As an ex-smoker (Drum's mostly, occasional American Spirits, before they were bought up by RJR), I don't really care what people do with their own lungs, but please, keep it to yourself. It must be a sign of my approaching old-age related crankiness, but I despise coming home from a club or bar, and reeking of stale smoke. All the dire pronouncements of bar and restaurant owners aside, I think once the initial shock dissipates, nobody will go out of business because smoking is restricted. Banning opium didn't close brothels, nor will banning tobacco shutter every eating/drinking establishment.
Chicago Tribune: Alderman Act to Ban Smoking :
Buoyed by successes in other cities, anti-tobacco aldermen on Wednesday introduced a sweeping new measure that would ban smoking inside most public places in Chicago, from bars to bingo halls and limos to train platforms.
The Chicago proposal, which would be among the most stringent anywhere in the country, was greeted by immediate opposition from the hospitality industry and a wait-and-see attitude from Mayor Richard Daley.
“It is about time we passed a measure that will stop second-hand smoke from killing people,” said Ald. Ed Smith (28th), chairman of the City Council's Health Committee and lead sponsor of the ordinance.
The only exemptions spelled out in the measure are private homes, hotels and motels and retail tobacco stores, providing customers don't blow smoke too far.
.. Putting new political pressure on Daley and the City Council for passage of the new proposal is the Coalition for a Smoke-Free Chicago, an amalgam of 242 organizations, institutions, businesses, churches and schools.The effort is being spearheaded by the cancer society, which thinks targeting second-hand smoke is a key to reducing lung cancer, Grisko said. The group has committed $1.5 million to the effort.
...
But “that doesn't mean I am for it or against it,” Daley said. “Let's have a hearing and look at it.”Restaurant owners in California said their business has not been affected by a 1995 statewide ban on smoking in enclosed workplaces, including restaurants and bars.
“In the first three months, it cut business down. But after a year, it really made no difference,” said Monique Ianos, the marketing director of the Pig 'n Whistle restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Calif. “And it's nice to go home and not smell like a cigarette.”
from Hoovers:
The UK's #1 cigarette maker (ahead of Gallaher Group), Imperial Tobacco Group has traded up to an even bigger throne. The company's purchase of German tobacco firm Reemtsma (Davidoff and West cigarettes) nearly doubled its size and made it the world's #4 tobacco company. Imperial's brands include Lambert & Butler, the UK's #1 cigarette, as well as Castella cigars, and Amphora and St Bruno pipe tobacco. Its Drum brand is the #1 hand-rolling tobacco worldwide, and Rizla is a top cigarette paper.
and also from Hoovers:
Judging by its logo, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company sells what may be the closest thing to a peace pipe. Packs of its Natural American Spirit additive-free cigarettes, adorned with an American Indian smoking the ceremonial pipe, are sold in Canada, Europe, Japan, and the US. Though the company sells additive-free smokes, they don't claim them to be any safer to use then the typical cigarette. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings, now Reynolds American, bought the company in January 2002.
That would be wonderful. I might start going to concerts again. I think bars and other establishments underestimate how many people they're keeping away from their businesses.
There also needs to be a fine for throwing cigarette butts on the street. People seem to think cigarettes are somehow different from other trash, and will just magically disappear.
Totally agree with you, both points. Every time I water my 'lower 40', I have to pick up cigarette buts that someone has stubbed out in my plants. I want to do a DNA trace on the butts, and find the asshole to punch them in the throat.