Monday, March 28, 2005
The Antis want 100 per cent smoke free without exceptions!!
This is exactly why anti-smokers require 100% government mandated smoking bans. They know all too well that many hospitality establishments will continue to permit smoking, if they are given the choice to do so. Consider this... How many children and teens under the age of 19 years, are allowed in bars, casinos or nightclubs? A restaurant that wishes to permit smoking and allow children and teens could go smoke-free until the evening hours and then permit smoking later in the evening. The antis claim they are in the majority. This is not true. Most people, non-smokers included do not care if a hospitality industry venue permits smoking or not. If they do care, there are many hospitality establishments that have gone smoke-free on a voluntary basis. So non-smokers, children and teens have other choices. As do smokers under Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations. If I am a private hospitality business owner and the majority of my, regular customer base are smokers... I will obviously cater to that clientele. Especially if I own a bar, pub or nightclub. If I own a restaurant and most of my regular customer base are non-smokers, I would cater to their wishes and go smoke-free and build a DSR or semi-enclosed patio for my smoking customers. This way I can effectively please both smoking and non-smoking patrons. If 80% of my regular customers are non-smokers, I would likely go smoke-free on a voluntary basis, without a government imposed smoking ban. That way I can tap a niche market. No matter what the anti-smoking lobby may falsely claim, the market demand for smoke-free hospitality venues has already been met. Without government imposed smoking bans. If going smoke-free was so "wonderful" for business, government imposed smoking bans would not be required. Business owners would go smoke-free of their own accord. There is a good reason that these business owners have not done so, smoking bans are bad for business for many hospitality industry venues. What's really funny: In many areas where smoking bans are to be enacted, the anti-smoking lobby often uses children's health and protection from ETS exposure as a means to persuade governments to enact smoking bans. Now in Alberta, the children will be "protected" from ETS in hospitality venues that choose to allow smoking and to ban children and teens. The anti-smokers will cry "foul!" The children's and teens rights and freedoms are being compromised and marginalized. It's funny that the same anti-smoking lobby has no problem with banishing smokers to the great outdoors, with government imposed smoking bans. Remember, no one is forcing anyone to continue permitting smoking in Alberta. And in fact more restaurants and bars may chose to go smoke-free on a voluntary basis without a government imposed smoking ban. The anti-smokers will likely argue that it makes more sense to ban all indoor smoking and allow children and teens, than it is to ban minors. More sense for who? Surely not the private hospitality business owner or their employees or smoking customers. If second-hand smoke was ever exonerated as harmless by a massive study and found to have a protective effect on the health of non-smokers ( As the World Health Organization ETS Study found)...Would it be fair if the government imposed a regulation that decreed that every hospitality industry venue MUST have a smoking section? Even if it went against the wishes of a private hospitality business owner who wished to operate a completely smoke-free bar or restaurant. Would that be fair? No it would not be fair and neither are government imposed smoking bans. Market share should dictate smoking permitted or smoke-free policies within the private hospitality sector. Governments should butt out, regarding the enactment of smoking bans on private property. The anti-smoking lobby will whine that teens are losing their jobs because of Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations. Well it was the anti-smokers themselves that made this happen. It's funny that the anti-smokers do not care about how much unemployment that government imposed smoking bans cause in the private hospitality sector. Or how much worker's and business owners livelihoods are compromised by the bans. The antis do not care that hospitality industry workers often get reduced hours of work and lesser tip monies due to negative smoking ban impacts within the hospitality sector. Look at it this from a sane perspective. If a person fears health risks from ETS exposure or simply does nor like the smell of burning tobacco... That person comes to my pub, they know that smoking is permitted there...If they don't like it they can leave and go elsewhere. They have a choice. They do not have to work for me in my pub if second-hand smoke annoys them or if they fear it is a major or minor health risk. By the same token, when I visit a smoke-free hospitality establishment here in B.C. That has not constructed a DSR or semi-enclosed smoking patio. I know that the business owner is catering to a non-smoking crowd. If I go there, I must abide by the house rules of the business owner, his or her staff and the businesses' smoking policies. If I don't like those house rules, I am free to go elsewhere, to a business that supports my choice of smoking. The anti-smoking clan can not grasp this simple concept, actually they can but just don't want to. For very good reasons, one of them being... If private hospitality venues are given the choice to set their own smoking policies, without government intervention... Many hospitality establishments would permit smoking. The anti-smoking crowd cannot stand this glaring fact and it's reality. This is exactly why they lobby for and demand government imposed smoking bans. Before the advent of today's current wave of government mandated smoking regulations... A number of hospitality businesses went smoke-free on a voluntary basis. Many of those businesses failed financially by becoming smoke-free. Many of them returned to permitting smoking. The anti-smoking army are very aware of this fact and this is exactly why the lobby and push for government imposed smoking bans. This way the private hospitality establishment must remain smoke-free.The business owner has NO CHOICE! The anti-smoking lobby want to impose their choice on everyone regardless of their feelings or opinions. They know that in a free-market many hospitality businesses would choose to permit smoking, instead of catering to non-smokers exclusively. The way that I see it, Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations are a win-win victory for smokers, non-smokers and children and teens. The only losers are the anti-smoking lobby and their slobbering minions. In Alberta both smokers and non-smokers will have reasonable choices. If anyone is to take the blame for business owners chosing smoking over teens and kids, it is the anti-smoking lobby. Once again, the phantom dangers of ETS sham, marginalizes a segment of the population. As I said, most of the hospitality businesses that will choose to permit smoking are adult-oriented hospitality venues. Minors are not allowed to patronize these establishments anyway. The anti-smoker's biggest fear? Some currently smoke-free businesses might return to permitting smoking. Some of the anti-smoking pro-ban people on this forum claim to support DSR solutions. How kind of you people. In Alberta, under their new provincial smoking regulations, nothing is stopping any hospitality business owner from constructing a DSR, so they can cater to both smoking and non-smoking customers. Including minors, providing that the children and teens do not enter or sit in the DSRs. Alberta has done the right thing with their new provincial smoking regulations. Anyone who will attempt to argue that minors are compromised by the regulations is merely "blowing smoke."
This is exactly why anti-smokers require 100% government mandated smoking bans. They know all too well that many hospitality establishments will continue to permit smoking, if they are given the choice to do so. Consider this... How many children and teens under the age of 19 years, are allowed in bars, casinos or nightclubs? A restaurant that wishes to permit smoking and allow children and teens could go smoke-free until the evening hours and then permit smoking later in the evening. The antis claim they are in the majority. This is not true. Most people, non-smokers included do not care if a hospitality industry venue permits smoking or not. If they do care, there are many hospitality establishments that have gone smoke-free on a voluntary basis. So non-smokers, children and teens have other choices. As do smokers under Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations. If I am a private hospitality business owner and the majority of my, regular customer base are smokers... I will obviously cater to that clientele. Especially if I own a bar, pub or nightclub. If I own a restaurant and most of my regular customer base are non-smokers, I would cater to their wishes and go smoke-free and build a DSR or semi-enclosed patio for my smoking customers. This way I can effectively please both smoking and non-smoking patrons. If 80% of my regular customers are non-smokers, I would likely go smoke-free on a voluntary basis, without a government imposed smoking ban. That way I can tap a niche market. No matter what the anti-smoking lobby may falsely claim, the market demand for smoke-free hospitality venues has already been met. Without government imposed smoking bans. If going smoke-free was so "wonderful" for business, government imposed smoking bans would not be required. Business owners would go smoke-free of their own accord. There is a good reason that these business owners have not done so, smoking bans are bad for business for many hospitality industry venues. What's really funny: In many areas where smoking bans are to be enacted, the anti-smoking lobby often uses children's health and protection from ETS exposure as a means to persuade governments to enact smoking bans. Now in Alberta, the children will be "protected" from ETS in hospitality venues that choose to allow smoking and to ban children and teens. The anti-smokers will cry "foul!" The children's and teens rights and freedoms are being compromised and marginalized. It's funny that the same anti-smoking lobby has no problem with banishing smokers to the great outdoors, with government imposed smoking bans. Remember, no one is forcing anyone to continue permitting smoking in Alberta. And in fact more restaurants and bars may chose to go smoke-free on a voluntary basis without a government imposed smoking ban. The anti-smokers will likely argue that it makes more sense to ban all indoor smoking and allow children and teens, than it is to ban minors. More sense for who? Surely not the private hospitality business owner or their employees or smoking customers. If second-hand smoke was ever exonerated as harmless by a massive study and found to have a protective effect on the health of non-smokers ( As the World Health Organization ETS Study found)...Would it be fair if the government imposed a regulation that decreed that every hospitality industry venue MUST have a smoking section? Even if it went against the wishes of a private hospitality business owner who wished to operate a completely smoke-free bar or restaurant. Would that be fair? No it would not be fair and neither are government imposed smoking bans. Market share should dictate smoking permitted or smoke-free policies within the private hospitality sector. Governments should butt out, regarding the enactment of smoking bans on private property. The anti-smoking lobby will whine that teens are losing their jobs because of Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations. Well it was the anti-smokers themselves that made this happen. It's funny that the anti-smokers do not care about how much unemployment that government imposed smoking bans cause in the private hospitality sector. Or how much worker's and business owners livelihoods are compromised by the bans. The antis do not care that hospitality industry workers often get reduced hours of work and lesser tip monies due to negative smoking ban impacts within the hospitality sector. Look at it this from a sane perspective. If a person fears health risks from ETS exposure or simply does nor like the smell of burning tobacco... That person comes to my pub, they know that smoking is permitted there...If they don't like it they can leave and go elsewhere. They have a choice. They do not have to work for me in my pub if second-hand smoke annoys them or if they fear it is a major or minor health risk. By the same token, when I visit a smoke-free hospitality establishment here in B.C. That has not constructed a DSR or semi-enclosed smoking patio. I know that the business owner is catering to a non-smoking crowd. If I go there, I must abide by the house rules of the business owner, his or her staff and the businesses' smoking policies. If I don't like those house rules, I am free to go elsewhere, to a business that supports my choice of smoking. The anti-smoking clan can not grasp this simple concept, actually they can but just don't want to. For very good reasons, one of them being... If private hospitality venues are given the choice to set their own smoking policies, without government intervention... Many hospitality establishments would permit smoking. The anti-smoking crowd cannot stand this glaring fact and it's reality. This is exactly why they lobby for and demand government imposed smoking bans. Before the advent of today's current wave of government mandated smoking regulations... A number of hospitality businesses went smoke-free on a voluntary basis. Many of those businesses failed financially by becoming smoke-free. Many of them returned to permitting smoking. The anti-smoking army are very aware of this fact and this is exactly why the lobby and push for government imposed smoking bans. This way the private hospitality establishment must remain smoke-free.The business owner has NO CHOICE! The anti-smoking lobby want to impose their choice on everyone regardless of their feelings or opinions. They know that in a free-market many hospitality businesses would choose to permit smoking, instead of catering to non-smokers exclusively. The way that I see it, Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations are a win-win victory for smokers, non-smokers and children and teens. The only losers are the anti-smoking lobby and their slobbering minions. In Alberta both smokers and non-smokers will have reasonable choices. If anyone is to take the blame for business owners chosing smoking over teens and kids, it is the anti-smoking lobby. Once again, the phantom dangers of ETS sham, marginalizes a segment of the population. As I said, most of the hospitality businesses that will choose to permit smoking are adult-oriented hospitality venues. Minors are not allowed to patronize these establishments anyway. The anti-smoker's biggest fear? Some currently smoke-free businesses might return to permitting smoking. Some of the anti-smoking pro-ban people on this forum claim to support DSR solutions. How kind of you people. In Alberta, under their new provincial smoking regulations, nothing is stopping any hospitality business owner from constructing a DSR, so they can cater to both smoking and non-smoking customers. Including minors, providing that the children and teens do not enter or sit in the DSRs. Alberta has done the right thing with their new provincial smoking regulations. Anyone who will attempt to argue that minors are compromised by the regulations is merely "blowing smoke."
The Antis want 100 per cent smoke free without exceptions!!
This is exactly why anti-smokers require 100% government mandated smoking bans. They know all too well that many hospitality establishments will continue to permit smoking, if they are given the choice to do so. Consider this... How many children and teens under the age of 19 years, are allowed in bars, casinos or nightclubs? A restaurant that wishes to permit smoking and allow children and teens could go smoke-free until the evening hours and then permit smoking later in the evening. The antis claim they are in the majority. This is not true. Most people, non-smokers included do not care if a hospitality industry venue permits smoking or not. If they do care, there are many hospitality establishments that have gone smoke-free on a voluntary basis. So non-smokers, children and teens have other choices. As do smokers under Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations. If I am a private hospitality business owner and the majority of my, regular customer base are smokers... I will obviously cater to that clientele. Especially if I own a bar, pub or nightclub. If I own a restaurant and most of my regular customer base are non-smokers, I would cater to their wishes and go smoke-free and build a DSR or semi-enclosed patio for my smoking customers. This way I can effectively please both smoking and non-smoking patrons. If 80% of my regular customers are non-smokers, I would likely go smoke-free on a voluntary basis, without a government imposed smoking ban. That way I can tap a niche market. No matter what the anti-smoking lobby may falsely claim, the market demand for smoke-free hospitality venues has already been met. Without government imposed smoking bans. If going smoke-free was so "wonderful" for business, government imposed smoking bans would not be required. Business owners would go smoke-free of their own accord. There is a good reason that these business owners have not done so, smoking bans are bad for business for many hospitality industry venues. What's really funny: In many areas where smoking bans are to be enacted, the anti-smoking lobby often uses children's health and protection from ETS exposure as a means to persuade governments to enact smoking bans. Now in Alberta, the children will be "protected" from ETS in hospitality venues that choose to allow smoking and to ban children and teens. The anti-smokers will cry "foul!" The children's and teens rights and freedoms are being compromised and marginalized. It's funny that the same anti-smoking lobby has no problem with banishing smokers to the great outdoors, with government imposed smoking bans. Remember, no one is forcing anyone to continue permitting smoking in Alberta. And in fact more restaurants and bars may chose to go smoke-free on a voluntary basis without a government imposed smoking ban. The anti-smokers will likely argue that it makes more sense to ban all indoor smoking and allow children and teens, than it is to ban minors. More sense for who? Surely not the private hospitality business owner or their employees or smoking customers. If second-hand smoke was ever exonerated as harmless by a massive study and found to have a protective effect on the health of non-smokers ( As the World Health Organization ETS Study found)...Would it be fair if the government imposed a regulation that decreed that every hospitality industry venue MUST have a smoking section? Even if it went against the wishes of a private hospitality business owner who wished to operate a completely smoke-free bar or restaurant. Would that be fair? No it would not be fair and neither are government imposed smoking bans. Market share should dictate smoking permitted or smoke-free policies within the private hospitality sector. Governments should butt out, regarding the enactment of smoking bans on private property. The anti-smoking lobby will whine that teens are losing their jobs because of Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations. Well it was the anti-smokers themselves that made this happen. It's funny that the anti-smokers do not care about how much unemployment that government imposed smoking bans cause in the private hospitality sector. Or how much worker's and business owners livelihoods are compromised by the bans. The antis do not care that hospitality industry workers often get reduced hours of work and lesser tip monies due to negative smoking ban impacts within the hospitality sector. Look at it this from a sane perspective. If a person fears health risks from ETS exposure or simply does nor like the smell of burning tobacco... That person comes to my pub, they know that smoking is permitted there...If they don't like it they can leave and go elsewhere. They have a choice. They do not have to work for me in my pub if second-hand smoke annoys them or if they fear it is a major or minor health risk. By the same token, when I visit a smoke-free hospitality establishment here in B.C. That has not constructed a DSR or semi-enclosed smoking patio. I know that the business owner is catering to a non-smoking crowd. If I go there, I must abide by the house rules of the business owner, his or her staff and the businesses' smoking policies. If I don't like those house rules, I am free to go elsewhere, to a business that supports my choice of smoking. The anti-smoking clan can not grasp this simple concept, actually they can but just don't want to. For very good reasons, one of them being... If private hospitality venues are given the choice to set their own smoking policies, without government intervention... Many hospitality establishments would permit smoking. The anti-smoking crowd cannot stand this glaring fact and it's reality. This is exactly why they lobby for and demand government imposed smoking bans. Before the advent of today's current wave of government mandated smoking regulations... A number of hospitality businesses went smoke-free on a voluntary basis. Many of those businesses failed financially by becoming smoke-free. Many of them returned to permitting smoking. The anti-smoking army are very aware of this fact and this is exactly why the lobby and push for government imposed smoking bans. This way the private hospitality establishment must remain smoke-free.The business owner has NO CHOICE! The anti-smoking lobby want to impose their choice on everyone regardless of their feelings or opinions. They know that in a free-market many hospitality businesses would choose to permit smoking, instead of catering to non-smokers exclusively. The way that I see it, Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations are a win-win victory for smokers, non-smokers and children and teens. The only losers are the anti-smoking lobby and their slobbering minions. In Alberta both smokers and non-smokers will have reasonable choices. If anyone is to take the blame for business owners chosing smoking over teens and kids, it is the anti-smoking lobby. Once again, the phantom dangers of ETS sham, marginalizes a segment of the population. As I said, most of the hospitality businesses that will choose to permit smoking are adult-oriented hospitality venues. Minors are not allowed to patronize these establishments anyway. The anti-smoker's biggest fear? Some currently smoke-free businesses might return to permitting smoking. Some of the anti-smoking pro-ban people on this forum claim to support DSR solutions. How kind of you people. In Alberta, under their new provincial smoking regulations, nothing is stopping any hospitality business owner from constructing a DSR, so they can cater to both smoking and non-smoking customers. Including minors, providing that the children and teens do not enter or sit in the DSRs. Alberta has done the right thing with their new provincial smoking regulations. Anyone who will attempt to argue that minors are compromised by the regulations is merely "blowing smoke."
