Cigar Bars Private Clubs Exempt from North Carolina Smoking Ban
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Kevin Godbee - May 20, 2009
- 2 min read
Smokers Vilified Once Again
The NY Times reported on the state of North Carolina voting to ban smoking in restaurants and bars.
Here is what’s GOOD about this, and here is what’s BAD about this.
The good news is that cigar bars & smoking lounges were exempt. The real problem with smoking bans is when they over-step their bounds and disallow smoking in open air places like beaches and parks, and when they do something extremely illogical like banning smoking in a smoking bar. I’m sure the stupidity of that needs no explaining to the readers here. It is nice to see that they were intelligent enough in North Carolina to know that a smoking bar is for smoking and that people go there to smoke. I know it sounds stupid, but there have been numerous locales that have actually banned smoking in smoking lounges and tobacconists. By the way, there is a petition against this that you can easily sign in 10 seconds. It’s right here online: The Tobacconist Preservation Act.
What is bad is the way this news was reported. It was reported as if to imply that smokers just think they should be allowed to smoke wherever they want in the company of anyone they want. Smokers are continually portrayed as the evil-doers that are trying to kill themselves and everyone around them.
Everyone I know that smokes is much more courteous than the non-smokers I witness. The non-smokers have the audacity to get right in any stranger’s face and spew forth by rote their illogical and unfounded "facts" and just can’t seem to mind their own damn business. Smokers on the other hand make sure not to smoke close to children and other people. They go out of their way not to bother "normal people". I am not classifying smokers as abnormal people. I am classifying the people that are 100 feet away in an open air place that complain about the smoke as if they were locked in a closet with the person smoking. Those people are not normal.
The NY Times article articulated that "North Carolina, (is) the nation’s largest grower of tobacco" – and – … "North Carolina’s ban reveals the declining influence of tobacco in an increasingly metropolitan state …". As if to say that the tobacco companies and anyone else on the side of smoker’s rights actually thinks smoking in enclosed places with non-smokers is what we really want. I don’t think so. No smokers ever have the desire to force their smoke on anyone else. The way this NY Times piece was written you would think they do since they are so shocked this law could pass in the largest tobacco producing state.
I don’t have a big problem with this law. Yes, it would better if we actually allowed the restaurant and bar owners the freedom to decide if they would like to have a smoking establishment, and then people could choose to not go there. Is anyone really forcing non-smokers to walk into a smoke filled place? Seriously! What I do have a big problem with are the laws I spoke about in the beginning of the article, where smoking is banned in large open air places and in tobacconists.
Please sign take a moment to sign The Tobacconist Preservation Act.
Related Article: One Brave Tobacconist Fights Insanity in Canada
NY Times Article – North Carolina Approves Ban on Smoking
Written by Kevin Godbee
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You have an incorrect statement in your article that is the problem in NC. Private clubs are not exempt, only non profit private clubs. In NC, all bars that do not sell food are private clubs and are now forced to be non smoking, even though no children are allowed and no food is served. IT IS VERY UNFAIR!!!