SOUND THE ALARM!!!! BAN TANNING BEDS!!!! SAVE US FROM OURSELVES!!!!

Both reduce the driver's ability to operate the vehicle safely. Perhaps you should drop the insults until you learn to keep up.

 

You may own the restaurant, but since it's a public place, yup, smoking is a public health issue and a work place safety issue. How fucking hard is it for you to understand that?

I suppose the health inspectors who come in to make sure there aren't vermin scurrying around your kitchen are part of some sort of communist plot as well.

It's like talking to a twelve year old.

.

 

And how hard is it for you to understand that in a free society, individuals ought to be able to gather where and how they choose, as long as they aren't infringing on others rights to do the same. If Joe the bar owner wants to allow smoking in his establishment, who the heck do you think you are to tell him that he's not allowed to do that? In a free society, you don't have a "right" to patronize his bar. It is a privilege; a transaction between two equally willing parties. Joe's bar does not exist for your pleasure. It exists for the owner's pleasure to do with it as he sees fit. Would you tell Joe what to do or who to invite to his own living room? If you answered no, then why on earth do you think you have a right to tell him who he invites to his private property?

 

Joe's bar doesn't sound like a bar, it sounds like Joe's basement. He and his buddies can light up all day there if they want.

 

You're kidding me, right?

You really don't understand that there's a fundamental legal difference between smoking in Joe's living room nd puffing away in Joe's restaurant?

Let me make it simple.

Joe's living room is private property. Joe's bar is a public place, albeit privately owned.

Don't they teach stuff like this in about the fifth grade?

 

Joe's bar is private property. He opens it by his choice to the public. I suspect you'll figure this out sometime after you graduate kindergarten.

 

Actually there is a legal difference between the duty owed "invitees" and "licensees," i.e. business guests and social guests. The duty from harm owed to business guests is higher, even if you own the property.

Fail, Tony.

 

Code:

Joe's bar is private property. He opens it by his choice to the public. I suspect you'll figure this out sometime after you graduate kindergarten.

Thank you, Lester Maddox.

 

Sheltered workshop get out early, Tony?

You know where the word "pub" comes from, don't you? You understand the concept of "public"?

You know Joe can't refuse to serve visible minorities because he owns the restaurant, right?.

You realise he can't knowingly serve food in a rat-infested kitchen because it's his restaurant, right?

Fail, indeed.

 

I mean, I understand the libertarian argument and impulse. I guess. But the fact is, you open your place up to the public, certain responsibilities to protect them from danger comes with that. Some towns have decided that smoking crosses the permissible line. This is the work of legislators, not activist judges, but any judge worth his/her salt will uphold it.

You could try to fight the bans Tony, but you will be going up against centuries upon centuries of accepted common law, and you will lose and lose miserably.

 

Yes, you did indeed fail. Private property is still PRIVATE property. I completely understand, however, why you have to bring up rat-infested kitchens and minorities to obfuscate your awesome failure on the use of a totally legal product, though.

 

Nope. If you open it to the public, you have different duties when it comes to protecting the public than if you invite a friend into your private home. There's a continuum of duty between friends (not much duty at all - danger must just be out in the open) to trespassers (pretty much no duty whatsoever). Legislators have decided that smoking is a harm that people shouldn't be exposed to when they enter a public place, even if it is private property.

You can argue that second-hand smoke isn't dangerous, but you can't argue that because it's "private property" that Joe can let people do what they will. Because you will lose that argument.