While I'm as sympathetic as the next Austinite to Amanda's impassioned pleas to spare Austin from the curtain of smoking bans closing on the nation, except, well, I'm not as sympathetic as the next Austinite. I should be. Not only am I a smoker, but the thought of someone asking me to step outside the Casino or Lovejoy's or (God forbid the day ever come to pass) Nasty's to have a smoke makes me want to have a full-bore seizure. It kills me to break ranks with Norbizness and out myself as a prude favoring the slippery slope toward a dystopian Austin of wheat-grass shots, hybrid sushi/Baja-style Mexican restaurants, and David Gray concerts, which is I assume precisely the sort of godless liberal anthem a smoking ban supporter would march to—because deep inside I know that cigarettes go with bars go with cigarettes, and anyone who doesn't understand this is someone I don't want at the Showdown.
But I have to give my full support to the smoking ban because those few bar employees who don't smoke—hypothetical though they may sound—are on the side of science. Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) or passive smoking is the most harmful indoor air pollutant, a class A carcinogen up there with asbestos. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, along with every Western nation's leading cancer agency (if I recall correctly, there are no longer any exceptions, but check me if I'm wrong), has identified a causal link between passive smoking and lung cancer. Suffice it to say that my uncle is the only person left who refuses to acknowledge that secondhand smoke is terrible, and that's because he's been auditioning to become the Marlboro Man since he was 12. (Yeah, I smoke too, but he smokes way more.)
Lindsay Beyerstein notes that 15-year-old OSHA standards suggest that indoor ETS isn't usually sufficient to amount to overexposure. (It's very clear that OSHA has never been to Nasty's. On any given night you've got, what, 4 feet of visibility?) These data require some caveats—one, these standards are old. The entire Western world only came to agree that ETS was a carcinogen in 2002, so it's possible (and probable) that we've learned some things since 1990. Two, even if these standards aren't arbitrary measures antiquated by newer, different data, it's hard to see how the newer context of ETS hasn't affected the OSHA standards. Did OSHA set its limits at the atmospheric levels at which ETS is no longer carcinogenic, or the levels at which ETS is not recognized to be an irritant? Those are my complaints before we even introduce the lobbying factor and the effect of the politics on the implementation of these standards.
I would definitely be willing to reconsider my opinion if the answers to these questions revealed a favorable correlation between the science on smoking and the OSHA standards, and I admit that it's bias that assures me that the answers would show otherwise. (Lindsay would, too.) Nonetheless, the accompanying OSHA directive—"[i]f the [permissible exposure limits] or [short-term exposure limits] for any of these air contaminants is exceeded, corrective action must be taken by the employer to reduce employee exposure to the contaminant"—is a joke. How can a bar know whether it is within the appropriate range? Smoking bans work; toothless standards don't.
As for the caveat emptor argument—employees can choose to work somewhere else if they don't want to work at smoke-filled bars—I'd remind that the same defense stood when the few non-smoking stewardesses rallied to have smoking banned on air flights; and the fact is now as it was then that so long the culture generally tolerates smoking and there is an enormous financial incentive behind permitting smoking (and selling cigarettes), smoke-free alternatives aren't going to emerge. I remember listening to Julian Sanchez debate against a District smoking ban on the Kojo Nnamdi show, and—I mean, I know he's doing the Lord's work, because I'd hate to not be able to smoke in bars—he offered that the Health Bar on U Street shows that the market tolerates non-smoking bars. It was a bit flimsy, given that Health Bar is, well, it's called Health Bar, I think you can infer what that place is. It ain't the Black-Cat-just-without-smoking—and as far as I'm aware, that bar doesn't exist.
If, if, one could be reasonably assured that every employee of every smoking bar in Austin (or DC, or whever) is a smoker who will never want to quit smoking, then I think it would be reasonable to say that everyone involved assented to the tremendous health risks involved with ETS—but that's really not the case. If ventilation systems sufficient to mitigate the risks of ETS could be required in such a way that isn't disadvantageous for smaller bars, that would be a reasonable application of basic health standards—but there doesn't seem to be a way to do that. If a market existed that tolerated non-smoking bars, it would be reasonable to say that the market provides for bartenders et al. who mind the risks associated with ETS—but the market doesn't tolerate non-smoking bars, except in the form of abhorrible Health Bars. So I think you have to give that joyless son-of-a-bitch bartender his healthy workplace and support the smoking ban.
God forbid they ever pass them, though—what the hell kind of good is a bar without smoking?
Posted by Kriston at March 30, 2005 12:48 PMAnother limitation of those OSHA figures is that they refer to workplaces in general, not to specifically to bars. Maybe a few smokers in a machine shop or an office aren't enough to be hazardous-but a smoke-filled bar might be another story entirely.
Posted by: Lindsay Beyerstein at March 30, 2005 12:57 PMAnd when this problem is solved, Austin live music and bar workers will just have to overcome the lack of a living wage or health insurance, lax discrimination protections, almost complete non-unionization, the selling of their establishment to the Spaghetti Warehouse Corporation, and it will be a paradise. But first things first.
