Take This Ban and Shove It, Minnesota
February 2nd, 2008
As of late, the St. Paul Pioneer Press has been attempting to convince us, their neighbors across the border, to join their cause and pass a statewide smoking ban in Wisconsin. The paper has published ten articles within the past two weeks, each including language in favor of a Wisconsin ban.
But today, there was an op-ed in the incorrigible rag that caught my attention:
Editorial: A neighbor’s advice on a smoking ban
Wisconsin Legislature should follow Minnesota and Illinois.
A MINNESOTA VIEW
Randy Calleja faced a difficult decision before opening Ready Randy’s, a western Wisconsin sports bar and restaurant, in 2006: Go smoke-free, knowing that the Wisconsin Legislature might one day pass a statewide ban, or appeal to the hardcore segment of tavern patrons who frequent only smoking-friendly bars?
Calleja chose the no-smoking strategy for his New Richmond business, and he doesn’t regret the decision. "We hear more positive than negative,” he said this week.
Wisconsin legislators who have flailed about on this issue while both Minnesota and Illinois passed statewide bans should visit Ready Randy’s on a Friday or Saturday night, when the bar business is hopping. Or spend some time talking with Calleja’s 55 employees, some of whom are tavern industry veterans who say they feel a lot healthier working in a smoke-free environment.
I was at Ready Randy’s just two weeks ago, having dinner with my family. What the paper doesn’t tell you is that it primarily functions as a family restaurant, with bar seating that mainly serves as a waiting area before you’re seated at your dining table.
Ready Randy’s is what you’d call a "starter" to the evening. An appetizer before a big night out, if you will. It may be hopping at 7:30 PM, but towards the end of the dinner hours, the crowds move downtown to some of the many taverns on New Richmond’s main drag, all of which allow smoking.
None of this matters, however, if you simply take into consideration Randy Calleja’s statements, which are anxiously scooped up and printed by the Pioneer Press for the masses to devour. What the Press won’t tell you is that Calleja has chosen to go smoke-free because he sees a market for it.
Calleja is in business to make money. The anti-tobacco crowd may have puffed up his chest a bit by implying that he’s some sort of virtuous, progressive trail-blazer, but in all reality, he’s simply going where he believes the money to be. Likewise, he sees a benefit in a smoking ban, because he won’t be forced to compete with the other businesses in New Richmond that allow smoking. Yes, that’s the "level playing-field" that Doyle and his cronies have been touting from their lofty precipices in Madistan.
What the Pioneer Press won’t point out is the fact that the 55 employees at Ready Randy’s have chosen to work in an establishment that does not allow smoking. They also won’t point out the fact that there are plenty other places in New Richmond that employ people who choose to work at establishments that do allow smoking.
Grown adults with a very basic level of mental capacity understand that these people have a choice - probably more choice now than ever - in what sort of a smoking environment they can work in. Could it be that this is why the Pioneer Press doesn’t point out such an obvious thing as the presence of an individual’s choice and subsequent assumption of risk? Because it isn’t complicated enough?
Which begs the question… What about the employees of smoking establishments? Will they still have a job if the ban passes? The Pioneer Press fails to report on the economic impact a ban would have on smoking establishments - such as taverns - whose bread and butter isn’t food, but rather, drink. Again, common-sense would tell you that this is indeed a factor that should be considered before legislation passes. So if it is, why are we not hearing the other, more obvious, side of the story?
[...]there’s another, more important reason Minnesotans should care about this issue. Despite bitter sports rivalries, the two states are connected much like competitive twins who hide their real feelings. Consider this a "get well” card from a sibling, Wisconsin, and a nod to a healthier, smoke-free future.
Gee, thanks for the advice, Minnesota. Unfortunately, your patronizing language falls on deaf ears. All of these years you’ve been putting us down for our "redneck" culture, our beer-drinking ways, and our beloved Brett Favre… You’ve seem to forgotten that we’re about as related as Stevie Wonder and Steve Martin. Wisconsin’s tavern culture is something that cannot be compared in any way to Minnesota’s.
But now… now we’re "siblings"? But Minnesota, you’ve never claimed us before! What changed your tune?
I’m sure you’ll understand when we tell you to take your ban - and your down-talking, pretentious, self-important, pompous chatter - and shove it.
Cross-posted at Ban the Ban Wisconsin
February 3rd, 2008 at 10:21 am
They will tell you your bars will fill up with new customers if you go smoke free-they won’t.
In the uk,the economic effect of the ban has been far reaching,pubs closing and staff being made redundant.
February 3rd, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I don’t think anybody will disagree that second hand smoke is at least a tiny bit harmful. Given that a bar is private property and the own should have the right to control what goes on in their bar, why don’t we hear complaining about the health department regulations imposed on bars? Like cleanliness and the process for cleaning glasses? Sure somebody might get a little sick or maybe herpes from a dirty glass, but it should be the bar owners right to clean or not clean his glasses and he shouldn’t have to be subjected to government inspectors invading his bar. Gee, that’s just like in Nazi Germany!
