'How Would You Like It If You Went to a Wine Tasting and You Couldn't Taste the Wine?'
Jacob Sullum | May 6, 2008, 2:53pm
The Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show, held over the weekend in St. Charles, Illinois, was smoke-free this year, thanks to a state smoking ban that took effect in January. Organizers of the event, the country's largest pipe show, had hoped attendees would be allowed to light up as members of a private club:
The hall is strictly staffed with volunteers, convention-goers were to pay $15 to join the club, and attendees were to sign a waiver stating they "freely and willingly accept all the risks of smoking, second-hand smoke, third-hand smoke, and all other risks, both real and imagined, regarding smoking tobacco."
But St. Charles police, DuPage County health officials and anti-smoking advocates didn't buy it.
"This is the first time we've seen such a blatant attempt . . . to actually undermine the law through legal sophistry," said Mike Grady, the American Cancer Society's Illinois director of public policy. "We're very happy with the outcome. This is the perfect example that the law is being enforced."
Pipe smokers, banished to tents outside the convention center, were understandably irked. "How would you like it if you went to a wine tasting and you couldn't taste the wine?" said one. "It's a freedom issue."
[Thanks to Rick Newcombe for the tip.]
Geotpf | May 6, 2008, 9:10pm | #
They should come to California.
No, seriously. California's anti-smoking law, while strict, has a number of common sense exemptions, two of which would apply in this particular case.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/DOSH/dosh_publications/smoking.html
Workplaces, or portions thereof, not covered by Labor Code Section 6404.5 (AB-13) smoking restrictions:
65% of the guest rooms of hotels, motels, and similar transient lodging;
Lobby areas of hotels, motels, and similar transient lodging designated for smoking (not to exceed 25% of the total lobby floor area or, if the lobby area is 2,000 square feet or less, not to exceed 50% of the total lobby floor area);
Meeting and banquet rooms except while food or beverage functions are taking place (including set-up, service, and clean-up activities or when the room is being used for exhibit activities);
Retail or wholesale tobacco shops and private smokers lounges;
Truck cabs or truck tractors, if no nonsmoking employees are present;
Warehouse facilities with more than 100,00 square feet of total floor space and 20 or fewer full-time employees working at the facility, but does not include any area within such a facility that is utilized as office space;
Theatrical production sites, if smoking is an integral part of the story;
Medical research or treatment sites, if smoking is integral to the research or treatment being conducted;
Private residences, except for homes licensed as family day care homes, during the hours of operation and in those areas where children are present;
Patient smoking areas in long-term health care facilities.
Breakrooms designated by employers for smoking, under specified conditions (see page 2 of fact sheet); and
Employers with five or fewer full or part-time employees, under specified conditions (see page 1 of fact sheet).
Mad Max (emerging from under his bridge) | May 7, 2008, 2:41am | #
Pertinent quotation from G. K. Chesterton, especially if you replace "beer" with "tobacco."
"Those who reply to any plea for freedom invariably fall into a certain trap. I have debated with numberless different people on these matters, and I confess I find it amusing to see them tumbling into it one after another. . . . Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I say that to take away a poor man's pot of beer is to take away a poor man's personal liberty, it is very vital to note what is the usual or almost universal reply. People hardly ever do reply, for some reason or other, by saying that a man's liberty consists of such and such things, but that beer is an exception that cannot be classed among them, for such and such reasons. What they almost invariably do say is something like this: 'After all, what is liberty? Man must live as a member of a society, and must obey those laws which, etc., etc.' In other words, they collapse into a complete confession that they are attacking all liberty and any liberty; that they do deny the very existence or the very possibility of liberty. In the very form of the answer they admit the full scope of the accusation against them. In trying to rebut the smaller accusation, they plead guilty to the larger one.
"This distinction is very important, as can be seen from any practical parallel. Suppose we wake up in the middle of the night and find that a neighbour has entered the house not by the front-door but by the skylight; we may suspect that he has come after the fine old family jewellery. We may be reassured if he can refer it to a really exceptional event; as that he fell on to the roof out of an aeroplane, or climbed on to the roof to escape from a mad dog. Short of the incredible, the stranger the story the better the excuse; for an extraordinary event requires an extraordinary excuse. But we shall hardly be reassured if he merely gazes at us in a dreamy and wistful fashion and says, 'After all, what is property? Why should material objects be thus artificially attached, etc., etc.?' We shall merely realise that his attitude allows of his taking the jewellery and everything else. Or if the neighbour approaches us carrying a large knife dripping with blood, we may be convinced by his story that he killed another neighbour in self-defence, that the quiet gentleman next door was really a homicidal maniac. We shall know that homicidal mania is exceptional and that we ourselves are so happy as not to suffer from it; and being free from the disease may be free from the danger. But it will not soothe us for the man with the gory knife to say softly and pensively 'After all, what is human life? Why should we cling to it? Brief at the best, sad at the brightest, it is itself but a disease from which, etc., etc.' We shall perceive that the sceptic is in a mood not only to murder us but to massacre everybody in the street. Exactly the same effect which would be produced by the questions of 'What is property?' and 'What is life?' is produced by the question of 'What is liberty?' It leaves the questioner free to disregard any liberty, or in other words to take any liberties. The very thing he says is an anticipatory excuse for anything he may choose to do. If he gags a man to prevent him from indulging in profane swearing, or locks him in the coal cellar to guard against his going on the spree, he can still be satisfied with saying, 'After all, what is liberty? Man is a member of, etc., etc.'
"That is the problem, and that is why there is now no protection against Eugenic or any other experiments. If the men who took away beer as an unlawful pleasure had paused for a moment to define the lawful pleasures, there might be a different situation. If the men who had denied one liberty had taken the opportunity to affirm other liberties, there might be some defence for them. But it never occurs to them to admit any liberties at all. It never so much as crosses their minds. Hence the excuse for the last oppression will always serve as well for the next oppression; and to that tyranny there can be no end."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25308/25308-h/25308-h.htm#CHAPTER_VIA
