Philadelphia Passes Smoking Ban

E-A-G-L-E-S-!

at least the bars got two years meaning i can still smoke on my upcoming visit.

Wait, does this mean clubs as in "night clubs"? In that case, the ban will mostly be useless to me.

But coming out of a bar without burning eyes is a plus.

x-post:

I hate fun.

Pre-ban in California, me coming back from a show: "Christ, what a great show but all the smoke was complete shit, my hair traps it like a mofo, god knows what it did to my lungs..."

Post-ban, etc.: "Ah, what a great show! And I can breathe!"

No sympathies for the 'do you hate fun?' brigade here.

roffles. the priorities of the anti-smoking brigade are astonishing. climate change, motherfuckers!

The study in our city showed there was no net effect on business. I.e. openings, closings, payroll (open record indications of business success). HOWEVER, the ones the smoking ban truly hurts are independently owned bars and restaurants. The non-smokers coming out that replace the smokers who are staying home tend to prefer TGIFriday's and Applebee's. Come to your own conclusions on that one. It definitely hurts night spots unless they find a way to add a patio for the smokers.

haha! nicely put.

!

finding statistics on second-hand smoke much, much harder. so here are two links, one an anti-smoking propaganda piece, the other an anti-anti-smoking lobby propaganda piece. the first has absolutely no links to support their data though i guess I'm sure if you go to like fda.gov you can look up that yes, second-hand smoke has been classed as a carcinogen.

http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/secondhandsmoke/a/secondhandsmoke.htm
http://www.forces.org/evidence/evid/second.htm

Mainly just posting this because while I'm sympathetic to the Ned argument above vis a vis people going to shows or just going out to dance, but the sheer amount of people I personally know who I would class, no bones about it, as alcoholics who do not go to bars or clubs for those reasons but rather to get completely fucking blasted, who are rabid about these smoking bans being put into effect, are pathetic.

I mean, yeah, OTM, ban beer. I'm sick of smelling it on people when I wanna go dancing and I'm sick of drunk frat boys causing menaces and fights.

I don't think blanket bans are the right thing to do. Perhaps if a place had to be non-smoking if they were showing a show, for example, that would be the correct thing to do.

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hssmok244273779may24,0,7867718.story

Not that I disagree that blanket bans do have problems...

(x-post)

basically jaymc I think that if a place is a concert venue they should be nonsmoking, at least on nights where they are showing a show. Strict bars should be able to opt in or out, or maybe a certain percentage would be non-smoking...

Though I already know the "argument" against that, which is that when cities have tried to do non-mandatory smoking bans no one went to the nonsmoking bars and clubs, so they lost business to smoking bars and clubs.

There are tobacco shops where people hang out and smoke. There's several in this town so I assume big cities have them too.

Though "huh we cannot try to regulate (err not ban) where people consume xyz because they get mad and there's crime" is kind of a jackassed point in a country that tries to legislate every single bit of morality.

xpost I honestly quite enjoyed a lot of NYC clubs that charged these astronomic prices for drinks, because far less people got really drunk and you could like actually dance without worrying about spilled beers on you, stumbling idiots, etc etc etc. I don't know, I know in my mind that non-drinking clubs and concert venues would run into problems in major cities (though I don't see why they wouldn't work in a lot of other areas?), but I don't think they're a bad idea and I fail to see why people who just want to see a show or go dancing shouldn't have this option open to them as well.

I mean, what's to debate? (I'm sure I'd be more upset about socially acceptable drunkenness if I'd ever driven a car, but I haven't.)

NEW, ENORMOUS STUDY UNMASKS THE ANTISMOKING FRAUD: Environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality in a prospective study of Californians, 1960-98 - May 19th, 2003 - "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality, although they do not rule out a small effect. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer may be considerably weaker than generally believed."

However, you have to actually *look* at the study to understand one incredibly important caveat. Allow me to quote from that study ... here are the *first* words in the writeup:

Objective: To measure the relation between environmental tobacco smoke, as estimated by smoking in spouses, and long term mortality from tobacco related disease. [my emphasis]

So, the effect being studied is the effect of second-hand smoke from ONE person -- a spouse, NOT second hand smoke from a club, bar, restaurant or workplace filled with second hand smoke from DOZENS of people for MANY HOURS.

That website was right about one thing: toxicity is about the dosage, and obviously the dosage from one spouse smoking on and off during the day is a hell of a lot less than the dosage from 500 people smoking in a club for an entire night.

Those studies aren't wrong, they're just not studying the things that the anti-anti-smoking people wish they were studying. I'm sure I could go through the rest of those studies and debunk everything else that the anti-anti-smoking cockfarmers are saying, but I think you all get the point.

Wow, this is a weird country.

Seattle boasts itself as one of the "healthiest cities in America" (which I slightly dispute myself), but there was an attempt to try a smoking ban in Pierce county i.e. neighboring Tacoma, and it failed. People have been quietly murmuring about a possible ban here, but I doubt it will happen for a while.

I would love to go to shows and not have to smell of second-hand smoke on the way back. My only concern with a smoking ban would be that clubs may have to pony up for facilities for smokers, like patios and what not, and none of them are in spaces set up for that at all... and/or might not be able to afford it. On the other hand, it's not as if the temperatures here are ever life threatening. Smoking isn't allowed at all-ages venues for the most part, anyway.. And at 21+ over places, people have the freedom to go outside and inside as they please...

so I dunno.. I'd have to talk to various promoters, bartenders, and club owners in town and see their view on it.

This has been an honest sentiment from myself and many others in town. A ban would be a plus side for the concert clubs/bars here. Then again, for clubs/bars that don't put on shows, there's just an extra hassle.

I'm glad it passed and I don't think it spells doom for "the live music capital of the world" as the naysayers here claim it does.

Even at shows that are non-smoking and all ages, the venues usually reek from years and years of sticky beer floors and smoke covered walls and couches.

Actually, I really wood like to find a fun coffee house venue.