This is exactly why anti-smokers require 100% government mandated smoking bans. They know all too well that many hospitality establishments will continue to permit smoking, if they are given the choice to do so. Consider this... How many children and teens under the age of 19 years, are allowed in bars, casinos or nightclubs? A restaurant that wishes to permit smoking and allow children and teens could go smoke-free until the evening hours and then permit smoking later in the evening. The antis claim they are in the majority. This is not true. Most people, non-smokers included do not care if a hospitality industry venue permits smoking or not. If they do care, there are many hospitality establishments that have gone smoke-free on a voluntary basis. So non-smokers, children and teens have other choices. As do smokers under Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations. If I am a private hospitality business owner and the majority of my, regular customer base are smokers... I will obviously cater to that clientele. Especially if I own a bar, pub or nightclub. If I own a restaurant and most of my regular customer base are non-smokers, I would cater to their wishes and go smoke-free and build a DSR or semi-enclosed patio for my smoking customers. This way I can effectively please both smoking and non-smoking patrons. If 80% of my regular customers are non-smokers, I would likely go smoke-free on a voluntary basis, without a government imposed smoking ban. That way I can tap a niche market. No matter what the anti-smoking lobby may falsely claim, the market demand for smoke-free hospitality venues has already been met. Without government imposed smoking bans. If going smoke-free was so "wonderful" for business, government imposed smoking bans would not be required. Business owners would go smoke-free of their own accord. There is a good reason that these business owners have not done so, smoking bans are bad for business for many hospitality industry venues. What's really funny: In many areas where smoking bans are to be enacted, the anti-smoking lobby often uses children's health and protection from ETS exposure as a means to persuade governments to enact smoking bans. Now in Alberta, the children will be "protected" from ETS in hospitality venues that choose to allow smoking and to ban children and teens. The anti-smokers will cry "foul!" The children's and teens rights and freedoms are being compromised and marginalized. It's funny that the same anti-smoking lobby has no problem with banishing smokers to the great outdoors, with government imposed smoking bans. Remember, no one is forcing anyone to continue permitting smoking in Alberta. And in fact more restaurants and bars may chose to go smoke-free on a voluntary basis without a government imposed smoking ban. The anti-smokers will likely argue that it makes more sense to ban all indoor smoking and allow children and teens, than it is to ban minors. More sense for who? Surely not the private hospitality business owner or their employees or smoking customers. If second-hand smoke was ever exonerated as harmless by a massive study and found to have a protective effect on the health of non-smokers ( As the World Health Organization ETS Study found)...Would it be fair if the government imposed a regulation that decreed that every hospitality industry venue MUST have a smoking section? Even if it went against the wishes of a private hospitality business owner who wished to operate a completely smoke-free bar or restaurant. Would that be fair? No it would not be fair and neither are government imposed smoking bans. Market share should dictate smoking permitted or smoke-free policies within the private hospitality sector. Governments should butt out, regarding the enactment of smoking bans on private property. The anti-smoking lobby will whine that teens are losing their jobs because of Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations. Well it was the anti-smokers themselves that made this happen. It's funny that the anti-smokers do not care about how much unemployment that government imposed smoking bans cause in the private hospitality sector. Or how much worker's and business owners livelihoods are compromised by the bans. The antis do not care that hospitality industry workers often get reduced hours of work and lesser tip monies due to negative smoking ban impacts within the hospitality sector. Look at it this from a sane perspective. If a person fears health risks from ETS exposure or simply does nor like the smell of burning tobacco... That person comes to my pub, they know that smoking is permitted there...If they don't like it they can leave and go elsewhere. They have a choice. They do not have to work for me in my pub if second-hand smoke annoys them or if they fear it is a major or minor health risk. By the same token, when I visit a smoke-free hospitality establishment here in B.C. That has not constructed a DSR or semi-enclosed smoking patio. I know that the business owner is catering to a non-smoking crowd. If I go there, I must abide by the house rules of the business owner, his or her staff and the businesses' smoking policies. If I don't like those house rules, I am free to go elsewhere, to a business that supports my choice of smoking. The anti-smoking clan can not grasp this simple concept, actually they can but just don't want to. For very good reasons, one of them being... If private hospitality venues are given the choice to set their own smoking policies, without government intervention... Many hospitality establishments would permit smoking. The anti-smoking crowd cannot stand this glaring fact and it's reality. This is exactly why they lobby for and demand government imposed smoking bans. Before the advent of today's current wave of government mandated smoking regulations... A number of hospitality businesses went smoke-free on a voluntary basis. Many of those businesses failed financially by becoming smoke-free. Many of them returned to permitting smoking. The anti-smoking army are very aware of this fact and this is exactly why the lobby and push for government imposed smoking bans. This way the private hospitality establishment must remain smoke-free.The business owner has NO CHOICE! The anti-smoking lobby want to impose their choice on everyone regardless of their feelings or opinions. They know that in a free-market many hospitality businesses would choose to permit smoking, instead of catering to non-smokers exclusively. The way that I see it, Alberta's new provincial smoking regulations are a win-win victory for smokers, non-smokers and children and teens. The only losers are the anti-smoking lobby and their slobbering minions. In Alberta both smokers and non-smokers will have reasonable choices. If anyone is to take the blame for business owners chosing smoking over teens and kids, it is the anti-smoking lobby. Once again, the phantom dangers of ETS sham, marginalizes a segment of the population. As I said, most of the hospitality businesses that will choose to permit smoking are adult-oriented hospitality venues. Minors are not allowed to patronize these establishments anyway. The anti-smoker's biggest fear? Some currently smoke-free businesses might return to permitting smoking. Some of the anti-smoking pro-ban people on this forum claim to support DSR solutions. How kind of you people. In Alberta, under their new provincial smoking regulations, nothing is stopping any hospitality business owner from constructing a DSR, so they can cater to both smoking and non-smoking customers. Including minors, providing that the children and teens do not enter or sit in the DSRs. Alberta has done the right thing with their new provincial smoking regulations. Anyone who will attempt to argue that minors are compromised by the regulations is merely "blowing smoke."
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
letters@ChronicleJournal.com
A letter from a non-smoker!!
Dear Editor, Mar. 22/05 I received this letter from a non-smoker. I thought you might be interested in what he has to say. It is considered by some people that cigarette smokers impose their lifestyle on non-smokers. From a non-smokers point of view, if so, it is done honestly, although sometimes in a misguided manner, yet still honestly. Non-smokers on the other hand, have plunged a symbolic knife into the backs of smokers. We have resorted to a dishonest method, contemptibly running to government to protect us with more and more force-related laws. By doing this, we empower government to unjustifiably attack any part of our lifestyle, our business, our industries, that it deems unsuitable, in order to protect its unthinking and incapable citizens. These procedures are endorsed under the deceptive umbrella of "health and safety." With greater frequency, they imprison our activities, our choices, our enjoyment of life. A government that lies repeatedly, without restraint or regret, is a government with a disregard for right and wrong. This government seems driven by power lust. Are we on the threshold of a new Canadian way, "if you won’t do it yourself, we will force you to do it?" This kind of government reaches back into the 1930’s,1940’s Germany. It is far more imperative for me to direct my attention to our government’s dangerous manipulations than to my dislike for cigarette smoke. Fascism is a cancer that vastly outstrips the possible death potential of smoking and leaves a philosophical, psychological, and spiritual devastation for future generations. Fascism murders the young and healthy as well as the elderly and sickly. Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario : Ken Hill
A letter from a non-smoker!!
Dear Editor, Mar. 22/05 I received this letter from a non-smoker. I thought you might be interested in what he has to say. It is considered by some people that cigarette smokers impose their lifestyle on non-smokers. From a non-smokers point of view, if so, it is done honestly, although sometimes in a misguided manner, yet still honestly. Non-smokers on the other hand, have plunged a symbolic knife into the backs of smokers. We have resorted to a dishonest method, contemptibly running to government to protect us with more and more force-related laws. By doing this, we empower government to unjustifiably attack any part of our lifestyle, our business, our industries, that it deems unsuitable, in order to protect its unthinking and incapable citizens. These procedures are endorsed under the deceptive umbrella of "health and safety." With greater frequency, they imprison our activities, our choices, our enjoyment of life. A government that lies repeatedly, without restraint or regret, is a government with a disregard for right and wrong. This government seems driven by power lust. Are we on the threshold of a new Canadian way, "if you won’t do it yourself, we will force you to do it?" This kind of government reaches back into the 1930’s,1940’s Germany. It is far more imperative for me to direct my attention to our government’s dangerous manipulations than to my dislike for cigarette smoke. Fascism is a cancer that vastly outstrips the possible death potential of smoking and leaves a philosophical, psychological, and spiritual devastation for future generations. Fascism murders the young and healthy as well as the elderly and sickly. Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario : Ken Hill
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Sat, March 12, 2005
Where there's smoke
By JOE WARMINGTON -- For the Toronto Sun
This town was smoking last night. The way things are for smokers these days that's a news flash.
Now, we all know Premier Dalton McGuinty, Health Minister George Smitherman and the rest of those clean-livers in government were probably not out enjoying a pint and a smoke last night but there are people who still do that.
Yes, a lot of us who derive our livelihoods from the night were wondering when the heck smokers would finally mount a fight against the Goliath that is the non-smoking movement.
Even the pit bull people have put up a heck of a battle for A-G Michael Bryant. But with the smoking ban -- and upcoming legislation to take it even further -- Smitherman has been sleeping easy with virtually no vocal opposition.
Until now.
Yes, let the Scrawler report there is an underground revolution underway and it held its first meeting last night.
Dubbed the Rock'n'Rally, 200 people for a more common sense approach to handling smoking in public places gathered at the terrific Hollywood On The Queensway club.
"It is a grassroots campaign," said Nancy Daigneault, president of mychoice.ca, an "online smokers' rights group" which has 15,000 signatures.
The idea is merely to allow the continuation of smoking rooms and some dignity for those who enjoy, or are addicted to, a perfectly legal product.
"Smokers feel like second-class citizens," said Daigneault, a non-smoker by the way, who admitted the website is funded by the tobacco lobby.
Enjoying a butt in the glassed-in smoking lounge at the Hollywood, Owen Bailey and Maggie Balson say it's not fair. And don't forget bartenders like Karen Sorc and Mel Cramb who live off tips.
Also, don't forget places like the Hollywood played by the rules and invested in these smoking rooms, as did the owners at Doolys' 2,500 square-foot pool room in Woodbridge, which general manager Jordan Robbins tells me is the largest in the GTA.
Now, as I have said before, I don't smoke cigarettes but do enjoy a fine cigar -- something very difficult to do anymore.
My friend Sonia Nolan at Habanos on The Beach, where I buy my cigars, was saying that with the new rules -- and the hockey lockout -- it has been an extremely tough winter for business.
Of course, nobody is turning away their tax contributions.
The problem I have with such strict rules is it's killing Toronto's nightlife. Many of the pubs and bars are struggling. No one knows that more than veteran Toronto rocker Rick Jennings of the band Southbound, who performed at the rally. "We are losing gigs," he said. "It's insanity."
Like so many in the pubs, he's wondering where the non-smokers are.
"They were supposed to come out in droves and beat down the doors," he laughs. "The doors are still intact."
If it keeps up like this, he wonders if he might die of starvation or "die of pneumonia before I ever die of cancer."
Well, whether you smoke or not, have a smokin' weekend yourself. Scrawler out.
Where there's smoke
By JOE WARMINGTON -- For the Toronto Sun
This town was smoking last night. The way things are for smokers these days that's a news flash.
Now, we all know Premier Dalton McGuinty, Health Minister George Smitherman and the rest of those clean-livers in government were probably not out enjoying a pint and a smoke last night but there are people who still do that.
Yes, a lot of us who derive our livelihoods from the night were wondering when the heck smokers would finally mount a fight against the Goliath that is the non-smoking movement.
Even the pit bull people have put up a heck of a battle for A-G Michael Bryant. But with the smoking ban -- and upcoming legislation to take it even further -- Smitherman has been sleeping easy with virtually no vocal opposition.
Until now.
Yes, let the Scrawler report there is an underground revolution underway and it held its first meeting last night.
Dubbed the Rock'n'Rally, 200 people for a more common sense approach to handling smoking in public places gathered at the terrific Hollywood On The Queensway club.
"It is a grassroots campaign," said Nancy Daigneault, president of mychoice.ca, an "online smokers' rights group" which has 15,000 signatures.
The idea is merely to allow the continuation of smoking rooms and some dignity for those who enjoy, or are addicted to, a perfectly legal product.
"Smokers feel like second-class citizens," said Daigneault, a non-smoker by the way, who admitted the website is funded by the tobacco lobby.
Enjoying a butt in the glassed-in smoking lounge at the Hollywood, Owen Bailey and Maggie Balson say it's not fair. And don't forget bartenders like Karen Sorc and Mel Cramb who live off tips.
Also, don't forget places like the Hollywood played by the rules and invested in these smoking rooms, as did the owners at Doolys' 2,500 square-foot pool room in Woodbridge, which general manager Jordan Robbins tells me is the largest in the GTA.
Now, as I have said before, I don't smoke cigarettes but do enjoy a fine cigar -- something very difficult to do anymore.
My friend Sonia Nolan at Habanos on The Beach, where I buy my cigars, was saying that with the new rules -- and the hockey lockout -- it has been an extremely tough winter for business.
Of course, nobody is turning away their tax contributions.
The problem I have with such strict rules is it's killing Toronto's nightlife. Many of the pubs and bars are struggling. No one knows that more than veteran Toronto rocker Rick Jennings of the band Southbound, who performed at the rally. "We are losing gigs," he said. "It's insanity."
Like so many in the pubs, he's wondering where the non-smokers are.
"They were supposed to come out in droves and beat down the doors," he laughs. "The doors are still intact."
If it keeps up like this, he wonders if he might die of starvation or "die of pneumonia before I ever die of cancer."
Well, whether you smoke or not, have a smokin' weekend yourself. Scrawler out.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
"admin smokersr" admin@smokersrightscanada.org>, "craig roxxon" roxxon@shaw.ca>, "Frank Zaniol" fourpr@yahoo.com,"fred quarrie" fredq@lks.net>, "Linda duguay" looped_ca@yahoo.ca>, "Nick Melnyk" nickstarski@yahoo.ca>
CC :
"craig roxxon" roxxon@shaw.ca>, "Mike F McFadden" cantiloper@aol.com>, "Morris Lewick" emdee@sympatico.ca>, "Samantha Philippes" info@smokersclub.com>, "smokersrightsyahoogroup" smokersrightscanada@yahoogroups.ca>, "warren klass" warren.klass@3web.net
Tobacco Free counters!!
