Smoke ‘Em While You Can Still Have ‘Em
Full Disclosure: If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am a cigar smoker and I do not apologize for it.
The Smoke Free Indy people are back again and this time they calling for a ban on smoking in all Marion County workplaces including bars, private clubs and bowling alleys.
Right now the current law bans smoking in most public places and in bars and restaurants that allow individuals under 18. Smoke Free Indy says people who work in exempt places are being exposed to secondhand smoke and they deserve the same protections as people who work in other smoke-free environments.
The problem with Smoke Free Indy is that its primary argument works against it.
Their main argument is that no one should have to choose between their job and breathing clean air. No one has to make that choice. Anyone who wants to work in a smoke free restaurant can do that today. When the City-County Council passed the original smoking ban in 2005, it gave the public, businesses and workers a choice. You can have a smoking workplace if you don’t allow children. You can work in a smoke free workplace, if that is your choice. And you can patronize a smoke-free workplace, if that is your choice.
Smoke Free Indy also offers contradictory evidence by saying that lung cancer attributed to second hand smoke is increasing in Marion County, but the number of smoking venues has dropped since the ban went into effect. So anyone who is contracting lung cancer due to second hand smoke, at least since 2005, probably isn’t getting it at work; also don’t forget many workplaces were already non-smoking prior to the original ban. And in a study that evaluated the compromise smoking ban one year into its effect it showed that citizens liked the law, compliance was high and there was no overall negative impact on sales or employment. That infers that the compromise is working and consumers, businesses and workers are all exercising their free market choices.
I am all for banning smoking in a place where no one has a choice, a hospital, school, government building, etc. If you are there, it is probably because you have to be and a smoking ban is reasonable. I will also gladly concede that if a bowling alley allows children, a smoking ban makes sense. And if you wanted to grandfather in existing businesses while banning smoking in new establishments, I could give you that. At the very least someone going into business would know the rules of the game and could make the choice to decide whether it was something worthwhile.
But a total ban, sorry, the free market can take care of this. In fact, it already has.
