't mind booking through Royalty Ladies?

Just don't complain about the bait and switch when you do......

Once again: when they come after YOU, don't come here whining and complaining........

 

[Toke]

I'm at this Sales seminar once by this gent Zig Ziggler and he comes out with the statement that he will not enter into any type of partnership with anyone who smokes.
His reasoning is that their judgement cannot be trusted.
Too me thats pretty far out there.
Listen I would propose increasing the purchase age every year till we get to a point that a person will have to be fifty to buy a pack of cigarettes.
Slowly the problem would be fazed (sp?) out

The bars are a conundrum for sure.If you allow them too do what they want then every bar will be a smoking bar.
Then the non smokers with be forced too breath in the second hand smoke.
Your argue ment will be if you don't like it then don't go which is reasonable.
If there was a referendum on the subject maybe that could help decide the issue.

No they won't. Non-smokers are more than free to open non-smoking establishments. This is the funny part. As already stated, smokers tend to be the bigger spenders at bars. I knew a couple of owners that had to shut down in the years following the ban as their customers choose to stay home where they could smoke and drink at their leisure. They asked the same question that I have asked any who support the ban...

"Now that the bars are non-smoking (therefore appeasing all the non-smokers who stayed away) where are the increased sales?"

Seems like they rallied and got what they want, but they have no interest in frequenting these bars anyway. I say let the owner decide what he/she wants and the customers can decide where they go.

 

[oldjones]

Ah but but we DO pollute the air and so do you. Via vehicle exhaust which produces infinitely more toxins and causes more harm than all the smokers who ever have smoked do.......

And that 'right' is severely limited by emission standards applied to the car before you even get to think of buying it, and continuing standards that have to be met when you plate it or sell it. In fact, just like you can smoke at home but not out in the community, you can own that polluting car at home, just not get the plates to drive it anywhere.

And if you think, like the OP, that there's a hope those standards are gonna be relaxed, rather than tightened ….

Of course we all pollute. But there's no right to pollute anywhere. Smokers are exactly like a neighbour who flings his trash everywhere on your lawn, the sidewalk, the street. Everywhere. We can tolerate the trash: bagged, binned, collection paid for, only put out on certain days at certain times, only containing certain materials. We made all those laws because inconsiderate neighbours wouldn't behave properly without them.

Smoking laws do the same job. Want them changed? Acting like spoiled crybabies is poor strategy. Try convincing us how no one else will be bothered or inconvenienced, never mind harmed by your smoke when you breathe it where we are. Meantime equal rights for smokers means they have the same right to smoke as anyone else. None. Because no has a right to harm, or even to inconvenience or annoy others.