You'll want to read Julian Sanchez's clever taxonomy of smoking ban supporters: the "High-Banners" (antismoking fundamentalists), the Grassroots (those who assertively prefer nonsmoking establishments), and the Friends of the Worker (among whom I suppose I'm forced to classify myself). But among the bon mots, Sanchez buries this dud:
It's not obvious why choosing to accept whatever risk is entailed in being around second-hand smoke is inherently different from accepting any other unattractive feature of a job—late hours, frequent travel, the physical risks of working in jobs like construction, emotional and mental stress, or even simple tedium.Sanchez takes up the task of hunting out the canards among the smoking ban supporters' argument but can't resist employing one himself. Sure, if the drycleaning bills are the worst inconvenience to a job that exposes you to a lot of secondhand smoke, the Friends of the Worker come off looking very stupid indeed. Stink is a reasonably sufferable occupational hazard, especially when offset by the perks of entertainment employment. But we know better: worse than leaving work in smelly clothes is the full shift spent working in the presence of a carcinogenic environmental constant.
Now, I'll admit: Nonsmoking bartenders haven't exactly been beating down a path to my door asking me to pledge solidarity to their cause. But neither are they hypothetical, and I'm sympathetic to that minority of nonsmoking workers, few though they may be, who complain that their jobs require them to endure exposure to an entirely preventable environmental carcinogen. Smoking ban supporters do better by arguing that the market provides sufficiently for this minority. The ban opponents lose points (with me, for whatever that's worth) by acting dodgy with the science. (Speaking of specious, Smokefree DC, an organization that supports the smoking ban, claims (oddly enough) that there are hundreds of smokefree bars and restaurants in the area—which would seem to strongly contradict their argument that entertainment staff aren't able to choose smokefree employers. Yet they provide a list that contains extremely few actual bars, nearly a dozen bakeries, and, audaciously, Max's Best—an adorable ice cream parlor.)
Nevertheless, Sanchez's exercise looks like fun and begs for reciprocation. My not off-the-cuff whatsoever empirical research of the ways of smoking ban opponents has uncovered three phyla:
(I single out Sanchez here but I wouldn't necessarily call him an Ostrich. I admire all the Ban the Ban bloggers, and though I think they're cavalier with the science at times, others who have argued the case in town have pretty brutally misrepresented the facts.)
Posted by Kriston at June 20, 2005 5:53 PMhow do you classify someone who would benefit from and even enjoy the ban's effects, but would vote against it in a referendum (i guess for reasons brushing closest to the libertarian argument, although he/i can concede something to the idea protecting workers, too)? stupid? just plain confused? tired of a law for everything?
Posted by: matty at June 21, 2005 4:09 AMI too am a fence-sitter with this issue. As an ex-smoker, I sympathize with those who just want to go out and have a good time. As an ex-smoker, I also wish I could go out without coming home smelling like an ashtray. Then again, how can I support decriminalization of most drugs but want a ban on smoking in restaurants?
In the end, I'm not a supporter of the ban politically, but I sort of hope it passes selfishly. Is there a term for that?
Oh yeah, hypocrite.
Well, let me join you guys. I would enjoy a ban, and believe in the arguments for protecting workers -- but am hesitant to start arguing on the behalf of someone who can't be bothered to do it themselves. I probably wouldn't vote in any potential referendum, just because I know my desire for a ban is mostly motivated by selfishness. That's just as bad, though, since a ban seems likely to pass.
Posted by: tom at June 21, 2005 11:13 AMwhat we need is a compromise akin to: abortions for some, tiny american flags for everyone else!
Posted by: matty at June 21, 2005 11:23 AMI should clarify what I meant by that argument. I'm not denying that ETS increases one's risk of illness--though I don't think it's irrelevant that this is a function of the time of exposure, such that someone who does a stint of a year or two tending bar might not have much increased risk. What I meant was that even when a harm is objective, one's assessment of what it means is irreducibly subjective. One job may involve being arount ETS, which we'll stipulate has some very precisely specifiable added risk of disease associated with it. Another may very stressful, or have hours or travel requirements that leave me with less time for my friends and loved ones than I'd like. There's some sense in which the first harm is more "objective"; there is no sense in which it is somehow more real, or in which I'm irrational if I decide that I prefer the health risk to the other (social or psychological) burdens of the alternative job. How much risk is associated with how much exposure to how much ETS? Science can answer that. (And, as a side note, one doesn't JUST choose between smoking and non smoking bars; someone might decide they don't want to work in a *very* smoky bar, but a big place in which, in practice, only a few customers at a time smoke is fine.) How *bad* is that risk, relative to other benefits of that job, or other downsides of alternative jobs? You have to ask the individual worker. If we're not seduced by the patina of science into thinking that some tradeoffs are more objective or rational than others, it makes less sense to say that nobody may take a job with *this* unattractive (to some) feature, but others unattractive features are for the worker to weigh.
Posted by: Julian Sanchez at June 21, 2005 2:54 PMAppendix:
I grant in the piece that the market has been slow in reflecting people's changing preferences for non-smoking vs. smoking venues--bars in particular. But if that's the concern, the reasonable response seems to be to support something like Carol Schwartz's bill: Encourage more non-smoking spots to open, so that patrons and workers have plenty of options.
Ok, I've got a nit to pick. Everyone keeps linking to this (http://www.smokefreedc.org/restaurants.php), claiming that it lists "hundreds" of smoke-free bars and restaurants. It lists 190 such establishments, and that number does *not* qualify as "hundreds." I believe the irreducible minimum for "hundreds" is 200.
Posted by: JW at June 23, 2005 11:21 PMSorry for commenting at such a late date but just found you via Julian's archives.
The exact same tactic (claim hundreds of non-smoking 'bars' which turn out to be restaurants like TGI Fridays) was used here in Austin. I think it's part of the playbook or something. Sometimes they'd even use this in response to people who were clearly talking about live music venues.
Another real pearl was using the few REAL live music venues that banned smoking as evidence that the market was 'solving the problem'. The only thing was that each and every one of those venues had banned smoking because they were forced to, either by policy of the University of Texas, or by a previous half-hearted smoking ban which made it impossible to have all-ages shows and allow smoking. IE, Ban N-1 (which only hit clubs trying to do under-18 shows) made some of those all-ages venues go to 18-and-up; but it made some other ones go non-smoking. This wasn't the 'market' solving the problem; it was the 'government' forcing a policy on them.
Frankly, I was a fence-sitter at that point, but I don't side with people who are willing to lie like that to make a case. The ends don't justify the means.
Posted by: M1EK at August 26, 2005 12:38 PM