P.S. How you gonna inconspicuously spark up a joint in a smoke-free live music venue? WEAK
Posted by: norbizness at March 30, 2005 1:07 PMP.S. How you gonna inconspicuously spark up a joint in a smoke-free live music venue? WEAK
True, true.
People smoke marijuana at live music venues??
Posted by: Kriston at March 30, 2005 3:56 PMEh, I was having an off day in that debate. Let me add St. Ex before 11 pm and the upstairs at Wonderland. And even the Black Cat went non-smoking for a night at Blonde Redhead's request. I think what's more likely to emerge are places that allow some smoking, but have well-segregated non-smoking parts (the Wonderland non-smoking room is down the hall and upstairs from the other bar; it doesn't get at all smoky).
FWIW, I don't think the airline rule ought to have been established by law either, so I don't know what raising that example shows. Though I tend to think that for reasons I hope are obvious re: the specifics of the two industries, flights would be largely nonsmoking voluntarily by now anyway. (Note, for instance, that there are relatively few non-smoking bars so far, but quite a number of non-smoking restaurants, even though they've got the option to permit smoking.)
P.S. How you gonna inconspicuously spark up a joint in a smoke-free live music venue? WEAK
Wow. I've always been against smoking in bars, but . . . damn you norbizness!
Posted by: Rob W at March 30, 2005 6:58 PMalso there are lots of excellent drunken and rocking nights to be had at the warehouse next door - totally non-smoking. the market tolerates and even supports it as long as the programming is worthwhile (e.g. a good bar in a non-saturated location; a music venue showcasing bands that don't fit at the larger and more established places around town).
Posted by: off day at March 30, 2005 9:29 PMIf I were a Klingon I would turn my back to you.
Posted by: steve-o at March 31, 2005 12:06 AMThe smoking ban doesn't seem to have hurt bar business here in California.
Posted by: David at March 31, 2005 1:36 AMIf I were a Klingon I would turn my back to you.
I'm the Commander Worf of smokers.
Posted by: Kriston at March 31, 2005 1:38 AMThe smoking ban doesn't seem to have hurt bar business here in California.
More to the point, the smoking ban doesn't seem to have hurt bar business in Toronto. And they are seriously considering a city-wide smoking ban in Montreal, of all places. If you've ever been to any venue in Montreal with "Brasserie" or "Resto-Bar" in its name and Labatt 50 (and only Labatt 50) on tap, you know how alien the prospect of a smoke-free environment feels.
But people who claim that "most people who go to bars smoke" don't have it quite right -- it's more like, "most smokers go to bars." And, for 99% of smokers, "going to bars" supervenes on "smoking indoors." Smokers aren't going to stay home (and do what -- drink Labatt 50 from bottles?) just becuase there's a smoking ban. They'll bitch at first, sure, they always do -- but in the end, they go out as often as they always did, and adjust to smoking (N.B. their substance of choice, Norbiz) outside the damn club.
This is exactly what has happened in every single city that has tried a smoking ban, including those cities where going outside without a retrieving your jacket from the coat-check in mid-January is a much more serious threat to your (short-term, at least) health than smoking. If Torontonians can manage, Austinians have no fucking excuse.
Posted by: Thad at March 31, 2005 3:20 AMRemember when they tried that in Dallas a little while back and failed?
Yet the state of Florida seems to be going strong.
I wonder what determines whether a smoking ban will work.
Posted by: DG at March 31, 2005 1:45 PMI don't actually give that much of a shit whether a smoking ban would hurt business or not; I'm not sure why that's been made the central plank of the opposition. But asking whether bans "hurt" business is the wrong benchmark: Bar and restaurant revenues have been trending up most everywhere, and you need to disaggregate the effects of the ban from background growth. The relevant question if you want to gauge the economic effect is whether the growth rate is depressed in smoking-ban states relative to non-banners. The data I've seen on that suggest that it has been.
Posted by: Julian Sanchez at March 31, 2005 3:51 PMSmoking bans, civil liberties, business, cancer, whatever — but did you just say "the Casino"?
When did we ever say, "Hey, want to hit up the Casino?"
Kriston just lost his ATX privileges.
Posted by: matty at April 1, 2005 11:35 AMWhether there should be a ban or not, I'm totally in favour because I don't smoke, I do drink, and I find cigarette smoke absolutely disgusting. I hate coming back from a bar or a club with my (and my lover's) hair smelling of smoke. Yuck.
And yeah, there is the odd no-smoking venue dotted around, but there's a couple of my friends that smoke, so like as not we end up going to one of the places that does allow smoking.
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Posted by: Jim Buster at November 26, 2007 12:03 PMA ban is definitely good and especially for non smokers like me. I find it esepcially bad to be caught in a room full of smokers. I have nothing against smokers and I do have a lot of friends who are smokers but I would prefer smokers to light up in places that are not enclosed and definitely not in the presence of non-smokers.
Posted by: Jarfu at May 21, 2008 3:46 AM