I got this mailer yesterday and had to laugh. I didn’t scan all of it because some of it was so ridiculous it wasn’t even worth my time to debate. But here is some of it.
1) So what? This isn’t about people who smoke, if they want to harm themselves, who cares, this is about the health of non-smokers.
2) LMAO! Which bars are you talking about? They don’t exist.
3) It is perfectly legal for you to allow mold to grow on your plates in your sink and eat off those moldy plates to. This is about regulating private business, not controlling what they can do. Last I checked bars sell alcohol not smoke. No ‘Rights’ are being taken away.
So how many of these states already had a state income tax BEFORE the ban? Not sure, but I would guess all of them did. This is clearly a scare tactic, and frankly, a ridiculous statement.
So that is what we fought for? Our right to smoke in a bar? WOW! I feel like a total ass, I thought we fought for a democracy that allows voters to decide what freedoms are best for our country.
The state income tax thing is hilarious.
I concur. funny stuff…
“Goddammit, I didn’t crawl around the jungles of Vietnam to come home and not be able to have a cigarette at my favorite watering hole. We may have lost that war, but we can’t lose our right to smoke in a bar.”
This is crazy.
I am against Referred law 12. Of all the reasons to vote this thing down, this is the best they came up with? Some body is some smoking something, and it isn’t tobacco, dried banana peels or something.
So how many of these states already had a state income tax BEFORE the ban? Not sure, but I would guess all of them did.
This is EXACTLY what I was thinking when I read it yesterday. To be honest, this mailer kind of pissed me off because it is so blatantly dishonest and misleading. If you want to debate the issue fine, but to suggest a smoking ban will lead to a state income tax is idiotic.
The other quote that baffled me is where they claim there would be a $46M budget shortfall if the smoking ban passes. Not sure where they get their idiotic math from, but are we honestly to believe people won’t play video lottery because they can’t smoke? Get real.
The only argument even more pathetic than this one is the commercial that made a comment about a smoking ban being dangerous to kids and asked if we cared about children. The argument was that if we ban smoking in bars, all of these people will just smoke at home instead and expose kids to it.
I guess it is better for the kids is their loser parents go out to the bars and get hammered or blow the rent money in a casino… just as long as they are away from the kids so they aren’t exposed to second hand smoke.
Frankly if parents actually cared about their kids they wouldn’t smoke around them period… but I can count on one hand the number of smokers I know who put their kids ahead of their habit.
I sincerely hope referred law 12 passes by a 25 point margin or greater.
I was so pissed there wasn’t a number to call to be taken of their list.
As a young adult who is allergic to cigarette smoke I feel like I have a hangover after going to a bar even if I don’t drink due to the smoke.
I don’t remember my grandma due to her smoking her life away at the age of 39.
2nd hand smoke is not something I should have to deal with in order to eat out or grab a drink with friends.
If more places would be smoke free I wouldn’t need a law like this, but they aren’t.
When this passes I will finally be able to go out to eat with my Grandpa who has been on oxygen fro 10+ years even though he quit smoking years ago before my grandma even died, without having to make sure that he can be in the restaurant. This is a great thing for our future. My friends that have kids already can meet me for dinner at a pub without harming their children.
If you want to smoke fine, I have dated smokers and have plenty of friends that do it. However I, just a few months before turning 25 have never chosen to smoke a cigarette so I shouldn’t have to be forced to deal with my asthma and allergies due to the people that do want to. If you can’t go outside to do so then you probably don’t need to be smoking it to begin with.
twinsbsballgirl,
Nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to go into a bar that has smoking. A lot of bars in town have banned smoking, or at least have no smoking sections. It is not a phony public health issue, or a childrens health concern. It is a private businesss decison, where customers are welcome guests. Service can be refused to customers as well. We already have public building smoking bans. Second hand smoke is inhaled by your decision to go into a smoking bar in the first place, but feel free to whine about it anyway. I am not a smoker. If smoking is as bad as the government says it is, lets just ban cigarette sales and production .
Bitch Cop hit the nail on the head.
“It is a private businesss decison, where customers are welcome guests”
no one is forced to do business there. It is not the smokers right to light up, or the non-smokers right to clean air, it is the business owner right to decide to allow smoking or not.
If there is a business that allows smoking, and you do not like it, take yourself, and your money elsewhere. enough people do that, the business will either change or go under.
First of all the “take your money elsewhere” argument only works for customers – not employees. And don’t give me the debunked myth about employees having choices either, because outside of a larger city that isn’t the case (actually it isn’t even the case in larger cities in some cases either).