Here is a big letter including a picture of a teenager looking at a display
of smokes in a store, with a picture of two girls standing together(Monique
Theriault, 17, volunteer with Millie Gormely(TV announcer), president of the
Thunder Bay unit of the Canadian Cancer Society at the launch the Out of
Sight Out of Mind campaign.
Also a big ad in the paper 9" by 12" cost about a thousand dollars
Sponsered by Heart and Stroke,Lung Ass. Cancer Soc. OTN..Ont. tobacco Free
Net.
The Chronicle Journal Sat. March 12/05 letters@chroniclejournal.com
www.tbsource.com
TOBACCO FREE COUNTERS CLAIM BY MANUFACTURER ABOUT DISPLAYS
A letter March 7/05 from Christina Dona, manager of media relations with
Imperial Tobacco Co. questioned Tobacco Free's Out of Sight, Out of Mind
campaign which seeks to put a spotlight on the role of in-stores point of
sale tobacco advertising in recruiting teens to become smokers.
Ms. Dona asserts that tobacco in-store advertising, complete with stand
alone cigarettes displays at children's eye level next to the candy are
aimed at solely at adults.
A California study looked at Grade 6 to 8 students who visited convenience
stores once a week or more. After controlling for social factors, these
primary students were 58 per cent more likely to become future smokers, an
influence that ranks on the same level as having a parent as a smoker.
The Point of Purchase Advertising Institutes has found that more than 60
per cent of tobacco purchases are impulse buys, despite the addictiveness of
tobacco. This is not surprising given that 20 per cent of smokers are
occasional smokers , including almost 40 per cent of adolescent smokers.
In addition Health Canada has found a large majority of daily smokers-- 70
per cent--are trying to quit. Furthermore, Health Canada confirms that the
average number of cigarettes smoked daily(by daily smokers) is highly
volatile.
There are numerous references in internal tobacco company documents about
the importance of impulse purchases to total tobacco sales: BAT, the
International parent company of Imperial Tobacco says, "Many impulse sales
are lost when stock is not available or cannot easily be seen or reached."
The industry knows the importance of power walls in sparking impulse
purchases, that's why in 2003 they paid 88 million to retailers to put
cigarettes under are noses.
The experiences of pharmacies shows that remove tobacco advertising will
not hurt retailers. The available space will be taken by other companies
that will pay to stock their products in the prime spaces.
It is a weak argument that tobacco companies need wall to wall advertising
to persuade adult smokers to change brands. Apart those smokers who solely
based on price, adult smokers are remarkably faithful to the brand that they
first started with. Brand switching tends to occur only in the last two
years of a person's smoking carrer as they mentally gear up to quit.
Putting cigarettes under the counter or covering up the power wall of
packages will not stop adults smokers from asking for their brand. It will
protect our youth when corner store tobacco advertising is out of "sight and
out of mind."
Dr. Jim Morris
Chairperson, Tobacco Free Thunder Bay
CC :
"craig roxxon" roxxon@shaw.ca>, "Mike F McFadden" cantiloper@aol.com>, "Morris Lewick" emdee@sympatico.ca>, "Samantha Philippes" info@smokersclub.com>, "smokersrightsyahoogroup" smokersrightscanada@yahoogroups.ca>, "warren klass" warren.klass@3web.net
Tobacco Free counters!!
Here is a big letter including a picture of a teenager looking at a display
of smokes in a store, with a picture of two girls standing together(Monique
Theriault, 17, volunteer with Millie Gormely(TV announcer), president of the
Thunder Bay unit of the Canadian Cancer Society at the launch the Out of
Sight Out of Mind campaign.
Also a big ad in the paper 9" by 12" cost about a thousand dollars
Sponsered by Heart and Stroke,Lung Ass. Cancer Soc. OTN..Ont. tobacco Free
Net.
The Chronicle Journal Sat. March 12/05 letters@chroniclejournal.com
www.tbsource.com
TOBACCO FREE COUNTERS CLAIM BY MANUFACTURER ABOUT DISPLAYS
A letter March 7/05 from Christina Dona, manager of media relations with
Imperial Tobacco Co. questioned Tobacco Free's Out of Sight, Out of Mind
campaign which seeks to put a spotlight on the role of in-stores point of
sale tobacco advertising in recruiting teens to become smokers.
Ms. Dona asserts that tobacco in-store advertising, complete with stand
alone cigarettes displays at children's eye level next to the candy are
aimed at solely at adults.
A California study looked at Grade 6 to 8 students who visited convenience
stores once a week or more. After controlling for social factors, these
primary students were 58 per cent more likely to become future smokers, an
influence that ranks on the same level as having a parent as a smoker.
The Point of Purchase Advertising Institutes has found that more than 60
per cent of tobacco purchases are impulse buys, despite the addictiveness of
tobacco. This is not surprising given that 20 per cent of smokers are
occasional smokers , including almost 40 per cent of adolescent smokers.
In addition Health Canada has found a large majority of daily smokers-- 70
per cent--are trying to quit. Furthermore, Health Canada confirms that the
average number of cigarettes smoked daily(by daily smokers) is highly
volatile.
There are numerous references in internal tobacco company documents about
the importance of impulse purchases to total tobacco sales: BAT, the
International parent company of Imperial Tobacco says, "Many impulse sales
are lost when stock is not available or cannot easily be seen or reached."
The industry knows the importance of power walls in sparking impulse
purchases, that's why in 2003 they paid 88 million to retailers to put
cigarettes under are noses.
The experiences of pharmacies shows that remove tobacco advertising will
not hurt retailers. The available space will be taken by other companies
that will pay to stock their products in the prime spaces.
It is a weak argument that tobacco companies need wall to wall advertising
to persuade adult smokers to change brands. Apart those smokers who solely
based on price, adult smokers are remarkably faithful to the brand that they
first started with. Brand switching tends to occur only in the last two
years of a person's smoking carrer as they mentally gear up to quit.
Putting cigarettes under the counter or covering up the power wall of
packages will not stop adults smokers from asking for their brand. It will
protect our youth when corner store tobacco advertising is out of "sight and
out of mind."
Dr. Jim Morris
Chairperson, Tobacco Free Thunder Bay
www.puckandbeaver.com
The Puck & Beaver Pub is closed as of February 25th, 2005. We had to close due to the loss of business caused by the Durham Regional Smoking By-Law. We will keeping this site up and running to deal with issues of the smoking by-laws and anything else that the Regional, Provincial and Federal Governments are doing to take away our rights as Canadians.
More Ban Loss
Ban Damage in injury and death
The Puck & Beaver Pub is closed as of February 25th, 2005. We had to close due to the loss of business caused by the Durham Regional Smoking By-Law. We will keeping this site up and running to deal with issues of the smoking by-laws and anything else that the Regional, Provincial and Federal Governments are doing to take away our rights as Canadians.
More Ban Loss
Ban Damage in injury and death
Friday, March 11, 2005
Hi Ms. Johnson Dec. 6/04
I thought the 'book' got lost in the mail:)
I believe every council in Canada should have that book, to dispel the 'lies, half-truths and innuendos these zealots are spreading.across Canada.
These Crusaders are using 'Health' as a guise for their Draconian bylaws, but the 'real' reason is to De-normalize smoking(to change human behaviour)
Their main weapon is the ignorance of the 'public' about second-hand smoke!
It is a crying shame that people lose their jobs and businesses go belly-up just because Councils across Canada are ignorant about second-hand smoke and the damage it has done to the hospitality sector.
Unfortunately this scenario has to go through the whole nine yards before Council does something to rectify the situation
In a number of cases some councils have instructed the 'smoke police' "unofficially" to not enter the pubs or taverns or turn the other way from the hospitality sector.
I have exposed these zealots for the past eight years: their lies,half truths innuendos and 'slanted surveys'
Having said that ,why would council and the public believe anything they say??
'Fear,doubt and Gullibility are the emotions they use to apply their methods to impose Draconian By-laws on the unsuspecting public.
These Crusaders always go the route of a Plebiscite'
Because they know that 75% of the people don't smoke.
What is drastically wrong with the plebiscite route is(unfair,slanted, undemocratic) the smoking issue does not affect every body every day and yet every body had a vote on the plebiscite
a.g. The Fluoridation plebiscite in the 60's was a fair and democratic plebiscite, because the issue effected every body every day
To be technically right, the only voters should have been the 'owners, workers and the customers who should have the 'right' to vote on this plebiscite.
These crusaders are smart and cunning.
They do not care who losses their jobs or if any business is closed because of the bylaw
Dr. Jim Morris said,''This is a workers bylaw'
If there is one worker on the floor of a pub who doesn't smoke, does that mean that nobody can smoke,even though there is proper ventilation?
If that same worker(be it owner or otherwise) smokes, is that pub exempt?
They fooled the Mayor and Council and the 'public.
In my opinion the Mayor and council used the possible demise of the hospitality sector to get (elected) re-elected.
Just because these zealots have a (Dr.) in front of their name does not mean their lies are any better than the next person, they only think they are .
One such untruth is "A level playing field"--One shoe does not fit all!(e.g. compare a hotel on Simpson street to 'Scuttlebutts"
Has the Mayor and aldermen talked to the hospitality sector and find out their feelings about this smoking bylaw, or are they too scared to talk to them because they might be told the 'truth'?
Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.
I thought the 'book' got lost in the mail:)
I believe every council in Canada should have that book, to dispel the 'lies, half-truths and innuendos these zealots are spreading.across Canada.
These Crusaders are using 'Health' as a guise for their Draconian bylaws, but the 'real' reason is to De-normalize smoking(to change human behaviour)
Their main weapon is the ignorance of the 'public' about second-hand smoke!
It is a crying shame that people lose their jobs and businesses go belly-up just because Councils across Canada are ignorant about second-hand smoke and the damage it has done to the hospitality sector.
Unfortunately this scenario has to go through the whole nine yards before Council does something to rectify the situation
In a number of cases some councils have instructed the 'smoke police' "unofficially" to not enter the pubs or taverns or turn the other way from the hospitality sector.
I have exposed these zealots for the past eight years: their lies,half truths innuendos and 'slanted surveys'
Having said that ,why would council and the public believe anything they say??
'Fear,doubt and Gullibility are the emotions they use to apply their methods to impose Draconian By-laws on the unsuspecting public.
These Crusaders always go the route of a Plebiscite'
Because they know that 75% of the people don't smoke.
What is drastically wrong with the plebiscite route is(unfair,slanted, undemocratic) the smoking issue does not affect every body every day and yet every body had a vote on the plebiscite
a.g. The Fluoridation plebiscite in the 60's was a fair and democratic plebiscite, because the issue effected every body every day
To be technically right, the only voters should have been the 'owners, workers and the customers who should have the 'right' to vote on this plebiscite.
These crusaders are smart and cunning.
They do not care who losses their jobs or if any business is closed because of the bylaw
Dr. Jim Morris said,''This is a workers bylaw'
If there is one worker on the floor of a pub who doesn't smoke, does that mean that nobody can smoke,even though there is proper ventilation?
If that same worker(be it owner or otherwise) smokes, is that pub exempt?
They fooled the Mayor and Council and the 'public.
In my opinion the Mayor and council used the possible demise of the hospitality sector to get (elected) re-elected.
Just because these zealots have a (Dr.) in front of their name does not mean their lies are any better than the next person, they only think they are .
One such untruth is "A level playing field"--One shoe does not fit all!(e.g. compare a hotel on Simpson street to 'Scuttlebutts"
Has the Mayor and aldermen talked to the hospitality sector and find out their feelings about this smoking bylaw, or are they too scared to talk to them because they might be told the 'truth'?
Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Sent to The Toronto Star
Dear Editor, Mar.11/05
Smoking bans in and of themselves are not the fundamental end goals of hard-core antismokers. The ultimate desire is to see the end of smoking as a human activity altogether.
Smoking bans themselves are simply seen as a very powerful weapon in the war to achieve that goal.
Dear Editor, Mar.11/05
Smoking bans in and of themselves are not the fundamental end goals of hard-core antismokers. The ultimate desire is to see the end of smoking as a human activity altogether.
Smoking bans themselves are simply seen as a very powerful weapon in the war to achieve that goal.
Sent to The Toronto Star
Dear Editor, Mar.11/05
Smoking bans in and of themselves are not the fundamental end goals of hard-core antismokers. The ultimate desire is to see the end of smoking as a human activity altogether.
Smoking bans themselves are simply seen as a very powerful weapon in the war to achieve that goal.
Dear Editor, Mar.11/05
Smoking bans in and of themselves are not the fundamental end goals of hard-core antismokers. The ultimate desire is to see the end of smoking as a human activity altogether.
Smoking bans themselves are simply seen as a very powerful weapon in the war to achieve that goal.
Sent to The Toronto Star
Dear Editor, Mar.11/05
Smoking bans in and of themselves are not the fundamental end goals of hard-core antismokers. The ultimate desire is to see the end of smoking as a human activity altogether.
Smoking bans themselves are simply seen as a very powerful weapon in the war to achieve that goal.
Dear Editor, Mar.11/05
Smoking bans in and of themselves are not the fundamental end goals of hard-core antismokers. The ultimate desire is to see the end of smoking as a human activity altogether.
Smoking bans themselves are simply seen as a very powerful weapon in the war to achieve that goal.
Sent to The Toronto Star
Dear Editor, Mar.11/05
Smoking bans in and of themselves are not the fundamental end goals of hard-core antismokers. The ultimate desire is to see the end of smoking as a human activity altogether.
Smoking bans themselves are simply seen as a very powerful weapon in the war to achieve that goal.
Dear Editor, Mar.11/05
Smoking bans in and of themselves are not the fundamental end goals of hard-core antismokers. The ultimate desire is to see the end of smoking as a human activity altogether.
Smoking bans themselves are simply seen as a very powerful weapon in the war to achieve that goal.
Sent to The Toronto Star
Dear Editor, Mar.11/05
Smoking bans in and of themselves are not the fundamental end goals of hard-core antismokers. The ultimate desire is to see the end of smoking as a human activity altogether.
Smoking bans themselves are simply seen as a very powerful weapon in the war to achieve that goal.
Dear Editor, Mar.11/05
Smoking bans in and of themselves are not the fundamental end goals of hard-core antismokers. The ultimate desire is to see the end of smoking as a human activity altogether.
Smoking bans themselves are simply seen as a very powerful weapon in the war to achieve that goal.
To:
Subject: Don't give up
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 03:17:11 -0500
Hi Guys Mar. 10/05
Just posted your sad affair on the Calgary Sun Forum
Hang in there. we'll win one way or another.
To bad you can't sue them for the difference of the sale of your business as
oppose to the sale of your business 'before' the smoking by-law came into
effect.
It wasn't your 'doings'(mismanagement) it was the Regions fault.
They should be accountable for your losses.
I find it amazing"It is against the law to use a legal product on 'private'
property.
It is not about 'Health' and never was about 'Health'
It is all about de-normalizing smoking.
The politicians don't care.
All they care is about getting elected or re-elected.
They know that 75% of the voters don't smoke.
www.puckandbeaver.com
www.forces.org
www.smokersrightscanada.org
www.cantiloper.tripod.com
Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Ph. 807 3457258
God Bless
Tom
P. S.
We do not elect council so they can control and manipulate our behaviour.
They are in office to serve us, not visa versa.
Subject: Don't give up
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 03:17:11 -0500
Hi Guys Mar. 10/05
Just posted your sad affair on the Calgary Sun Forum
Hang in there. we'll win one way or another.
To bad you can't sue them for the difference of the sale of your business as
oppose to the sale of your business 'before' the smoking by-law came into
effect.
It wasn't your 'doings'(mismanagement) it was the Regions fault.
They should be accountable for your losses.
I find it amazing"It is against the law to use a legal product on 'private'
property.
It is not about 'Health' and never was about 'Health'
It is all about de-normalizing smoking.
The politicians don't care.
All they care is about getting elected or re-elected.
They know that 75% of the voters don't smoke.
www.puckandbeaver.com
www.forces.org
www.smokersrightscanada.org
www.cantiloper.tripod.com
Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Ph. 807 3457258
God Bless
Tom
P. S.
We do not elect council so they can control and manipulate our behaviour.
They are in office to serve us, not visa versa.
Monday, March 07, 2005
Here is a letter that was published in the Chronicle Journal Mar. 7/05
Cigarette manufacturer defends retail displays . Recently you published an article which quoted indviduals calling for a total ban on tobacco displays("Tobacco products in plain sight, surveys find,"Mar. 2).