I notice they also require bar and restaurants owners to post signs in bathrooms requiring employees to wash their hands PROPERLY after using the facilities. That’s the ultimate in the Nanny statism! Telling us we have to wash our hands after we poop or pee. People should have the right to wash or not wash their hands. Back in the 1800s, doctors thought it was an insult to suggest they wash their hands before surgery.
February 3rd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
A person has a choice as to whether or not they enter or work in a smoking establishment.
Do you agree with this statement?
February 3rd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Agreed. Likewise, beer and liquor are a regulated substances that are consumed in licensed establishments that meet the ordiances and specifications of the local community.
Do you agree with this statement?
February 3rd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Buddy, I’m in charge here. If I comment on your blog, you can take over the conversation. You’re on my turf, now, so if you want to have a discussion, it’s on my terms. Got it?
Now then, since you agree that it is a choice to enter or work in a smoking establishment, we must then go back to the premise of the ban. The premise of a statewide smoking ban is supposedly for health purposes, and health purposes alone. So therefore, if one is warned before one enters a smoking establishment, they may assume the risk of doing so. They are essentially saying, “I am going to smoke a cigarette when I walk into this bar.” The act of smoking is legal and people assume risk when they choose to smoke, and so it should also be the assumption of risk when one enters a private business that allows smoking.
Now, your argument of other types of regulation is a straw man, simply because there is no end to the possibilities of what we could justify regulating. The question is, where does it end?
Logically, it makes no sense to ban the use of a legal product on private property for reasons of health, because assuming risk by using a legal product is no different than assuming risk by entering a smoking establishment. There is a choice to be had.
Unlike the government and busybody do-gooders, I’m a firm believer that adults are intelligent enough to make informed decisions for themselves, and don’t need mommy government taking care of them.
February 4th, 2008 at 6:26 am
I’m a firm believer that bars are a controlled evironment that are subject to the changing whims of the community. Go down South where counties are voted dry or wet everyother year. If community, through the political process, decides that they want smoke-free establishments it works for me. As I understand it, that’s how the process works. Rarely will everyone by happy with the decision and there will be winners and losers.
If you’ve noticed, people obtain liquor licenses before they built a new bar or open a restruant. If it’s a free enterprise, I should just be able to rent a store front, put in a table and chairs and start slinging hash and pouring beers.
I’m a firm believer that adults who are addicted to smoking would not inflict a potential health hazard onto anyone who enters a controlled substance zone, i.e. a bar, and would take their chemical pollution outside.
It’s like giving the women to right to vote. Did women have to earn their right to vote or was it something that should have been there since 1776? Now that woman have had the right to vote for nearly 100 years, I don’t think anyone would argue that they should have it now and they should of had it in 1776.
I see the smoking ban from as a health issue and therefore don’t see my previous comment as a straw man. You see it as a right to smoke cigarettes in a public place and, from my perspective, you are putting up the straw man of a perceived personal right.
Drinking liquor is also a legal right, but when the consumption of that controlled substance endangers the health and proeprty rights of others, the community has a poltical process in place to rein in your violation of the rights of others. In the case of smoking, past existence of the right to introduce toxic wastes into the air that others breath is no guarantee that that perceived right will continue into the future. Often times the oppressed wise up and overcome the oppresser.
February 4th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Yes, the poor oppressed antismoker. these bans don’r come about because the “community” gets together and decides it’s a good idea. It’a always some self-appointed busybodies who decide what’s best for everyone. have you ever heard of a genuine grassroots movement of non-smokers saying “Gee, we need a ban.” No, always professional activists from outside linkikng up to the tiny minority of pecksniffs inside.
As far as toxic wastes go, JPN, I’m sure if you’re so against them you don’t drive do you??
February 5th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Drive is a straw man argument. Of course I drive. How else am I going to get to work to pay my taxes.
As I’ve stated earlier, I personally am opposed to a smoking ban, but I’m challenging the notion here that it is somehow against you Constitutional rights to impose a smoking ban.
Like nude dancing, communities appear to have the right to control what goes on in a highly regulated environment like a bar or restruant. If this is unconstitutional, it’s been succesfully going on for decades.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
“Straw man argument” means you have no accepatble reply to my question. I haven’t driven for the past 30 years and it is possible to get to work without driving. Do you at least carpool? Bicycle when weather permits?
To do my job, I must regain my sanity after a hectic day. One thing that’s very necessary for this is beng able to spend happy hour sitting at a friendly bar and smoking–hopefully chatting with the bartender, who also has a cigarette dangling from his/her lips.
The men who wrote the Constitution were members of a minority (the rich) and they wrote it so that their rights would be protected from the wishes of the majority (everyone else). Perhaps nude dancing should be considered to be protected by the Constitution since no one can empirically demonstrate any harm done by viewing the naked human form. We have lot so crap laws on the books that should be taken off, but for the will and the money to fight them.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Chris, I couldn’t agree with you more.