However, the employee point aside, the argument that businesses should be able to decide doesn’t make sense either. The government regulates countless facets of business each and every day. The government mandates how many video lottery machines a business can operate (and video lottery is a legal activity). They dictate whether a business can sell beer and wine, or have full alcohol licenses (and drinking is a legal activity for those over 21). They dictate how many stalls are in the bathrooms based upon the square footage of the business (and last I checked going to the bathroom is a legal activity), and they regulate the temperature the freezers in the back room (and eating is a legal activity).
So are we really supposed to be upset that the government is attempting to control a business by banning smoking? How is that anything new?
Truth be told, this is a referred law anyway, so it is simply a matter of the people making their voices heard. Since it appears the people prefer their right to clean air over the right of a smoker to partake in their habit, I’d say it is time to move on and accept it.
Costner is right. If the voters approve the ban. Tough titty.
MikeC, your argument about it being the property owners decision is a load of crap. Every single business in the state of South Dakota other than business that have a beer or liquor license is not allowed to have smoking in their establishment. None. Notta. Zip. Why should liquor establishments be exempt if other businesses are not?
I don’t believe the state should be involved in Video Lottery either, it is a piss poor way to fund state government. however that is an argument for another time.
Let’s get in on. I FUCKING HATE VIDEO LOTTERY.
I hate VL too, Costner is wrong. forced job options are not related to geographics. No one forced a person to go to work in the Pukwanna municipal bar, just because the population had limited employment options. If you don’t want to work in a bar that allows a legally sold product to be used, you may wish to decide and move somewhere else that has more job options, or go into a differrent type of work. Maybe you may want to risk opening up your own smoke free place using the same property right claim. Maybe you just like to bitch because you don’t like cigarette smoke. No matter what the maybes are, you’re really just an anti-choice zealot who cant stand the free choices made by a percentage of people that wish to use a legal product, in a bar.
Your building, sanitation, and refrigeration mandates on bars is an apple to oranges argument against cigarette smokers in bars. those deal with tangeible products, and measurable facts. if the facts of second hand smoke were as real as the bogeyman says, cigarettes would be banned. It is not a public place, it is not a childrens health issue. If you do-gooders are so worried about health dangers in a bar, why dont we just vote to have alcohol free beer, whine and whiskey? Beam me up, Scotty
BC: No one forced a person to go to work in the Pukwanna municipal bar, just because the population had limited employment options.
Maybe in your perfect world everyone can just find gainful employment that fits their schedule and lifestyle. Maybe people never have anything that holds them to a specific geographic location so they can just pack up and move at any given point, and maybe in your world people always have enough money and resources to start their own businesses wherever and whenever they feel like it.
However, back here on Earth, things don’t work like that. Many families need two incomes to survive, and if their income is low enough they can’t afford daycare, so they stagger their shifts. Try finding a job that allows you to work evenings in a town with a population under 10,000 and you will soon discover your options are limited. So suddenly that bartending or waitress/waiter job seems pretty good – and because this is the real world people take what they can get.
I happen to have a friend that lives in Brookings and because of the large college population, one of the only jobs she could find was working in a bar/restaurant which allows smoking. She would love to find something better, but for the time being that is the only job she has been offered so she sticks with it. She doesn’t have money to pack up and move to Sioux Falls and frankly she shouldn’t have to, but she can hardly afford to not take the job so she is stuck.
Why should clean air in bars and restaurants only be provided to people who have above average incomes or who happen to live in larger cities? That is asinine.
BC: f the facts of second hand smoke were as real as the bogeyman says, cigarettes would be banned.
Actually, it has less to do with the proven health effects and more to do with the Tobacco industry having great lobbyists and several Senators from the South in their back pocket. Don’t worry though – eventually common sense will prevail and smoking will probably be banned entirely on public property which includes streets, sidewalks, and patios of businesses.
Now as to your lame argument about having an alcohol free bar, again the point is about 10,000 feet North of your head. Nobody is talking about banning any activity which doesn’t have an impact upon others. If you drink alcohol, I don’t get drunk so that is a moot point and invalid argument. I could care less if you want to pickle your liver because it has zero effect upon anyone else. And just to offer a preemptive strike, don’t make that idiotic statement about drinking and driving having an impact upon others, because drinking and driving is already illegal.
Notice nobody is talking about banning smokeless tobacco, snuff, chew, etc? That is because those products don’t have any health impact upon others – so if someone decides they want a lip full of Skoal, it has zero effect upon those around them. That is the issue here Mr. Wizard – and if you find a smokeless cigarette that has no impact upon others, I will gladly support your right to smoke it wherever you want, but since they don’t have such a product on the market and second hand smoke does have known and proven carcinogens within it (among numerous other chemicals), I’m more than happy to ban it in all public spaces.