In many cases the argument is that they somehow influence teens to start smoking. Health Canada's latest Youth Smoking Survey indicates that the most commonly stated "perceived reason that youth start smoking" is the behaviour of friends. That same survey has various categories of reasons of why youth start smoking--retail displays and impulse buying do not appear amongst them. It does however include: Peer pressure/friends; mother or father smokes; brothers or sisters smoke; popular kids smoke; curiosity; it's cool; something to do; it's not allowed; it's relaxing; weight control; and unspecific "other" category . The article also included the totally inaccurate claim that tobacco purchases are frequently impulsive. In actual fact, research conducted by the Meyers Research Centre in 2003 showed that 99 per cent of Canadians adults have already planned their purchase of tobacco products before they even enter the store. Retail display bans ultimately penalize adult smokers and legitimate businesses. Displays of our products do not influence the decision to smoke but rather the decision as to which brand to purchase. In some retail outlets adult smokers can choose amongst more than 400 tobacco products. These retail displays are currently the only legal means available to let adult smokers know about price and availability--including information about new brands. For tobacco companies this is important because it allows us to compete to become the choice of adult smokers--something important in a constantly shrinking market. Banning these displays inevitably penalizes many convenience store owners who rely on the money these displays provide as a key part of their livelihood.
Christina Dona Manager,
Media relations
Imperial Tobacco
CanadaMontreal
Cigarette manufacturer defends retail displays . Recently you published an article which quoted indviduals calling for a total ban on tobacco displays("Tobacco products in plain sight, surveys find,"Mar. 2).
In many cases the argument is that they somehow influence teens to start smoking. Health Canada's latest Youth Smoking Survey indicates that the most commonly stated "perceived reason that youth start smoking" is the behaviour of friends. That same survey has various categories of reasons of why youth start smoking--retail displays and impulse buying do not appear amongst them. It does however include: Peer pressure/friends; mother or father smokes; brothers or sisters smoke; popular kids smoke; curiosity; it's cool; something to do; it's not allowed; it's relaxing; weight control; and unspecific "other" category . The article also included the totally inaccurate claim that tobacco purchases are frequently impulsive. In actual fact, research conducted by the Meyers Research Centre in 2003 showed that 99 per cent of Canadians adults have already planned their purchase of tobacco products before they even enter the store. Retail display bans ultimately penalize adult smokers and legitimate businesses. Displays of our products do not influence the decision to smoke but rather the decision as to which brand to purchase. In some retail outlets adult smokers can choose amongst more than 400 tobacco products. These retail displays are currently the only legal means available to let adult smokers know about price and availability--including information about new brands. For tobacco companies this is important because it allows us to compete to become the choice of adult smokers--something important in a constantly shrinking market. Banning these displays inevitably penalizes many convenience store owners who rely on the money these displays provide as a key part of their livelihood.
Christina Dona Manager,
Media relations
Imperial Tobacco
CanadaMontreal
Calgary Sun
Dear Editor Mar. 5/05
Rather than let government decide the smoking fate of private establishments, it would be better to let each individual business make its own decision. If the public wants to go somewhere that's non-smoking, it'll be evident in the types of businesses that prosper.
Dear Editor Mar. 5/05
Rather than let government decide the smoking fate of private establishments, it would be better to let each individual business make its own decision. If the public wants to go somewhere that's non-smoking, it'll be evident in the types of businesses that prosper.
Calgary Sun
Dear Editor Mar. 5/05
Rather than let government decide the smoking fate of private establishments, it would be better to let each individual business make its own decision. If the public wants to go somewhere that's non-smoking, it'll be evident in the types of businesses that prosper.
Dear Editor Mar. 5/05
Rather than let government decide the smoking fate of private establishments, it would be better to let each individual business make its own decision. If the public wants to go somewhere that's non-smoking, it'll be evident in the types of businesses that prosper.
Calgary Sun
Dear Editor Mar. 5/05
Rather than let government decide the smoking fate of private establishments, it would be better to let each individual business make its own decision. If the public wants to go somewhere that's non-smoking, it'll be evident in the types of businesses that prosper.
Dear Editor Mar. 5/05
Rather than let government decide the smoking fate of private establishments, it would be better to let each individual business make its own decision. If the public wants to go somewhere that's non-smoking, it'll be evident in the types of businesses that prosper.
Calgary Sun
Dear Editor Mar. 5/05
Rather than let government decide the smoking fate of private establishments, it would be better to let each individual business make its own decision. If the public wants to go somewhere that's non-smoking, it'll be evident in the types of businesses that prosper.
Dear Editor Mar. 5/05
Rather than let government decide the smoking fate of private establishments, it would be better to let each individual business make its own decision. If the public wants to go somewhere that's non-smoking, it'll be evident in the types of businesses that prosper.
Calgary Sun
Dear Editor Mar. 5/05
Rather than let government decide the smoking fate of private establishments, it would be better to let each individual business make its own decision. If the public wants to go somewhere that's non-smoking, it'll be evident in the types of businesses that prosper.
Dear Editor Mar. 5/05
Rather than let government decide the smoking fate of private establishments, it would be better to let each individual business make its own decision. If the public wants to go somewhere that's non-smoking, it'll be evident in the types of businesses that prosper.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
lettertoed@thestar.ca
Why doesn't the Ont. government promote smoking??
Dear Editor, Mar. 2/05
"Ontario spends more than $500 million each year promoting gambling and enticing gamblers with freebies. The government says it spends $4.7 million a year to promote public awareness of the pitfalls of gambling." How much money is spent by the Ontario Government to promote smoking??
Both vices are bad for your 'Health'
But good for the government coffers!!
Why doesn't the Ont. government promote smoking??
Dear Editor, Mar. 2/05
"Ontario spends more than $500 million each year promoting gambling and enticing gamblers with freebies. The government says it spends $4.7 million a year to promote public awareness of the pitfalls of gambling." How much money is spent by the Ontario Government to promote smoking??
Both vices are bad for your 'Health'
But good for the government coffers!!
The Globe and Mail Mar. 6/05
I am polluted You are exposed to hundreds of chemicals every day, so it's not surprising that they get inside you. MARK STEVENSON has himself tested in the name of the emerging and unsettling science of body burden
By MARK STEVENSON Saturday, March 5, 2005
BOSTON -- My nose is clamped and I'm trying not to choke on a tube a scientist at Harvard University has stuffed in my mouth. I am blowing into a clear plastic bag, which is sealed and later studied for what it contains.
Sure, everyone suffers occasionally from a little bad breath. But what they found in mine was enough to keep my wife away for a week.
Besides my breath, researchers at Harvard's School of Public Health examined my blood, hair, urine, toenails and bones. It's all in the name of the emerging science of body burden, a concept referring to the amount of chemicals that accumulate in the human body.
As it turns out, I am polluted. Everyone is to some degree. But as the list of toxic chemicals identified in people continues to grow, scientists are trying to figure out what the implications are for human health.
"It is alarming," Professor John Spengler says. "This is not meant to be settling information. I think if more people wake up to this fact, the better we are going to be . . . and the more demanding we're going to be of our governments and our industries."
An estimated 35,000 chemicals are in commercial use in Canada and more than twice as many in the United States. The national American government registers an average of 2,000 newly synthesized chemicals each year.
Cosmetics have at least 5,000 chemicals; more than 3,200 are added to food. As many as 1,010 chemicals are used in the production of 11,700 consumer products, and about 500 chemicals are used as active ingredients in pesticides, according to Environmental Protection Agency data cited by the Environmental Working Group, based in Washington, D.C.
Many chemicals end up in the environment, even thousands of kilometres from industry.
Despite being banned years ago, PCBs are still found in Arctic wildlife. Biologists are also finding rising levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), flame retardants used in foam, textiles and plastics, as well as chlorinated paraffins, chemicals used in paints, sealants and rubber-processing.
Scotchgard, which is part of a family of chemicals used to make clothes, carpets and furniture stain-resistant, has been found in polar bears in Alaska and bald eagles around the Great Lakes.
If chemicals are showing up in wildlife and the environment, it's no surprise that many are being discovered in people.
"Pretty much from the minute you wake up to the moment you go to bed, you're exposed to hundreds and hundreds of chemicals," says Jane Houlihan, vice-president of research for the Environmental Working Group. ". . . In most cases, they're in minuscule quantities. But that fact is it's hundreds [of chemicals] and they're adding up."
What's disturbing, Prof. Spengler says, is how the majority of the chemicals have been approved for use without any research being done on their potential impact on human health, except mainly for those that end up in drugs or food.
What's more, little is known about what our chemical body burden truly is. "So measurements like we're doing on you, and myself, and our research subjects are really part of a new frontier because it's really trying to understand . . . what effects these might have on disruption of human function," Prof. Spengler says.
No extensive study has considered the chemical body burden of Canadians, although separate studies have reported the presence of individual compounds -- for example, research documenting a dramatic rise of PBDEs in breast milk.
More wide-ranging studies have been done in the United States.
In one, researchers found at an average of 91 "industrial compounds, pollutants and chemicals" in the blood and urine of nine volunteers and a total of 167 chemicals in the group. According to the research, conducted by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York with the Environmental Working Group, "76 cause cancer in humans or animals, 94 are toxic to the brain or nervous system, and 79 cause birth defects or abnormal development." None of the people tested worked with chemicals or lived near an industrial facility.
"I expected to find many different chemicals," Ms. Houlihan says. "But to actually see the numbers roll out that show that one person has 100 chemicals in their blood at one time. It's pretty powerful."
The most comprehensive research on body burden to date was conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and released in 2003. As part of the $6.5-million (U.S.) report, the agency tested the blood and urine of 2,500 volunteers for 116 compounds, including PCBs, pesticides, dioxins, furans and metals.
It found many of the contaminants in at least half of the people they tested. As well, researchers discovered elevated levels of lead in the blood of children and the ubiquitous presence of phthalates, chemicals widely used in plastics that are linked to cancer and reproductive problems in studies on rats.
Meanwhile, they also discovered that chemicals such as DDT and PCBs, which are banned or restricted, appear to be going down.
"Just because they can [detect it] doesn't mean it's at a dangerous level or a level that causes health effects. It mostly reflects the fact that we've improved our ability to measure," says Jim Pirkle, deputy director of science for the CDC, referring to new technology that allows scientists to identify compounds in amounts that would have gone unnoticed a decade earlier.
Dr. Pirkle notes that most of the chemicals being found are in infinitesimally small amounts of parts per million and parts per billion, equivalent to a grain of rice in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
"There are going to be small levels of many things in people. That's because they're dispersed in low levels all over the environment. What you really have to do is stop and look at them one by one and go through them and say, 'Is that a level that's likely to cause disease? Is that a level that's so trivially small, we have good instruments that can measure it, but it's so small it's not of any concern?' You have to do that one chemical at a time."
All this brings us back to Harvard and my own results.
After bombarding my knee for half an hour with a small amount of radiation, the technician in the bone lab gives me the news: My skeleton is contaminated with lead.
Lead is an acute toxin. It's poisonous at higher levels. But even at low concentrations, research has linked it to an increased risk of hypertension, kidney disease, impaired neurological development in children, even cataracts.
The good news is my lead levels place me well within the average range for someone my age with no appreciable health risk, says Howard Hu, a professor of occupational and health medicine at Harvard's School of Public Health.
Others are less fortunate. Dr. Hu has measured lead amounts five to 10 times higher in many women, posing potential harm to their unborn babies.
"There's so many different exposure routes that just living and breathing can provide exposures today," he says. "Lead is in many different consumer products. It was in gasoline. . . . It was in food cans, pipes and solder. . . . It was in toys and plastics."
In another lab across the street, scientists have clipped a lock of my hair and are analyzing it. It will tell them how much mercury my body contains.
Although it occurs naturally in the environment, mercury is also a byproduct of coal-fired power plants and waste incinerators. When it enters the water and reacts with bacteria, it is transformed into methyl mercury and it accumulates in fish, and people when they eat it.
It's a neurotoxin and the human fetus is particularly vulnerable. At low doses, it can cause subtle changes to the developing brain; at larger doses, it can cause blindness and other birth defects. At high levels, it can kill nerve cells, causing blurred vision, lack of co-ordination and slurred speech.
Fortunately, my mercury level is .411 parts per million, about half the EPA guideline of 1 ppm.
Next came my blood results. As it turns out, my blood contains PCBs and pesticides, including DDT, an insecticide banned in North America decades ago. But for many people my age, my results are considered well within the low-to-average range.
Unfortunately, as Russ Hauser of Harvard's School of Public Health points out, his research is finding that men exposed to similar doses have problems with semen quality, which is associated with infertility.
"PCBs and DDT were banned decades ago, but they're still present in the environment," Dr. Hauser says. "You're exposed primarily through intake of food because they accumulate as we move up the food chain. . . . So consuming fish, dairy products, meats, that's primarily how you're exposed."
Although the Harvard scientists were looking for arsenic, a highly poisonous metal, in my toenails, they found virtually none. Prof. Spengler wasn't surprised, saying it's something they typically find in people who drink water from a well and mine comes from a lake.
But he was amazed by something in my breath, the content of which is an indicator of relatively recent exposure to chemicals in the air. It wasn't the list of solvents, such as benzene, that are often associated with vehicle exhaust. It was MTBE, a fuel additive that is not supposed to be widely used in Canada (less than 2 per cent of gas in this country contains it, according to Environment Canada). Prof. Spengler speculates I breathed in MTBE on the way to Harvard in a taxi.
In total, the scientists found 76 chemicals in my body, including PCBs, pesticides, solvents and metals. Even though my body contains extremely small amounts of them, I can't help but ask Prof. Spengler whether I should be worried.
"I would say you're not very toxic compared to people we've measured all over the world, even compared to me," he says.
He points out that his own DDT levels place him in the top fifth of Americans. I'm in the bottom fifth.
"On the one hand, you might say, 'Well, I'm normal. I might be a little high on one thing and low on another.' But that's not the way we should look at it."
Prof. Spengler says the issue is not whether one has an average amount of chemicals in his body. Rather, it's why the average person is carrying around so many chemicals in the first place.
There has been little scientific inquiry into the net effect of being exposed to many chemicals at the same time, the so-called "toxic soup effect."
Complicating the toxicology is the counterintuitive concept of hormesis, a phenomenon in which a small dose of an otherwise toxic substance can be helpful. Studies on plants and animals have documented it in alcohol, antibiotics, hydrocarbons and pesticides.
Nevertheless, Prof. Spengler and many other scientists believe that exposure to a range of chemicals in the environment may be behind a host of emerging health problems in addition to those already well documented. "We're concerned about the growing rates of cancer in our society, the growing rates of autism," he says. "In most developed countries, asthma has grown substantially over the past 20 years, particularly in children"
As for myself, Prof. Spengler says there's very little I can do to reduce the contamination that is already in my body. Aside from eating different types of fish to lower my mercury level, the PCBs and pesticides are there for the long haul while the solvents will continue to show up in my breath as long as I'm exposed to cars and trucks, which are kind of difficult to avoid.
Prof. Spengler says the solution is targeting chemicals we don't want in our bodies in the first place. He points to PBDEs, which has been referred to as the "PCBs of the 21st century."
Research commissioned by The Globe and Mail and CTV News found that many everyday foods consumed by Canadians -- such as salmon, ground beef, cheese and butter -- are laced with PBDEs.
In Sweden, the flame retardants were banned after rising levels were noticed in the breast milk of women. "They said to the industry, 'We don't want them in our plastics. We don't what them in our materials' -- and they started to see the levels come down," Prof. Spengler says.
"Now, you see the similar data out of North American women. . . . The levels are already 50 times higher in our populations and nobody is saying, 'Ban that product.' . . . So I think this really has to do with how we've come to judge what is beneficial to the population," he says. "[But] at what point do we invoke some precaution?"
Mark Stevenson is an independent producer and a regular contributor to the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet. A version of this feature has aired on the show.
MARK'S BODY
Test results show low levels of 76 chemicals.
