[Vision2020] Public smoking

[Chasuk]

I'm an anti-smoker, but an anti-smoker with a history.  I spent
decades being forced to suffer from other people's bad habits.
Younger smokers may feel victimized now -- and I agree that they
partially are -- but it hasn't always been that way.  I spent the
first half of my life involuntarily inhaling noxious fumes due to the
inconsideration of smokers.  As a class, smokers aren't among my
favorite people.

Still, bars should be allowed to allow smoking.  They have
traditionally been a haven for the exercise of bad habits.  Everyone
should have the right to exercise any bad habit they choose, and bars
are the last stomping grounds of smokers and the
over-consumers-of-alcohol.

I don't like bars myself, but I would probably go to John's Alley if I
could breathe while I was there, and not smell like an ashtray when I
went home.  They consistently have some of the best music in town, but
they lose my business by allowing smoking.  And they aren't just
losing my business.  I personally know at least a hundred people -- no
exaggeration -- who won't patronize any establishment that allows
smoking.  Occasionally, their reasons are political,or they are
asthmatic, but usually it's because they don't like their hair and
their clothes to stink, or, if they are interested in a hook-up, they
don't like the taste of nicotine.  However, that doesn't eliminate the
rights of smokers to congregate with other people who don't mind
stinky hair and clothing.