I’ll reserve my sympathy for those who actually deserve it – but not for people who just can’t bear to give up their habit. Besides, I’ve been around long enough to learn that the vast majority of smokers do not consider the rights of anyone other than themselves. The world is their ashtray and the one and only reason they are upset about this ban is because they won’t be able to partake in their habit. It has nothing to do with caring about anyone other than themselves – it isn’t about freedom, and it isn’t about choice. It is about addiction… plain and simple.
The State being involved in video lottery is wrong. How many people have ‘Won it big’ and their life has dramatically improved versus the number of people who have lost it all, where does all this money go? The schools? then why are the schools suing the state for more money? I have heard stated the state wants to dump The State Fair, because it is not into the ‘entertainment business’ What the hell is video lottery supposed to be? The State should find a way to wean itself off video lottery.
If a business wants to sell liquor, and they have a process in place to prevent underage consumption, let them have it. As it stands now, a liquor license in Sioux Falls costs more than than the building for the bar. How many chain restaurants have passed by Sioux Falls because they can’t get a liquor license? It seems the only one who benefits is the city government, who knows what they do with it.
If a business wants to allow smoking, they should be able to allow smoking. Place a sign on the door or entrance that states that smoking is permitted. Those that accept that risk, can enter those that do not, can go elsewhere.
One of our most precious right that we cherish is the right of choice. Do we turn left or right, do we go in, or stay out, do we walk, run, or sit, part of that right is we have to accept responsibility for our choices. Life is not without risks. If one opens a business they run the risk of failure. If one drive on the interstate in a blizzard, they have the risk they may end up in the ditch or worse. If one smokes, they accept the risks of lung cancer and maybe a decreased life span, if one knowingly enters a room filled with smoke, they accept the risks of second hand smoke.
I met a young lady, who thought she would be forced to work in a C-Store one known for being robbed, and she refused, with a little help from friend and family, she was able to move to a city with a much better (and safer) job, she now is going back to school and looking to open her own business. We all have choices, and opportunities, what we do with those choices and opportunities is what make America great.
Great comments Costner. Your 100% right.
compared cigarette smoking compared to the exhaust of the internal combustion engine. I don’t see any one calling for the ban on cars or trucks on the road. how many lives have been ruined to alcohol use and abuse?
How many more people must die before we ban drinking and driving?
compared cigarette smoking compared to the exhaust of the internal combustion engine.
Sense. This “sentence” makes none.
I don’t see any one calling for the ban on cars or trucks on the road.
Really? Plenty of envirofruitcakes would like to ban the internal combustion engine. Personally, I wish it could be made truly obsolete in the next decade.
how many lives have been ruined to alcohol use and abuse?
Plenty. But there are reasonable restrictions on where and when you’re allowed to drink. Most people can’t drink on the job (anymore, damn it), and you aren’t allowed to operate a vehicle while intoxicated. Why? Because of what might happen to other people as a result. The smoking ban is in the same spirit. You’re free to pickle your innards, spackle your lungs, and float your brain; but the second your action affects someone else’s health, you’ve crossed the line. The effects of second-hand smoke have been well-documented.
The ban will pass, and the only people to really hurt from it will be the telephone booth casinos. Even that I’m skeptical of.
Hi Costner,
I hope you feel better unleashing your interminable rant. it’s quite compelling, but would be even more so if you could insert audio of somber violin music in the background. We will all get better sleep at night knowing when you will grant, as you say “sympathy for those that deserve it” Could you list the name and address of this poor Brookings college lady friend? Maybe someone could write her a check to cover moving expenses to get her to a new location with other employment and education opportunities. She is obviously bound and shackled to the involuntary servitude of an evil bar owner that forces this hapless victim to work in a smoke filled environment. I wish i would have consulted you first about the dangers of alcohol, your explanation now makes everything so much more clear. You claim that alcohol just pickles the individuals gut, and thats it. Tell that to law enforcement officials. Tell that to Aaron McGowan, our States Attorney who is up to his eyeballs prosecuting DUI’s many of which involve manslaughter. One drunken rage could be harmful in one night while being in a bar where alcohol is served, even to those not drinking. It is important that we disregard those facts, and focus on evil tobacco smoke, in bars. after all, there is plenty of inconclusive evidence that if you are around second hand smoke for years and years, you may possibly get lung cancer from that or genetics, or other environmental factors. Please continue educating me so that I may rise to your level of the ivory towers.
Mike C: If a business wants to allow smoking, they should be able to allow smoking. Place a sign on the door or entrance that states that smoking is permitted. Those that accept that risk, can enter those that do not, can go elsewhere.
Maybe you would enjoy actually reading the comments before yours before adding a comment which has already been addressed?