Metals in blood*
metal Normal levels (ppb): Mark's levels (ppb): Lead <100 19.13 Manganese 4.2-16.5 969 Cadmium <5 0.06
Mercury in hair
EPA reference level: 1.0 ppm
Mark's level: 0.411 ppm
Arsenic in toenails
Normal level: below 0.2 ppm
Mark's level: 0.032 ppm
Solvents in breath (nanogram/litre)
solvent Mark MTBE 6.22** Hexane 2.71 Benzene 4.23 Toluene 4.05 Xylene 1.38 Pinene 4.30 Limonene 108.42***
Pesticides in blood
Mark has 0.879 ppb of DDT (low to average)
PCBs in blood
Mark has 0.82 ppb (low to average)
Lead content in bone
Mark has 4.67 ppm (average)
*Lead, cadmium and mercury are not considered "natural" elements in the body. Manganese, on the other hand, is an essential element at very trace amounts.
**MTBE, a fuel additive to improve emissions, could have been inhaled in the United States where it is much more common than in Canada.
***The high limonene level could be attributed to orange juice or air freshener.http://www.theglobeandmail.com
I am polluted You are exposed to hundreds of chemicals every day, so it's not surprising that they get inside you. MARK STEVENSON has himself tested in the name of the emerging and unsettling science of body burden
By MARK STEVENSON Saturday, March 5, 2005
BOSTON -- My nose is clamped and I'm trying not to choke on a tube a scientist at Harvard University has stuffed in my mouth. I am blowing into a clear plastic bag, which is sealed and later studied for what it contains.
Sure, everyone suffers occasionally from a little bad breath. But what they found in mine was enough to keep my wife away for a week.
Besides my breath, researchers at Harvard's School of Public Health examined my blood, hair, urine, toenails and bones. It's all in the name of the emerging science of body burden, a concept referring to the amount of chemicals that accumulate in the human body.
As it turns out, I am polluted. Everyone is to some degree. But as the list of toxic chemicals identified in people continues to grow, scientists are trying to figure out what the implications are for human health.
"It is alarming," Professor John Spengler says. "This is not meant to be settling information. I think if more people wake up to this fact, the better we are going to be . . . and the more demanding we're going to be of our governments and our industries."
An estimated 35,000 chemicals are in commercial use in Canada and more than twice as many in the United States. The national American government registers an average of 2,000 newly synthesized chemicals each year.
Cosmetics have at least 5,000 chemicals; more than 3,200 are added to food. As many as 1,010 chemicals are used in the production of 11,700 consumer products, and about 500 chemicals are used as active ingredients in pesticides, according to Environmental Protection Agency data cited by the Environmental Working Group, based in Washington, D.C.
Many chemicals end up in the environment, even thousands of kilometres from industry.
Despite being banned years ago, PCBs are still found in Arctic wildlife. Biologists are also finding rising levels of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), flame retardants used in foam, textiles and plastics, as well as chlorinated paraffins, chemicals used in paints, sealants and rubber-processing.
Scotchgard, which is part of a family of chemicals used to make clothes, carpets and furniture stain-resistant, has been found in polar bears in Alaska and bald eagles around the Great Lakes.
If chemicals are showing up in wildlife and the environment, it's no surprise that many are being discovered in people.
"Pretty much from the minute you wake up to the moment you go to bed, you're exposed to hundreds and hundreds of chemicals," says Jane Houlihan, vice-president of research for the Environmental Working Group. ". . . In most cases, they're in minuscule quantities. But that fact is it's hundreds [of chemicals] and they're adding up."
What's disturbing, Prof. Spengler says, is how the majority of the chemicals have been approved for use without any research being done on their potential impact on human health, except mainly for those that end up in drugs or food.
What's more, little is known about what our chemical body burden truly is. "So measurements like we're doing on you, and myself, and our research subjects are really part of a new frontier because it's really trying to understand . . . what effects these might have on disruption of human function," Prof. Spengler says.
No extensive study has considered the chemical body burden of Canadians, although separate studies have reported the presence of individual compounds -- for example, research documenting a dramatic rise of PBDEs in breast milk.
More wide-ranging studies have been done in the United States.
In one, researchers found at an average of 91 "industrial compounds, pollutants and chemicals" in the blood and urine of nine volunteers and a total of 167 chemicals in the group. According to the research, conducted by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York with the Environmental Working Group, "76 cause cancer in humans or animals, 94 are toxic to the brain or nervous system, and 79 cause birth defects or abnormal development." None of the people tested worked with chemicals or lived near an industrial facility.
"I expected to find many different chemicals," Ms. Houlihan says. "But to actually see the numbers roll out that show that one person has 100 chemicals in their blood at one time. It's pretty powerful."
The most comprehensive research on body burden to date was conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and released in 2003. As part of the $6.5-million (U.S.) report, the agency tested the blood and urine of 2,500 volunteers for 116 compounds, including PCBs, pesticides, dioxins, furans and metals.
It found many of the contaminants in at least half of the people they tested. As well, researchers discovered elevated levels of lead in the blood of children and the ubiquitous presence of phthalates, chemicals widely used in plastics that are linked to cancer and reproductive problems in studies on rats.
Meanwhile, they also discovered that chemicals such as DDT and PCBs, which are banned or restricted, appear to be going down.
"Just because they can [detect it] doesn't mean it's at a dangerous level or a level that causes health effects. It mostly reflects the fact that we've improved our ability to measure," says Jim Pirkle, deputy director of science for the CDC, referring to new technology that allows scientists to identify compounds in amounts that would have gone unnoticed a decade earlier.
Dr. Pirkle notes that most of the chemicals being found are in infinitesimally small amounts of parts per million and parts per billion, equivalent to a grain of rice in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
"There are going to be small levels of many things in people. That's because they're dispersed in low levels all over the environment. What you really have to do is stop and look at them one by one and go through them and say, 'Is that a level that's likely to cause disease? Is that a level that's so trivially small, we have good instruments that can measure it, but it's so small it's not of any concern?' You have to do that one chemical at a time."
All this brings us back to Harvard and my own results.
After bombarding my knee for half an hour with a small amount of radiation, the technician in the bone lab gives me the news: My skeleton is contaminated with lead.
Lead is an acute toxin. It's poisonous at higher levels. But even at low concentrations, research has linked it to an increased risk of hypertension, kidney disease, impaired neurological development in children, even cataracts.
The good news is my lead levels place me well within the average range for someone my age with no appreciable health risk, says Howard Hu, a professor of occupational and health medicine at Harvard's School of Public Health.
Others are less fortunate. Dr. Hu has measured lead amounts five to 10 times higher in many women, posing potential harm to their unborn babies.
"There's so many different exposure routes that just living and breathing can provide exposures today," he says. "Lead is in many different consumer products. It was in gasoline. . . . It was in food cans, pipes and solder. . . . It was in toys and plastics."
In another lab across the street, scientists have clipped a lock of my hair and are analyzing it. It will tell them how much mercury my body contains.
Although it occurs naturally in the environment, mercury is also a byproduct of coal-fired power plants and waste incinerators. When it enters the water and reacts with bacteria, it is transformed into methyl mercury and it accumulates in fish, and people when they eat it.
It's a neurotoxin and the human fetus is particularly vulnerable. At low doses, it can cause subtle changes to the developing brain; at larger doses, it can cause blindness and other birth defects. At high levels, it can kill nerve cells, causing blurred vision, lack of co-ordination and slurred speech.
Fortunately, my mercury level is .411 parts per million, about half the EPA guideline of 1 ppm.
Next came my blood results. As it turns out, my blood contains PCBs and pesticides, including DDT, an insecticide banned in North America decades ago. But for many people my age, my results are considered well within the low-to-average range.
Unfortunately, as Russ Hauser of Harvard's School of Public Health points out, his research is finding that men exposed to similar doses have problems with semen quality, which is associated with infertility.
"PCBs and DDT were banned decades ago, but they're still present in the environment," Dr. Hauser says. "You're exposed primarily through intake of food because they accumulate as we move up the food chain. . . . So consuming fish, dairy products, meats, that's primarily how you're exposed."
Although the Harvard scientists were looking for arsenic, a highly poisonous metal, in my toenails, they found virtually none. Prof. Spengler wasn't surprised, saying it's something they typically find in people who drink water from a well and mine comes from a lake.
But he was amazed by something in my breath, the content of which is an indicator of relatively recent exposure to chemicals in the air. It wasn't the list of solvents, such as benzene, that are often associated with vehicle exhaust. It was MTBE, a fuel additive that is not supposed to be widely used in Canada (less than 2 per cent of gas in this country contains it, according to Environment Canada). Prof. Spengler speculates I breathed in MTBE on the way to Harvard in a taxi.
In total, the scientists found 76 chemicals in my body, including PCBs, pesticides, solvents and metals. Even though my body contains extremely small amounts of them, I can't help but ask Prof. Spengler whether I should be worried.
"I would say you're not very toxic compared to people we've measured all over the world, even compared to me," he says.
He points out that his own DDT levels place him in the top fifth of Americans. I'm in the bottom fifth.
"On the one hand, you might say, 'Well, I'm normal. I might be a little high on one thing and low on another.' But that's not the way we should look at it."
Prof. Spengler says the issue is not whether one has an average amount of chemicals in his body. Rather, it's why the average person is carrying around so many chemicals in the first place.
There has been little scientific inquiry into the net effect of being exposed to many chemicals at the same time, the so-called "toxic soup effect."
Complicating the toxicology is the counterintuitive concept of hormesis, a phenomenon in which a small dose of an otherwise toxic substance can be helpful. Studies on plants and animals have documented it in alcohol, antibiotics, hydrocarbons and pesticides.
Nevertheless, Prof. Spengler and many other scientists believe that exposure to a range of chemicals in the environment may be behind a host of emerging health problems in addition to those already well documented. "We're concerned about the growing rates of cancer in our society, the growing rates of autism," he says. "In most developed countries, asthma has grown substantially over the past 20 years, particularly in children"
As for myself, Prof. Spengler says there's very little I can do to reduce the contamination that is already in my body. Aside from eating different types of fish to lower my mercury level, the PCBs and pesticides are there for the long haul while the solvents will continue to show up in my breath as long as I'm exposed to cars and trucks, which are kind of difficult to avoid.
Prof. Spengler says the solution is targeting chemicals we don't want in our bodies in the first place. He points to PBDEs, which has been referred to as the "PCBs of the 21st century."
Research commissioned by The Globe and Mail and CTV News found that many everyday foods consumed by Canadians -- such as salmon, ground beef, cheese and butter -- are laced with PBDEs.
In Sweden, the flame retardants were banned after rising levels were noticed in the breast milk of women. "They said to the industry, 'We don't want them in our plastics. We don't what them in our materials' -- and they started to see the levels come down," Prof. Spengler says.
"Now, you see the similar data out of North American women. . . . The levels are already 50 times higher in our populations and nobody is saying, 'Ban that product.' . . . So I think this really has to do with how we've come to judge what is beneficial to the population," he says. "[But] at what point do we invoke some precaution?"
Mark Stevenson is an independent producer and a regular contributor to the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet. A version of this feature has aired on the show.
MARK'S BODY
Test results show low levels of 76 chemicals.
Metals in blood*
metal Normal levels (ppb): Mark's levels (ppb): Lead <100 19.13 Manganese 4.2-16.5 969 Cadmium <5 0.06
Mercury in hair
EPA reference level: 1.0 ppm
Mark's level: 0.411 ppm
Arsenic in toenails
Normal level: below 0.2 ppm
Mark's level: 0.032 ppm
Solvents in breath (nanogram/litre)
solvent Mark MTBE 6.22** Hexane 2.71 Benzene 4.23 Toluene 4.05 Xylene 1.38 Pinene 4.30 Limonene 108.42***
Pesticides in blood
Mark has 0.879 ppb of DDT (low to average)
PCBs in blood
Mark has 0.82 ppb (low to average)
Lead content in bone
Mark has 4.67 ppm (average)
*Lead, cadmium and mercury are not considered "natural" elements in the body. Manganese, on the other hand, is an essential element at very trace amounts.
**MTBE, a fuel additive to improve emissions, could have been inhaled in the United States where it is much more common than in Canada.
***The high limonene level could be attributed to orange juice or air freshener.http://www.theglobeandmail.com
Edm sun
Dear Editor, Mar. 5/05
Banning pit bulls because of their bite is the same as banning smoking in a pub because a smoker got cancer from smoking.
Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Ph. 807 3457258
www.forces.org
www.smokersrightscanada.org
_________________________________
Dear Editor, Mar. 5/05
Banning pit bulls because of their bite is the same as banning smoking in a pub because a smoker got cancer from smoking.
Thomas Laprade
480 Rupert St.
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Ph. 807 3457258
www.forces.org
www.smokersrightscanada.org
_________________________________
Friday, March 04, 2005
Jan. 9/05 Roxxon
A challenge in York county??
A little bit of advice that you should carefully consider when challenging Manitoba's provincial smoking ban.Your lawyers should not challenge a the provincial Supreme Court level.The government has likely already instructed judges exactly how to rule in any possible ban challenge.Any smoking ban challenge should be done at the federal Supreme Court level.Property rights, the government's authority to enact smoking bans within the confines should be key points of contention.The most important part of any such challenge should be the phantom dangers of ETS.Also, the anti's claims that, "There is no known safe level of human exposure to ETS," must also be refuted.Expert witnesses must be called in to testify.There is a current ongoing trial in York region, Ontario.It is also a Charter of Rights Challenge.If York's hospitality industry wins, it should set up legal challenges against many government imposed smoking bans all over Canada.Here is a link:http://www.pubcoalition.com/html/Newsletter_Members_june_Bulletin.pdfA strong word of advice:Any court challenge of government mandated smoking bans should attack the fraudulent guise that is the basis for all smoking bans..."Worker's or public health."The unproven dangers of ETS.Without challenging the junk science that the anti-smokers use as a means of stripping and usurping private hospitality industry owners of their private property rights...By means of a unproven, phantom health ordinance...All is lost.Unless some technicalities are noted.The non-dangers of ETS and ventilation solutions must be used as a means of attack.Even if ETS were a minor or major health risk, improved ventilation not complete indoor smoking prohibition would be the logical solution to controlling ETS exposure of non-smoking patrons and workers.A health ordinance that is perceived to be acted in the name of "public and worker's health, is considered by most legal experts to be more important than property rights or the rights of smokers to be treated as equal human beings.So for that very reason, the unproven dangers of ETS MUST BE CHALLENGED!Unless you happen to draw a completely, unbiased and fair judge, it is likely that they will side with the governments and the anti-smoking lobby unless the ETS myth can be exposed with expert witness testimony.I would also strongly suggest that your legal council contact:Morris Manning and PUBCO in regards to the ongoing Charter Of Rights smoking ban challenge in York, Ontario.It would likely be wise to contact B.C.'s COHO who successfully won in B.C. Supreme Court and defeated the WCB provincial smoking ban there.I wish you luck.You are fighting the good fight.
A challenge in York county??
A little bit of advice that you should carefully consider when challenging Manitoba's provincial smoking ban.Your lawyers should not challenge a the provincial Supreme Court level.The government has likely already instructed judges exactly how to rule in any possible ban challenge.Any smoking ban challenge should be done at the federal Supreme Court level.Property rights, the government's authority to enact smoking bans within the confines should be key points of contention.The most important part of any such challenge should be the phantom dangers of ETS.Also, the anti's claims that, "There is no known safe level of human exposure to ETS," must also be refuted.Expert witnesses must be called in to testify.There is a current ongoing trial in York region, Ontario.It is also a Charter of Rights Challenge.If York's hospitality industry wins, it should set up legal challenges against many government imposed smoking bans all over Canada.Here is a link:http://www.pubcoalition.com/html/Newsletter_Members_june_Bulletin.pdfA strong word of advice:Any court challenge of government mandated smoking bans should attack the fraudulent guise that is the basis for all smoking bans..."Worker's or public health."The unproven dangers of ETS.Without challenging the junk science that the anti-smokers use as a means of stripping and usurping private hospitality industry owners of their private property rights...By means of a unproven, phantom health ordinance...All is lost.Unless some technicalities are noted.The non-dangers of ETS and ventilation solutions must be used as a means of attack.Even if ETS were a minor or major health risk, improved ventilation not complete indoor smoking prohibition would be the logical solution to controlling ETS exposure of non-smoking patrons and workers.A health ordinance that is perceived to be acted in the name of "public and worker's health, is considered by most legal experts to be more important than property rights or the rights of smokers to be treated as equal human beings.So for that very reason, the unproven dangers of ETS MUST BE CHALLENGED!Unless you happen to draw a completely, unbiased and fair judge, it is likely that they will side with the governments and the anti-smoking lobby unless the ETS myth can be exposed with expert witness testimony.I would also strongly suggest that your legal council contact:Morris Manning and PUBCO in regards to the ongoing Charter Of Rights smoking ban challenge in York, Ontario.It would likely be wise to contact B.C.'s COHO who successfully won in B.C. Supreme Court and defeated the WCB provincial smoking ban there.I wish you luck.You are fighting the good fight.
