Tuesday, August 27, 2002

Smoking Sucks (for non-smokers) If you want to smoke, that's your business and I'm not going to try and stop you unless your smoke violates my airspace.... Today, the New York Times had an interesting article on the fallout from the 1998 [corrected] ban on smoking in bars and restaurants in California. Contrary to the smoker's (and some bar/restaurant owner's) protests, revenue has steadily increased after the ban. The health impact has been tremendous, as well. In a survey of bartenders before and after the ban, serious respiratory ailments-- coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, etc.-- dropped by over 40% from 74% of those surveyed reporting problems to 32%. Minor irritations such as eye, nose, and throat inflammation/irritation dropped by more than 50% from 77% to 19%. To those of us who don't smoke and occasionally spend time in smoke filled bars, the general reaction has been Well, DUH! I could have told you that prolonged exposure to second hand smoke is really bad. In any case, the great news for us New Yorkers is that Bloomberg is pushing a similar proposal for the New York area. This would be a truly wonderful law! I can't tell you the number of potentially wonderful meals I have had ruined by the godawful taste of someone else's secondhand smoke in the air or the number of concerts that I have had to leave early from because my sinuses freaked out. If it were just me, I wouldn't be posting anything... but it isn't just me, there are many, many, many people who won't or can't go out to a lot of otherwise great venues because of smoking. Excellent. 11:50:34 AM  pontificate