Mike C: How many more people must die before we ban drinking and driving?
Last I checked, it was already illegal. Let me know if you feel otherwise.
BC:Could you list the name and address of this poor Brookings college lady friend?
First, she isn’t in college. Second, I’m guessing she would prefer I not list her name or address. Third, outside of your perfect utopian vision of reality, people really are tied down to their respective cities and jobs. Will they improve their lives at some point – most probably will, but having no other options than to work in a bar for a few years is no justification to expose them to the byproducts of another person’s habit.
I guess I fail to see why the health of others is such an inconvenience to smokers. I guess they really can’t think of anyone other than themselves.
BC:Tell that to law enforcement officials. Tell that to Aaron McGowan, our States Attorney who is up to his eyeballs prosecuting DUI’s many of which involve manslaughter.
Driving Under the Influence is already illegal. Public intoxication is already illegal. Committing a crime of any type while intoxicated whether it be assault, battery or anything else is still illegal.
Thus – you have no valid point here. Next.
BC:there is plenty of inconclusive evidence that if you are around second hand smoke for years and years, you may possibly get lung cancer from that or genetics
Those of us who aren’t biased by our addictions or who don’t work for the tobacco companies are more than capable of discerning the science behind it, and for the scientifically literate among us the evidence that second hand smoke is harmful is more than sufficient.
I could care less if you want to smoke six packs a day and if you contract lung cancer, but when you spew your smoke into the clean air around you where others are continually exposed to it, that is where I draw the line. I know the concept of thinking about other humans is a difficult concept to understand for many of us, but with a little push I’m sure you can soon discover that yes… there are others in this world, and yes… they do actually matter.
What a novel idea.
Dear Dr. Costner,
How incredibly persuasive you are! I would love to give you a pat on the back, but you do such a good job of that yourself, i would only be interferring. Thank you for proving my point of how dangerous alcohol still is, in spite of laws already enacted to prevent these dangers. So lets ban use of a product deemed by the people to be much safer. You failed to refute the point about how much more weight your contemptible tirade would be bolstered by slow sad music from a violin. Maybe you could retrieve a bolt cutter, and/or a knife- make a crusade to run around these communities that shackle and tie down the hands of individuals that are enslaved to work in bars that have smoking. You can cut these shackles and break the chains of these down for the struggle victims. We can then make this world the Utopia that it was destined to be. Thank you Costner, what a novel idea!
Dear Ms. Bitch Cop,
Think about your own situation. how easy would it be for you to just up and quit your job, sell your house or break your lease, and move somewhere else, find a job and find a place to live.
Respectfully yours,
Jeffrey Lebowski
I will agree smoking is bad, second hand smoke it bad, drinking alcohol is bad, eating prime rib is bad, eating french fries is bad.
The problem I have with this law is ‘public property’ is redefined. This is cracking the door open to no eating fatty foods in your home, no drinking beer in your back yard. No using any additional salt on your food. As long as the property remains private, the owner can refuse service, and run his business has he sees fit, once, it is declared ‘public’ then who knows what the owner will or won’t be allow to do or not do.
There is a clear difference though. Putting too much salt on your food is your deal. Blowing smoke on people who are trying to work is not their deal.
bc: So lets ban use of a product deemed by the people to be much safer.
Who is talking about banning smoking? Nobody – if you wish to smoke, you can still do so in your private home or non-public business, your car, the sidewalk, public parks etc, etc.
This is about regulating smoking – not banning it outright. You know… sort of like how we regulate alcohol sales?
As to the rest of your post, I’ll accept the fact you have no valid response and are unable to debate the issues so you have to resort to nothing more than childish whining. Next.
Mike C:This is cracking the door open to no eating fatty foods in your home, no drinking beer in your back yard.
Well Mike, aside from the fact you are resorting to a slippery slope fallacy, nobody is talking about what a person does on PRIVATE property. However when you open your business to the public, it is a public space and it needs to follow the rules and regulations that accompany that definition including things such as following ADA standards, and in this case (assuming the law passes) not allowing smoking.
I don’t think the private vs. public issue has changed at all – this is just another regulation being applied to all indoor public spaces.
However when you open your business to the public, it is a public space
This is the one part I have a problem with. In a private home I have the right to ask anyone who is there to leave, for any reason. Those same right should extend to a private business. I should be able to to ask anyone to leave for any reason.
DL was ask to leave a private event (to which the public was invited) on private land in a private building. Because the public was invited to this event, it becomes public?, thus public rules apply including who can be there, then why was DL asked to leave if public rules, not private were to be enforced?
I use an electronic cigarette, by law I can use that device anywhere. Do you believe if I showed up at that debate with my e-cigarette I would have asked to leave to put it away?