Jan. 9/05 Roxxon Private home??
If a privately owned hospitality industry venue is defined by the anti-smoking lobby and the governments as a "public place", then a private home where any member of the "public" is invited to enter that private home by the home-owner or renter, why can't the government ban smoking within the confines of private homes?The minute that a smoker invites a non-smoker into their private home where smoking will take place, wouldn't that smoker's private home become a "public place?"By the anti-smoking government's definition of "public place" it would.The governments in some areas in North America have already amended their smoking bans and bylaws in the workplace and so-called "public places" to include private homes where businesses are run, like daycare and any private home-run business that has employees.Also home-care workers are also supposed to be able to refuse work in a home where smoking is permitted if they feel that ETS from that home poses a health risk to them, the employees.Even though outdoor smoking bans enacted in the name of health are completely absurd and useless.In fact the governments do have the authority to enact such smoking bans in true public places.The private hospitality industry is just that:PRIVATE PROPERTY!No one is forced to enter, patronize or work inside a smoking permitted private hospitality venue.The private hospitality industry is not a true public place.The public may accept the invitation from the private hospitality business owner and their staff providing that they follow the rules of the private hospitality business owner.Failure to abide by the "house rules" of the hospitality business owner and their staff can result in expulsion and or indefinite banishment.This is exactly why the anti-smoking lobby uses the fraudulent ETS danger scam to forward their smoke-free agenda.The second-hand tobacco sham strips the private property rights from the private property owner and often forces him or her to go smoke-free against their own wills.The anti-smoking faction knows all too well that smoking bans imposed by government mandate often damage the private hospitality sector businesses financially.In a free market the anti-smoking lobby knows that a large number of private hospitality industry venues would return to permitting smoking if they had a say or choice in the matter.Many smoke-free hospitality industry establishments had and have experimented with their own voluntary smoke-free policies and bans before the advent of government imposed smoking bans or bylaws.many of these businesses suffered great financial losses and returned to allowing smoking after the voluntary smoking bans hurt their bottom lines.Once in place smoking bans enacted by government decree are often here to stay.Unless the hospitality mounts expensive legal challenges to smoking bylaws and bans in a court of law.Many small businesses do not have the kind of money to do this.The anti-smoking lobby and the governments count on this.It's pretty difficult for a hospitality business owner to prove that ETS is a non-danger, with their often limited resources...When the rich anti-smoking lobby, the governments and the medical profession can not prove that ETS exposure is in fact a "pressing health risk."Back to the "public places" sham.If a private home owner decides to have a block party and invite people of all ages into his or her private home, would that home meet the anti-smoking-government definition of a "public place" where smoking bans are concerned?You bet that it would.Ontario Smoke-Nazi George Smitherman stated that he has not immediate plans to ban smoking in private homes, for the time being.He suggested that to do so would be beyond the government's authority.if that is true, government imposed smoking bans in the hospitality industry are also beyond the government's authority.The fact that government imposed smoking bans often lead to increased in-home smoking and personal ETS exposure where non-smokers and children are concerned.So the governments are more concerned about people in "public places" being exposed to ETS.But non-smoking people and children who live with smokers, have smoking families, friends or both DO NOT deserve the protection from ETS exposure that the rest of the non-smoking general public are supposed to enjoy under Ontario's new provincial anti-smoking law.Smitherman stated in his smoking ban address speech that "No Ontarian that does not wish to endure second-hand smoke exposure within the entire province, will no longer have to do so."That statement is disingenuous and untrue.In fact it's absurd!The governments will eventually come for smokers within their own private homes.They will claim the protection of children and other non-smokers will over-rule a smoker's right to smoke within their own private home.By the government's current definition of a "public place" most private homes where non-smoking guests and family members gather inside these homes, would also meet their own "public place" criteria.if the governments really want to "protect" non-smokers from ETS exposure they should simply criminalize the production and sales of all tobacco products.that is the true definition of "zero tolerance."The governments should also pay for smoking cessation for the entire nation.The antis often cry that if smoking was eliminated in this society that the governments would save billions of dollars in health-care costs.Good, then ban it.Give up all those tobacco taxation revenues and watch the health-care system collapse and implode within a few years time.Smokers are very cost effective.smokers pay more than 3 times their share of possible health-care costs.If ETS is so deadly, with "No safe level of human exposure."The governments should protect everyone and outlaw smoking and all tobacco products in this nation immediately!
If a privately owned hospitality industry venue is defined by the anti-smoking lobby and the governments as a "public place", then a private home where any member of the "public" is invited to enter that private home by the home-owner or renter, why can't the government ban smoking within the confines of private homes?The minute that a smoker invites a non-smoker into their private home where smoking will take place, wouldn't that smoker's private home become a "public place?"By the anti-smoking government's definition of "public place" it would.The governments in some areas in North America have already amended their smoking bans and bylaws in the workplace and so-called "public places" to include private homes where businesses are run, like daycare and any private home-run business that has employees.Also home-care workers are also supposed to be able to refuse work in a home where smoking is permitted if they feel that ETS from that home poses a health risk to them, the employees.Even though outdoor smoking bans enacted in the name of health are completely absurd and useless.In fact the governments do have the authority to enact such smoking bans in true public places.The private hospitality industry is just that:PRIVATE PROPERTY!No one is forced to enter, patronize or work inside a smoking permitted private hospitality venue.The private hospitality industry is not a true public place.The public may accept the invitation from the private hospitality business owner and their staff providing that they follow the rules of the private hospitality business owner.Failure to abide by the "house rules" of the hospitality business owner and their staff can result in expulsion and or indefinite banishment.This is exactly why the anti-smoking lobby uses the fraudulent ETS danger scam to forward their smoke-free agenda.The second-hand tobacco sham strips the private property rights from the private property owner and often forces him or her to go smoke-free against their own wills.The anti-smoking faction knows all too well that smoking bans imposed by government mandate often damage the private hospitality sector businesses financially.In a free market the anti-smoking lobby knows that a large number of private hospitality industry venues would return to permitting smoking if they had a say or choice in the matter.Many smoke-free hospitality industry establishments had and have experimented with their own voluntary smoke-free policies and bans before the advent of government imposed smoking bans or bylaws.many of these businesses suffered great financial losses and returned to allowing smoking after the voluntary smoking bans hurt their bottom lines.Once in place smoking bans enacted by government decree are often here to stay.Unless the hospitality mounts expensive legal challenges to smoking bylaws and bans in a court of law.Many small businesses do not have the kind of money to do this.The anti-smoking lobby and the governments count on this.It's pretty difficult for a hospitality business owner to prove that ETS is a non-danger, with their often limited resources...When the rich anti-smoking lobby, the governments and the medical profession can not prove that ETS exposure is in fact a "pressing health risk."Back to the "public places" sham.If a private home owner decides to have a block party and invite people of all ages into his or her private home, would that home meet the anti-smoking-government definition of a "public place" where smoking bans are concerned?You bet that it would.Ontario Smoke-Nazi George Smitherman stated that he has not immediate plans to ban smoking in private homes, for the time being.He suggested that to do so would be beyond the government's authority.if that is true, government imposed smoking bans in the hospitality industry are also beyond the government's authority.The fact that government imposed smoking bans often lead to increased in-home smoking and personal ETS exposure where non-smokers and children are concerned.So the governments are more concerned about people in "public places" being exposed to ETS.But non-smoking people and children who live with smokers, have smoking families, friends or both DO NOT deserve the protection from ETS exposure that the rest of the non-smoking general public are supposed to enjoy under Ontario's new provincial anti-smoking law.Smitherman stated in his smoking ban address speech that "No Ontarian that does not wish to endure second-hand smoke exposure within the entire province, will no longer have to do so."That statement is disingenuous and untrue.In fact it's absurd!The governments will eventually come for smokers within their own private homes.They will claim the protection of children and other non-smokers will over-rule a smoker's right to smoke within their own private home.By the government's current definition of a "public place" most private homes where non-smoking guests and family members gather inside these homes, would also meet their own "public place" criteria.if the governments really want to "protect" non-smokers from ETS exposure they should simply criminalize the production and sales of all tobacco products.that is the true definition of "zero tolerance."The governments should also pay for smoking cessation for the entire nation.The antis often cry that if smoking was eliminated in this society that the governments would save billions of dollars in health-care costs.Good, then ban it.Give up all those tobacco taxation revenues and watch the health-care system collapse and implode within a few years time.Smokers are very cost effective.smokers pay more than 3 times their share of possible health-care costs.If ETS is so deadly, with "No safe level of human exposure."The governments should protect everyone and outlaw smoking and all tobacco products in this nation immediately!
Jan. 7/05 Roxxon
Smoking bans cost money
Government imposed smoking bans cost a fortune to introduce and to police.There can be no doubt regarding this fact.No matter what Darko may want to believe.1.Extra smoke-police must be hired2.Huge amounts of overtime are paid to bylaw and ban inspectors.Most smoking ban or bylaw compliance checks are done during evening and late-night plain clothes(undercover inspector)stings.3.Court costs are also factored into the equation.This is exactly why most cities that enact smoking bylaws or bans have great difficulty enforcing their own smoking bans or bylaws.This is exactly why the cities lobby the provincial governments for a provincial standard.This way the province, not the cities must enforce the bans.4.The costs of introducing a smoking ban are often very, expensive prime examples of this are the cities of Victoria, B.C., K.W. Region, Ontario and Ottawa, Ontario.All of these local governments received provincial government funding in their smoke-free experiments.These local smoking bylaws were are test-cases.To test the waters for expanded smoking bans on a provincial basis.5. The mail-outs, surveys and polls that always are part of the smoke-free educational package for the hospitality industry also cost a lot of cash.No smoking literature and signage also add to the costs of smoking ban or bylaw introduction.When British Columbia attempted to enact the first provincial smoking ban the costs of doing so were staggering.The WCB admitted this fact.All fines that were collected during B.C.'s 80 day (failed) ban were refunded to those who had paid the fines and those who were awaiting court litigation in an attempt to dispute the ban, never had to pay a cent.A number of hospitality industry business owners who were openly defying the smoking ban in B.C. had received fines that often exceeded figures in the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.The province had never expected to face such opposition to their beloved, provincial smoking ban or such rampant defiance by smokers and hospitality industry business owners and their employees.Within a month of the ban's introduction, the B.C. court system was clogged with numerous smoking ban violation challenges.This too cost the province a small fortune.Smoking bans cost big money to implement and to enforce.
Smoking bans cost money
Government imposed smoking bans cost a fortune to introduce and to police.There can be no doubt regarding this fact.No matter what Darko may want to believe.1.Extra smoke-police must be hired2.Huge amounts of overtime are paid to bylaw and ban inspectors.Most smoking ban or bylaw compliance checks are done during evening and late-night plain clothes(undercover inspector)stings.3.Court costs are also factored into the equation.This is exactly why most cities that enact smoking bylaws or bans have great difficulty enforcing their own smoking bans or bylaws.This is exactly why the cities lobby the provincial governments for a provincial standard.This way the province, not the cities must enforce the bans.4.The costs of introducing a smoking ban are often very, expensive prime examples of this are the cities of Victoria, B.C., K.W. Region, Ontario and Ottawa, Ontario.All of these local governments received provincial government funding in their smoke-free experiments.These local smoking bylaws were are test-cases.To test the waters for expanded smoking bans on a provincial basis.5. The mail-outs, surveys and polls that always are part of the smoke-free educational package for the hospitality industry also cost a lot of cash.No smoking literature and signage also add to the costs of smoking ban or bylaw introduction.When British Columbia attempted to enact the first provincial smoking ban the costs of doing so were staggering.The WCB admitted this fact.All fines that were collected during B.C.'s 80 day (failed) ban were refunded to those who had paid the fines and those who were awaiting court litigation in an attempt to dispute the ban, never had to pay a cent.A number of hospitality industry business owners who were openly defying the smoking ban in B.C. had received fines that often exceeded figures in the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars.The province had never expected to face such opposition to their beloved, provincial smoking ban or such rampant defiance by smokers and hospitality industry business owners and their employees.Within a month of the ban's introduction, the B.C. court system was clogged with numerous smoking ban violation challenges.This too cost the province a small fortune.Smoking bans cost big money to implement and to enforce.
Jan. 5/06 Roxxon
Smoking outside danger for women
Get a bunch of drinking people (some who are using illegal and legal drugs, as well).Force them out into the street in order to smoke and you will have trouble, more arguments and fights.People who would have normally behaved are now outside and often unsupervised by bar and club staff.Drinking and sometimes drug using people will be forced to intermingle outdoors on streets and on smoking patios, this forces smoking patrons and their friends, families to often interact with other citizens who are in the outdoor vicinity of bars and clubs.I was never suggesting that the fighting only involves smokers.Or angry smokers who are mad because they are forced outside in order to smoke.What I am saying is that the general public on the street are now exposed to both smoking and non-smoking patrons on the street.This is often a recipe for disaster.Many people would rather have the smoking and non-smoking patrons who are drinking and sometimes under the influence of booze and drugs to stay inside the bar or nightclub and of the public streets when they have been drinking and consuming drugs.Everyone who has half a functioning brain knows that:Take a boozing person or a drug induced club or bar patron...Add booze and or drugs...The result are a bunch of assholes drinking outdoors on public streets.There is bound to be confrontation from both the hospitality industry patrons amongst themselves and with citizens on the streets.Where booze and drugs are concerned and their over-use and abuse are taking place, there will be the potential for trouble, noise and fights.It's a fact that many citizens do not want to interact with people that have been drinking and doing drugs in bar and clubs when the hospitality industry patrons are forced to go outside in order to smoke, on the streets.Smoking bans force the general public and hospitality industry patrons to have potential interaction together on the streets.This is a "no-brainer."Both smokers and non-smokers alike who wish to instigate fights can lie in wait for smokers and their non-smoking families and friends when the smoker goes outside in order to light up.Potential rapists can also follow their victims outside when the women who go outside to smoke venture outdoors alone.The bottom line:The more people that a forced to go outside in order to smoke who have been drinking sets up a potential for confrontation with non-hospitality industry patrons on the streets.There are also the increased noise levels that must be considered and tossed into the mix.A prime example:N.Y. city, the city that never sleeps where bars often stay open until after 4 am. in the morning.I guess mayor Bloomberg and the antis foolishly believe once their smoking ban was in place that most smokers would simply give up smoking.It hasn't happened and those smokers who still choose to patronize the hospitality industry in New York often go outside in order to smoke.Numerous noise complaints have been launched all over the city and state there.Bloomberg is talking about scaling back the hospitality industry's hours of operation there.Too many outdoor fights and too much noise from people congregating outdoors smokers, non-smokers alike.When most of the party shifts outdoors, the non-smokers often join their smoking friends and families outdoors on the streets and patios that border the city streets.Government imposed smoking bans have forced interaction with hospitality industry patrons and citizens on the streets.I have witnessed several outdoor confrontations between the general public, smokers and non-smokers that would not have likely taken place if the smokers and their families, friends, non-smoking hospitality patrons had not been forced to interact with one another and the general public on city streets, due to government imposed smoking bans that have forced this to happen.To put it into proper perspective...If you are not are bar or nightclub patron and you are just an average person walking down a city street you might feel more than uncomfortable if you were forced to walk by groups of smokers and non-smokers, many of who have been drinking and doing drugs inside the hospitality venues and who now out on the same city streets as you are.If a bike gang or an ethnic gang of young toughs are outside smoking on the streets (often with their non-smoking friends in tow) in front of bars or nightclubs, the very real potential for danger is there because of smoking bans.Some people merely have to look at someone from of the criminal element "the wrong way" and fights breakout.A simple comment by an innocent passer-by on the street can incite a riot..Many times intoxicated people look for fights.Out on the street there are many more potential combatants.The willing and the unwilling.Common sense dictates that one of the worst possible scenarios that a city can have is a bunch of intoxicated people outdoors on the city streets interacting with each other and with members of the general public, many of whom are not intoxicated.Since nightclub and bar hours were extended in Vancouver from 2am. to 4am. on a trial basis, the policing costs for the city have sky-rocketed.The city is trying to force the late-night hospitality industry to pick up police overtime costs in order to police the nightlife industry there.Outdoor noise directly related to the city's smoking bylaw is a huge factor.Put a bunch of people who have been drinking and or consuming drugs, outdoors late at night and there surely be increased noise, increased fighting and other crimes.I never suggested that smoking bans were the sole cause for all street crime.What I am stating is that the more people you force out on the street increases the chance of fighting, other forms of crime and noise.There was always a large amount of street crime in Vancouver before the advent of their smoking bylaw.Now there are many more people on the streets at most given times due to the Vancouver city smoking bylaw.
