[SIGH!] Smoking Ban Passed in Chicago. Some Day I'll live in Las Vegas

Sad news for all people who quietly respect the choices of others.

Today, the city of Chicago passed a smoking ban for all public places. Bars & restaurants are exempt from this restriction until mid 2008, at which time they will have to prove that their in-house air filtration systems adequately clean ambient smoke from the air.

I know it is not a popular point of view, but I believe that so long as tobacco is a legal product being sold to adults, then you should be able to smoke in any place that allows you to do so. I am not a cigarette smoker and in fact I really dislike cigarettes. I have wanted my own mother to stop smoking for as long as I've known her. However that doesn't mean I think it should be banned from public places.

I do smoke cigars and I only smoke in places where I know I am allowed. When asked (POLITELY) by someone around me to put out my cigar, even if it is in a cigar-friendly establishment, I do so. Cigar and pipe smokers are inherently more respectful in that way.

The ban includes limits on how close a smoker can be to the entrance to a public place, keeping them 15 feet away at all times. It is already bad enough to see so many people forced to huddle outside an office building to have a smoke, but to add an element of distance just confounds things even more. In some places, 15 feet from the door is in oncoming traffic. All places, put the people in the position of having to stand outside and away from any shelter in the middle of a Chicago winter.

People who smoke have chosen to smoke. If they want to choose to stop they should be allowed to do that on their schedule. Smokers have been subjected to ridiculous restrictions, excessive taxation, and other humiliations all because the folks who don't smoke are louder.

Don't give me the argument about how a non-smoker is involuntarily subjected to a smoker's foul air. That never holds water with me.

When I go to a restaurant and expect a peaceful eating experience that is ruined by a screaming baby, or the sound of a child undereducated about the social niceties, I, a childless married man, am the one made to suffer. Nobody ever tries to ban the children from the restaurants or ban breeding. Hell, they don't even have a "families only" section of major restaurants.

While there are plenty of noise ordinances in many cities, nobody seems to do anything about loud music booming out of the back seats of cars. I can still hear radios played too loudly, and make out the lyrics of a song being played by a band at a local festival. I can NEVER get the Latin music to stop playing in the neighboring apartments in my building. Nobody is banning music nor enforcing the ordinances in place.

I have been around FAR TOO MANY people who either have either NO personal hygiene or too much freaking cologne. Polar opposites that achieve the same effect by disgusting the surrounding inhabitants of a room and creating mass nausea. I haven't seen any laws prohibiting Patchouli nor have I seen any laws requiring people to bathe. For the record, I would support ANY laws of this kind.

Let's keep this in the office setting. Just about every office has a break room where some moron manages to burn some microwave popcorn everyday. The smell is dreadful and possibly toxic, if inhaled often. We don't know for sure. There are certainly many office workers that work very closely to one another and somehow have not figured out that they had extremely bad breath. Could simple chronic halitosis, no - second-hand simple chronic halitosis adversely affect your life enough to get a law passed?

Now the anti-smoking/anti-freedom folks out there (Sorry, Gordon. I shouldn't generalize and make hysterical statements. I know you're a good guy that likes his freedom, but I'm on a roll.) will all say that the difference between these examples and smoking is that none of those things can kill or injure you. Well then...

People are subjected to pollutants in the air from cars, industry, taco-eating teenagers, animal droppings, and jet planes every day, yet nobody is trying to ban farming, factories, automobiles, jet planes, and farting. ALL of these things COULD have detrimental effects on a "healthy" person, the same way second-hand smoke COULD cause lung cancer in a non-smoker. There are evidential reports about industrial pollution and lung disease, products that offer to protect your car, self, and home from jet fuel fallout, there are studies about animal flatulence contributing to global warming. Still, no laws prohibiting people from living with these things nor preventing them from making a living in these areas. I am fairly confident that if you just take car exhaust and industrial pollution stats and leave out any of the sillier things I've mentioned, you'd have considerably more illnesses and deaths that you'll ever find in the people who can't seem to remember to ask for the non-smoking section of a restaurant.

Still not convinced? I have one word for you; PEANUTS! Peanut allergies have run rampant across the country. There are more people DYING from just being in the same room as a freaking peanut than dying from second-hand smoke. Have you ever been around anyone with a severe peanut allergy? I have and I can tell you that these folks can suffer IMMEDIATELY and die within minutes if there's a peanut in a dish, some peanut dust in the air, or peanut oil in the food. Has anybody declared an all-out war against the peanut-lovers of the world?

When these reports are being researched, why is it that nobody ever considers the likelihood of a person developing lung disease based upon their family histories and proclivities towards contracting cancer? I am not saying that second-hand smoke can't cause problems nor am I saying it doesn't. I am merely saying that it certainly doesn't guarantee an increased risk to someone who have absolutely no history towards getting lung cancer.

I certainly hope I never get any form of cancer and I do not wish to tempt fate with this rant, but I am a lot more worried about things like diabetes than lung cancer. Why? Many people in my family, smokers and non-smokers alike, have died from diabetes. Thankfully, there have been few if any instances of any form of cancer in my family. Isn't it just possible that SOME people are more prone to cancers than others? Why should we alter the laws to favor a majority of people with a minority chance of injury?

I do think the blame for this extreme swing sweeping across the country to ban smoking, yet not ban tobacco on two specific groups.

Government officials and more importantly, cigarette smokers. The government officials are always shady characters, but they are acting on behalf of their constituents by banning smoking, and acting on behalf of the good of the nation by not banning tobacco. It is a HUGE cash crop and it is a MAJOR part of our nation's economy. Shrewd.

The cigarette smokers really hold the lion's share of the blame for this mess they find themselves in right now. They have QUIETLY let people dump all over them. They have allowed themselves to be publicly shamed and humiliated. They have never spoken out against the taxes, the bans, and the public hatred, even though their dollars allocated for their cigarettes have powered the economy for generations and they'll never get to ease their nervous tension on an airplane again. They have quietly watched as the tobacco companies (scoundrels to be sure, don't get me wrong) have dished out billions in law suit settlements.

Oddly enough, in this cynical age, there has never been a smoker who has decided to sue McDonald's for making them fat, Jack Daniels for making them drunk, or Jerry Seinfeld for making them laugh til their sides hurt. Instead, the smokers, realizing the folly of their wasted years, have added to the mess by subverting their own blame and passing the buck along to others. Whether it is one's inability to smoke at a bar, the public ridicule, or lung cancer, smokers have themselves to blame for all their problems.

Thankfully, I don't really have to worry about this affecting my life as I am not a cigarette smoker. I just think it is high time somebody speaks out for the people who have every legal right to ruin their lives however they want. As for ruining YOUR life, if you really think the guy lighting up in the booth next to you is that big of a deal, you really should tell me how you have managed to have so few real problems in your life that you can obviously sweat the small stuff so vigorously.

In honor of this event, and in an effort to get a few smokers to rally and spend a few bucks that will benefit ME for a change, I remind you of a t-shirt based on a line from my comedy act. Available at Fu-Qtoo.com, I give you the Second-Hand Smoke T-Shirt. A PERFECT Christmas gift from the smoker to the asshole who doesn't have the sense to open a window when he's upset.