Smoking outside danger for women
Get a bunch of drinking people (some who are using illegal and legal drugs, as well).Force them out into the street in order to smoke and you will have trouble, more arguments and fights.People who would have normally behaved are now outside and often unsupervised by bar and club staff.Drinking and sometimes drug using people will be forced to intermingle outdoors on streets and on smoking patios, this forces smoking patrons and their friends, families to often interact with other citizens who are in the outdoor vicinity of bars and clubs.I was never suggesting that the fighting only involves smokers.Or angry smokers who are mad because they are forced outside in order to smoke.What I am saying is that the general public on the street are now exposed to both smoking and non-smoking patrons on the street.This is often a recipe for disaster.Many people would rather have the smoking and non-smoking patrons who are drinking and sometimes under the influence of booze and drugs to stay inside the bar or nightclub and of the public streets when they have been drinking and consuming drugs.Everyone who has half a functioning brain knows that:Take a boozing person or a drug induced club or bar patron...Add booze and or drugs...The result are a bunch of assholes drinking outdoors on public streets.There is bound to be confrontation from both the hospitality industry patrons amongst themselves and with citizens on the streets.Where booze and drugs are concerned and their over-use and abuse are taking place, there will be the potential for trouble, noise and fights.It's a fact that many citizens do not want to interact with people that have been drinking and doing drugs in bar and clubs when the hospitality industry patrons are forced to go outside in order to smoke, on the streets.Smoking bans force the general public and hospitality industry patrons to have potential interaction together on the streets.This is a "no-brainer."Both smokers and non-smokers alike who wish to instigate fights can lie in wait for smokers and their non-smoking families and friends when the smoker goes outside in order to light up.Potential rapists can also follow their victims outside when the women who go outside to smoke venture outdoors alone.The bottom line:The more people that a forced to go outside in order to smoke who have been drinking sets up a potential for confrontation with non-hospitality industry patrons on the streets.There are also the increased noise levels that must be considered and tossed into the mix.A prime example:N.Y. city, the city that never sleeps where bars often stay open until after 4 am. in the morning.I guess mayor Bloomberg and the antis foolishly believe once their smoking ban was in place that most smokers would simply give up smoking.It hasn't happened and those smokers who still choose to patronize the hospitality industry in New York often go outside in order to smoke.Numerous noise complaints have been launched all over the city and state there.Bloomberg is talking about scaling back the hospitality industry's hours of operation there.Too many outdoor fights and too much noise from people congregating outdoors smokers, non-smokers alike.When most of the party shifts outdoors, the non-smokers often join their smoking friends and families outdoors on the streets and patios that border the city streets.Government imposed smoking bans have forced interaction with hospitality industry patrons and citizens on the streets.I have witnessed several outdoor confrontations between the general public, smokers and non-smokers that would not have likely taken place if the smokers and their families, friends, non-smoking hospitality patrons had not been forced to interact with one another and the general public on city streets, due to government imposed smoking bans that have forced this to happen.To put it into proper perspective...If you are not are bar or nightclub patron and you are just an average person walking down a city street you might feel more than uncomfortable if you were forced to walk by groups of smokers and non-smokers, many of who have been drinking and doing drugs inside the hospitality venues and who now out on the same city streets as you are.If a bike gang or an ethnic gang of young toughs are outside smoking on the streets (often with their non-smoking friends in tow) in front of bars or nightclubs, the very real potential for danger is there because of smoking bans.Some people merely have to look at someone from of the criminal element "the wrong way" and fights breakout.A simple comment by an innocent passer-by on the street can incite a riot..Many times intoxicated people look for fights.Out on the street there are many more potential combatants.The willing and the unwilling.Common sense dictates that one of the worst possible scenarios that a city can have is a bunch of intoxicated people outdoors on the city streets interacting with each other and with members of the general public, many of whom are not intoxicated.Since nightclub and bar hours were extended in Vancouver from 2am. to 4am. on a trial basis, the policing costs for the city have sky-rocketed.The city is trying to force the late-night hospitality industry to pick up police overtime costs in order to police the nightlife industry there.Outdoor noise directly related to the city's smoking bylaw is a huge factor.Put a bunch of people who have been drinking and or consuming drugs, outdoors late at night and there surely be increased noise, increased fighting and other crimes.I never suggested that smoking bans were the sole cause for all street crime.What I am stating is that the more people you force out on the street increases the chance of fighting, other forms of crime and noise.There was always a large amount of street crime in Vancouver before the advent of their smoking bylaw.Now there are many more people on the streets at most given times due to the Vancouver city smoking bylaw.
Jan. 6/05 Roxxon
More about!!
More about the ETS injury illness scam:If ETS really was killing hundreds or thousands or millions of non-smokers all over the planet many of these people would be speaking out advocating the enactment of 100% smoking bans within the hospitality industry.These people would have names, faces and real diseases.Heather Crowe is cancer-free yet commercials are still running where she erroneously states she has a smokers tumour and is dying of ETS exposure from her former workplace.Miraculously Crowe's cancer has gone into remission, despite her previous claims where she claimed that her cancer was inoperable.This woman now claims she was have extensive chemotherapy treatments while she was on a virtually non-stop, smoking ban promotion tour all over this country and in some U.S. states.Chemo is often more deadly than the cancer it is supposed to cure.Most chemo patients wouldn't be getting out of bed, much less conducting an anti-smoking media blitz and touring the country calling for the government enactment workplace smoking bans.Something to realistically consider:The anti-smoking lobby constantly state that "There is no safe level of human exposure, to ETS."If this is true the governments and workmen's compensation boards should have no problem paying out ETS injury claims to life-long non-smokers.The insurance companies could be hit with a wave of ETS injury, illness claims from every non-smoker that has ever worked in the hospitality industry.The ETS is "deadly" myth has been around for about 23 years now.most governments who refused to enact smoking bans within that time-frame could be considered negligent and liable for any worker or former worker's ETS health injury claims and would be forced to pay out financial benefits to potentially millions of ETS victims.As long as they were non-smokers.Many of these victims would publicly call for the enactment of 100% indoor smoking bans in every workplace.If there are so many ETS victims why is Heather Crowe the only publicized ETS workplace victim in all of North America?What about the 86,000 estimated ETS deaths per year that the U.S. EPA estimates?Including 3,000 estimated lung cancer victims?Are you suggesting that not even one of these victims would dare to speak out in order to save the lives of other workers by promoting smoking bans in all workplaces by government decree?All of these people are so concerned with their own personal privacy they would idly hide and watch millions of other people contract ETS related illnesses?I do not think so.
More about!!
More about the ETS injury illness scam:If ETS really was killing hundreds or thousands or millions of non-smokers all over the planet many of these people would be speaking out advocating the enactment of 100% smoking bans within the hospitality industry.These people would have names, faces and real diseases.Heather Crowe is cancer-free yet commercials are still running where she erroneously states she has a smokers tumour and is dying of ETS exposure from her former workplace.Miraculously Crowe's cancer has gone into remission, despite her previous claims where she claimed that her cancer was inoperable.This woman now claims she was have extensive chemotherapy treatments while she was on a virtually non-stop, smoking ban promotion tour all over this country and in some U.S. states.Chemo is often more deadly than the cancer it is supposed to cure.Most chemo patients wouldn't be getting out of bed, much less conducting an anti-smoking media blitz and touring the country calling for the government enactment workplace smoking bans.Something to realistically consider:The anti-smoking lobby constantly state that "There is no safe level of human exposure, to ETS."If this is true the governments and workmen's compensation boards should have no problem paying out ETS injury claims to life-long non-smokers.The insurance companies could be hit with a wave of ETS injury, illness claims from every non-smoker that has ever worked in the hospitality industry.The ETS is "deadly" myth has been around for about 23 years now.most governments who refused to enact smoking bans within that time-frame could be considered negligent and liable for any worker or former worker's ETS health injury claims and would be forced to pay out financial benefits to potentially millions of ETS victims.As long as they were non-smokers.Many of these victims would publicly call for the enactment of 100% indoor smoking bans in every workplace.If there are so many ETS victims why is Heather Crowe the only publicized ETS workplace victim in all of North America?What about the 86,000 estimated ETS deaths per year that the U.S. EPA estimates?Including 3,000 estimated lung cancer victims?Are you suggesting that not even one of these victims would dare to speak out in order to save the lives of other workers by promoting smoking bans in all workplaces by government decree?All of these people are so concerned with their own personal privacy they would idly hide and watch millions of other people contract ETS related illnesses?I do not think so.
Jan. 6/05 Roxxon
If WHO and MADD had their way!!
If the WHO and MADD get their ways, soon you will not be able to drink in the private hospitality industry.Which the anti-smoking nuts and politically correct politicians wrongly define as "public places" as to suit their agenda.This effectively strips private property owners of their property rights.By their twisted logic, a private home could also be considered a "public place" if the private property owner(s) allows members of the general public to visit his or her private home.Once again we see the frightening use of a zero tolerance policy.This is from the WHO's own website.This time alcohol is the "evil" menace that the World Health Organization wants to denormalize and demonize.The World Health Org.:"Public healthThe health and well-being of many young people today are being seriously threatened by the use of alcohol and other psychoactive substances.From a public health perspective, the message is clear: there is no scientific evidence for a safe limit of alcohol consumption, and particularly not for children and young adolescents, the most vulnerable groups.Many children are also victims of the consequences of drinking by others, especially family members, resulting in family breakdown, economic and emotional poverty, neglect, abuse, violence and lost opportunities. Public health policies concerning alcohol need to be formulated by public health interests, without interference from commercial interests. One source of major concern is the efforts made by the alcohol beverage industry and hospitality sector to commercialize sport and youth culture by extensive promotion and sponsorship." More zero tolerance bunk...No known safe consumption level of alcohol!Hysterical and completely untrue!Zero tolerance = Zero logic.
If WHO and MADD had their way!!
If the WHO and MADD get their ways, soon you will not be able to drink in the private hospitality industry.Which the anti-smoking nuts and politically correct politicians wrongly define as "public places" as to suit their agenda.This effectively strips private property owners of their property rights.By their twisted logic, a private home could also be considered a "public place" if the private property owner(s) allows members of the general public to visit his or her private home.Once again we see the frightening use of a zero tolerance policy.This is from the WHO's own website.This time alcohol is the "evil" menace that the World Health Organization wants to denormalize and demonize.The World Health Org.:"Public healthThe health and well-being of many young people today are being seriously threatened by the use of alcohol and other psychoactive substances.From a public health perspective, the message is clear: there is no scientific evidence for a safe limit of alcohol consumption, and particularly not for children and young adolescents, the most vulnerable groups.Many children are also victims of the consequences of drinking by others, especially family members, resulting in family breakdown, economic and emotional poverty, neglect, abuse, violence and lost opportunities. Public health policies concerning alcohol need to be formulated by public health interests, without interference from commercial interests. One source of major concern is the efforts made by the alcohol beverage industry and hospitality sector to commercialize sport and youth culture by extensive promotion and sponsorship." More zero tolerance bunk...No known safe consumption level of alcohol!Hysterical and completely untrue!Zero tolerance = Zero logic.
Jan. 5/05 Roxxon
Pretend that ETS info is true!!
Let us pretend that the claims by the anti-smoking lobby are true and factual."That there is no safe known level of ETS exposure for humans."If this were true the governments and health insurance companies should have no problem in compensating any worker who was exposed to ETs in their workplaces over the last 23 years when the "deadly" dangers of ETS were supposedly first discovered scientifically.The local, provincial, state and national governments would have been flagrantly negligent by continuing to permit smoking to take place in any workplaces within their area's boundaries.The governments can plead ignorance to the fact that ETS was a scientifically proven killer, yet they did little if anything to control most workplace smoking, especially within the private hospitality sector.If the governments and health insurance companies received massive amounts of ETS injury-death benefit claims...One thing is for certain...They would try to downplay the so-called dangers attributed to workplace ETS exposure.The governments and insurance companies could be on the hook for billions of dollars worth of ETS injury-illness awards and financial pay outs.The anti-smoking groups like ASH often threaten governments to enact smoking bans by asserting that the governments, employers and employee insurance companies would all be liable for ETS illness damages if they fail to impose complete indoor smoking bans.What the antis fail to realize is that if what they are saying is true...The governments, employee-employer insurance companies could be liable for thousands or millions of workplace ETS injury awards and payments.Most of these governments, health boards and employer-employee insurance companies failed to protect workers from the dangers of workplace ETS exposure for over the last 2 decades.Even though ETS was considered a pressing workplace health risk by the World Health Organization, it's doctors and scientists.It's understandable why the governments do not want to pay out a huge amount of workplace ETS-injury claims.None-the-less this does not absolve them of negligence and wrong doing in regards to failing to protect all workers from ETS exposure.Ignorance is no valid form of defence in a court of law.If ETS were as deadly as the anti-smoking faction claims it to be, with no safe level of human exposure...All ETS workplace-injury claims should be accepted and paid without question.Providing that the worker never smoked.
Pretend that ETS info is true!!
Let us pretend that the claims by the anti-smoking lobby are true and factual."That there is no safe known level of ETS exposure for humans."If this were true the governments and health insurance companies should have no problem in compensating any worker who was exposed to ETs in their workplaces over the last 23 years when the "deadly" dangers of ETS were supposedly first discovered scientifically.The local, provincial, state and national governments would have been flagrantly negligent by continuing to permit smoking to take place in any workplaces within their area's boundaries.The governments can plead ignorance to the fact that ETS was a scientifically proven killer, yet they did little if anything to control most workplace smoking, especially within the private hospitality sector.If the governments and health insurance companies received massive amounts of ETS injury-death benefit claims...One thing is for certain...They would try to downplay the so-called dangers attributed to workplace ETS exposure.The governments and insurance companies could be on the hook for billions of dollars worth of ETS injury-illness awards and financial pay outs.The anti-smoking groups like ASH often threaten governments to enact smoking bans by asserting that the governments, employers and employee insurance companies would all be liable for ETS illness damages if they fail to impose complete indoor smoking bans.What the antis fail to realize is that if what they are saying is true...The governments, employee-employer insurance companies could be liable for thousands or millions of workplace ETS injury awards and payments.Most of these governments, health boards and employer-employee insurance companies failed to protect workers from the dangers of workplace ETS exposure for over the last 2 decades.Even though ETS was considered a pressing workplace health risk by the World Health Organization, it's doctors and scientists.It's understandable why the governments do not want to pay out a huge amount of workplace ETS-injury claims.None-the-less this does not absolve them of negligence and wrong doing in regards to failing to protect all workers from ETS exposure.Ignorance is no valid form of defence in a court of law.If ETS were as deadly as the anti-smoking faction claims it to be, with no safe level of human exposure...All ETS workplace-injury claims should be accepted and paid without question.Providing that the worker never smoked.
Roxxon Jan'6/05
Vancouver city
Actually Clyde a lot of the people who are fighting outside are both smokers and non-smokers alike.I've spent a lot of my life in bars as a worker, patron and musician.Most anyone who has ever spent any amount of time in bars or nightclubs knows that...Usually most fights take place outside the bars and nightclubs for whatever reason.Combatants call one another outside to settle their differences with fisticuffs.Or when patrons fight inside these establishments the bouncers usually eject one or all of the parties involved with fighting, it depends on the specific situation.Half the battle for most would-be "Mike Tyson's" is getting the other person to step outside.Many of these people are reluctant to step outside in order to fight.There are a lot of dangerous people in the world, you usually have no idea exactly who you are dealing with when you go outside to fight with most prospective combatants.Government mandated smoking bans make much fighting outside bars and clubs much easier.Many innocent people are accosted and assaulted outdoors on patios, in the streets when they step outside in order to smoke.If the aggressor knows that his or her intended victim is a smoker, they can lie in wait for the smoker to go outside for a cigarette.This goes for rapists and their intended victims as well.The fact that people have been assaulted, raped and murdered because they were outside smoking is always greatly downplayed by the governments who have enacted smoking bans.As are the numerous noise complaints that are lodged by angry neighbours who have to put up increased noise levels and violent crime rates in their neighbourhoods where smoking bans force smokers and their non-smoking friends alike outside.The true intent of government imposed smoking ban is to encourage smokers to quit smoking.The original idea was to make it so uncomfortable for smokers to smoke outside that they would eventually tire of going outdoors, especially in poor weather conditions.Instead many smokers have simply chosen to stay home.The complacent smokers who continue to patronize the private hospitality sector even though they are being treated as modern day lepers, are the people who are most likely to experience outdoor smoking ban related violence.Vancouver's nightclub-Nightlife scene is pretty nasty.There is prevalent drug and alcohol abuse running rampant.Most of the organized crime figures and youth gangs hang out in that city.You don't even have to be looking for a fight, in Vancouver city the fights often come to you.If you are itching for a fight you will surely find one in that city.Most of the Vancouver city (Downtown) club scene is made up of mostly young people.In fact most older smokers and non-smokers avoid Vancouver city's Nightlife, like the plauge.They often choose to visit hospitality industry venues where smoking is permitted indoors in the suburbs rather than to venture into the often dangerous Vancouver city core.The amount of violent crime has sky-rocketed dramatically on the streets of Vancouver since the city began enforcing their non-smoking bylaw almost 3 years ago.I am not suggesting that all the violent crime is directly related to the city's smoking bylaw.But a lot of it can be directly blamed on the smoking bylaw forcing smokers and their non-smoking friends outdoors in order to take smoke-breaks.Just so you can grasp this reality.Vancouver is a crime-ridden city.The city's downtown is a veritable Hell-hole.The drug, alcohol and crime rates here are out of control.Only truly ignorant and foolish people would choose to hang out and drink in many of Vancouver's downtown night-spots.Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of nice bars and clubs.It's the type of crowds that they attract in general.The ethnic youth gangs are vicious and have no problem in using whatever form of violence that it takes to do business or to protect themselves.There are several thousand homeless people most of them are drug addicts and or alcoholics.Many of these people are former mental patients who the last 3 provincial governments have thrown out into the street.The governments had hoped that these mentally ill people would die.Instead they have become self-medicating.Most of them support their drug habits with crime.These are Vancouver's desperate street people.Desperate people do desperate things.When I was a young man my friends and I like the kids of today would flock to the Vancouver core for the city's nightlife.Vancouver's downtown has always be considered a dangerous area.But the city has become a Mecca for a great majority of the organized crime in this province.Vancouver's downtown is in many cases is much worse than Toronto's downtown core.It truly is a terrible place from the corner of Main and Hastings Street all the way to the end of the Grandville Street strip.Not many adults that I know would feel even remotely comfortable walking alone or standing outside in order to smoke in Vancouver's downtown area.It's been getting progressively worse over the past 20 years.To put this in propper perspective almost no sane person would want their children, wives, husbands or relatives to have to walk the entire skid row area of Vancouver at night-time or even during daylight hours.Of course the politically correct jackasses and the anti-smoking faction will never admit that their precious indoor smoking bans have contributed to violent crime and late-night noise rates being on the rise in the city.But now they are actually trying to do something about it, by attempting to ban semi-enclosed or enclosed smoking patios.I have been informed by a very, reliable hospitality industry business contact, that the city council wants to enact an outdoor smoking ban (proximity) nine meters from any doorway of any building.They plant to start with the patio smoking ban then extend that ban to city streets and sidewalks before the 2010 Olympics.I am so glad I don't live in Vancouver city.
Vancouver city
Actually Clyde a lot of the people who are fighting outside are both smokers and non-smokers alike.I've spent a lot of my life in bars as a worker, patron and musician.Most anyone who has ever spent any amount of time in bars or nightclubs knows that...Usually most fights take place outside the bars and nightclubs for whatever reason.Combatants call one another outside to settle their differences with fisticuffs.Or when patrons fight inside these establishments the bouncers usually eject one or all of the parties involved with fighting, it depends on the specific situation.Half the battle for most would-be "Mike Tyson's" is getting the other person to step outside.Many of these people are reluctant to step outside in order to fight.There are a lot of dangerous people in the world, you usually have no idea exactly who you are dealing with when you go outside to fight with most prospective combatants.Government mandated smoking bans make much fighting outside bars and clubs much easier.Many innocent people are accosted and assaulted outdoors on patios, in the streets when they step outside in order to smoke.If the aggressor knows that his or her intended victim is a smoker, they can lie in wait for the smoker to go outside for a cigarette.This goes for rapists and their intended victims as well.The fact that people have been assaulted, raped and murdered because they were outside smoking is always greatly downplayed by the governments who have enacted smoking bans.As are the numerous noise complaints that are lodged by angry neighbours who have to put up increased noise levels and violent crime rates in their neighbourhoods where smoking bans force smokers and their non-smoking friends alike outside.The true intent of government imposed smoking ban is to encourage smokers to quit smoking.The original idea was to make it so uncomfortable for smokers to smoke outside that they would eventually tire of going outdoors, especially in poor weather conditions.Instead many smokers have simply chosen to stay home.The complacent smokers who continue to patronize the private hospitality sector even though they are being treated as modern day lepers, are the people who are most likely to experience outdoor smoking ban related violence.Vancouver's nightclub-Nightlife scene is pretty nasty.There is prevalent drug and alcohol abuse running rampant.Most of the organized crime figures and youth gangs hang out in that city.You don't even have to be looking for a fight, in Vancouver city the fights often come to you.If you are itching for a fight you will surely find one in that city.Most of the Vancouver city (Downtown) club scene is made up of mostly young people.In fact most older smokers and non-smokers avoid Vancouver city's Nightlife, like the plauge.They often choose to visit hospitality industry venues where smoking is permitted indoors in the suburbs rather than to venture into the often dangerous Vancouver city core.The amount of violent crime has sky-rocketed dramatically on the streets of Vancouver since the city began enforcing their non-smoking bylaw almost 3 years ago.I am not suggesting that all the violent crime is directly related to the city's smoking bylaw.But a lot of it can be directly blamed on the smoking bylaw forcing smokers and their non-smoking friends outdoors in order to take smoke-breaks.Just so you can grasp this reality.Vancouver is a crime-ridden city.The city's downtown is a veritable Hell-hole.The drug, alcohol and crime rates here are out of control.Only truly ignorant and foolish people would choose to hang out and drink in many of Vancouver's downtown night-spots.Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of nice bars and clubs.It's the type of crowds that they attract in general.The ethnic youth gangs are vicious and have no problem in using whatever form of violence that it takes to do business or to protect themselves.There are several thousand homeless people most of them are drug addicts and or alcoholics.Many of these people are former mental patients who the last 3 provincial governments have thrown out into the street.The governments had hoped that these mentally ill people would die.Instead they have become self-medicating.Most of them support their drug habits with crime.These are Vancouver's desperate street people.Desperate people do desperate things.When I was a young man my friends and I like the kids of today would flock to the Vancouver core for the city's nightlife.Vancouver's downtown has always be considered a dangerous area.But the city has become a Mecca for a great majority of the organized crime in this province.Vancouver's downtown is in many cases is much worse than Toronto's downtown core.It truly is a terrible place from the corner of Main and Hastings Street all the way to the end of the Grandville Street strip.Not many adults that I know would feel even remotely comfortable walking alone or standing outside in order to smoke in Vancouver's downtown area.It's been getting progressively worse over the past 20 years.To put this in propper perspective almost no sane person would want their children, wives, husbands or relatives to have to walk the entire skid row area of Vancouver at night-time or even during daylight hours.Of course the politically correct jackasses and the anti-smoking faction will never admit that their precious indoor smoking bans have contributed to violent crime and late-night noise rates being on the rise in the city.But now they are actually trying to do something about it, by attempting to ban semi-enclosed or enclosed smoking patios.I have been informed by a very, reliable hospitality industry business contact, that the city council wants to enact an outdoor smoking ban (proximity) nine meters from any doorway of any building.They plant to start with the patio smoking ban then extend that ban to city streets and sidewalks before the 2010 Olympics.I am so glad I don't live in Vancouver city.
Jan. 05/05
Roxxon
Ont. smoking ban??
In any areas where smoking bans were being proposed by local, state and provincial politicians in North America...The hospitality industry have often offered a form of compromise by suggesting that some businesses would be permitted to allow smoking, while other would have to go-smoke-free.It was suggested many times that all businesses that wanted to go smoke-free voluntarily would be free to do so, while other businesses who chose to permit smoking would have to apply for smoking permitted licences.The antis cried and wailed.They knew all too well that many businesses would continue permitting smoking.The antis are not seeking protection from the phantom dangers of ETS.They are attempting to impose their selfish wills upon everyone, everywhere.Even if they will never go to hospitality industry establishments on a regular basis.They want all smoking banned, in case they might venture into such a hospitality industry venue.For argument's sake:Let's say the province of Ontario decides that a complete indoor smoking ban within the private hospitality industry is not working and is killing the tourism industry and the private hospitality sector.Reluctantly the government agrees to a form of compromise.50% of all the hospitality industry is allowed to apply for smoking ban exemption licenses (much the same way they are allowed to in New York state).In New York state if you can prove that your business is losing 10% or more of it's normal revenues you can apply for a smoking ban waiver and return to permitting smoking legally.The anti-smoking lobby would never accept such a compromise in Ontario.There would be a log-jam of private hospitality business owner lining up for the smoking-permitted licences.If it was on a first come first serve basis, people would literally be fighting for the right to allow smoking and to get such a licence.The antis would lobby the law makers to remove the exemptions.Smoking bans imposed by government decree have nothing to do with what's fair or what's right.There true basis is that of complete fraud.If the governments were fair they would commission scientists to set ETS exposure standards and accept improved free-flow ventilation systems and or DSRs as a workable solution as opposed to an all-out smoking ban with no exemptions.To entice businesses in the private hospitality sector to go smoke-free on a voluntary basis the governments should offer tax cuts to all businesses that choose to go smoke-free.It's true that some hospitality industry venues (like chain restaurants) can turn a tidy profit by being smoke-free.But often that is only a small niche market share.Adult hospitality industry venues suffer the most due to government impose smoking ban negative fall-out.When between 50% and 90% of your regular customer base are smokers, you cannot simply displace these people and replace them with mythical hordes of non-smokers, who rarely patronize the hospitality industry.Even with a smoking ban in place most people are creatures of habit.The vast majority of people who never went out when smoking was permitted in the hospitality industry are not likely going to start frequenting the industry just because smoking is banned.Overall most adult hospitality industry suffer very, real financial losses when government imposed smoking bans are thrust upon them.In Ontario, I fear only a Federal Supreme Court smoking ban challenge will save the hospitality industry from financial devastation within the next 1.6 years.There is a chance that some form of comprise could be reached in court.You cannot make a deal with the anti-smoking devils.They will not compromise.In Vancouver City, B.C.Today is the dead-line for all hospitality venues with semi-enclosed patios to remove their walls or face loss of their business or liquor licences.The city has it's own smoking bylaw that is independent from the WCB provincial smoking regulations.The City Of Vancouver must police and enforce it's own ban without the help of the B.C. WCB.The city is trying to say the reason for the removal of patio walls, heaters and roofs in some cases is a fire safety issue.What crap!They also stated that even if patio walls are solid, if they are enclosed or semi enclosed that the second-hand smoke inside the patios could possibly pose a health risk to employees or the public.Yeah, outdoors.So if you think outdoor smoking bans will never happen...Think again, they are beginning to sprout up all over North America as we speak.Public parks, playground, school ground, beach and doorway proximity bans are becoming a sad reality in several communities.The antis will never be content with having smoking banned indoors.Give them an inch, they will take more than a mile.
Roxxon
Ont. smoking ban??
In any areas where smoking bans were being proposed by local, state and provincial politicians in North America...The hospitality industry have often offered a form of compromise by suggesting that some businesses would be permitted to allow smoking, while other would have to go-smoke-free.It was suggested many times that all businesses that wanted to go smoke-free voluntarily would be free to do so, while other businesses who chose to permit smoking would have to apply for smoking permitted licences.The antis cried and wailed.They knew all too well that many businesses would continue permitting smoking.The antis are not seeking protection from the phantom dangers of ETS.They are attempting to impose their selfish wills upon everyone, everywhere.Even if they will never go to hospitality industry establishments on a regular basis.They want all smoking banned, in case they might venture into such a hospitality industry venue.For argument's sake:Let's say the province of Ontario decides that a complete indoor smoking ban within the private hospitality industry is not working and is killing the tourism industry and the private hospitality sector.Reluctantly the government agrees to a form of compromise.50% of all the hospitality industry is allowed to apply for smoking ban exemption licenses (much the same way they are allowed to in New York state).In New York state if you can prove that your business is losing 10% or more of it's normal revenues you can apply for a smoking ban waiver and return to permitting smoking legally.The anti-smoking lobby would never accept such a compromise in Ontario.There would be a log-jam of private hospitality business owner lining up for the smoking-permitted licences.If it was on a first come first serve basis, people would literally be fighting for the right to allow smoking and to get such a licence.The antis would lobby the law makers to remove the exemptions.Smoking bans imposed by government decree have nothing to do with what's fair or what's right.There true basis is that of complete fraud.If the governments were fair they would commission scientists to set ETS exposure standards and accept improved free-flow ventilation systems and or DSRs as a workable solution as opposed to an all-out smoking ban with no exemptions.To entice businesses in the private hospitality sector to go smoke-free on a voluntary basis the governments should offer tax cuts to all businesses that choose to go smoke-free.It's true that some hospitality industry venues (like chain restaurants) can turn a tidy profit by being smoke-free.But often that is only a small niche market share.Adult hospitality industry venues suffer the most due to government impose smoking ban negative fall-out.When between 50% and 90% of your regular customer base are smokers, you cannot simply displace these people and replace them with mythical hordes of non-smokers, who rarely patronize the hospitality industry.Even with a smoking ban in place most people are creatures of habit.The vast majority of people who never went out when smoking was permitted in the hospitality industry are not likely going to start frequenting the industry just because smoking is banned.Overall most adult hospitality industry suffer very, real financial losses when government imposed smoking bans are thrust upon them.In Ontario, I fear only a Federal Supreme Court smoking ban challenge will save the hospitality industry from financial devastation within the next 1.6 years.There is a chance that some form of comprise could be reached in court.You cannot make a deal with the anti-smoking devils.They will not compromise.In Vancouver City, B.C.Today is the dead-line for all hospitality venues with semi-enclosed patios to remove their walls or face loss of their business or liquor licences.The city has it's own smoking bylaw that is independent from the WCB provincial smoking regulations.The City Of Vancouver must police and enforce it's own ban without the help of the B.C. WCB.The city is trying to say the reason for the removal of patio walls, heaters and roofs in some cases is a fire safety issue.What crap!They also stated that even if patio walls are solid, if they are enclosed or semi enclosed that the second-hand smoke inside the patios could possibly pose a health risk to employees or the public.Yeah, outdoors.So if you think outdoor smoking bans will never happen...Think again, they are beginning to sprout up all over North America as we speak.Public parks, playground, school ground, beach and doorway proximity bans are becoming a sad reality in several communities.The antis will never be content with having smoking banned indoors.Give them an inch, they will take more than a mile.
Jan. 5/05 Roxxon
Zero Tolerance
A sane compromise such as DSRs, state-of-the-art free-flow ventilation systems and smoking-only hospitality venues would be a great idea as opposed to government imposed, 100% zero tolerance indoor smoking bans.The problem is...None of these rational compromises will be accepted by the anti-smoking lobby and their slobbering followers.The anti's "zero tolerance" stance exposes their agenda for the self-serving, unscientific fraud that is the true basis for all government imposed smoking bans.The antis simply hate the smell of tobacco smoke.Smoking bans are all about intolerance and have nothing to do with protecting the health of anyone.The government wants to conduct social engineering experiments.using smokers as "lab animals."If the addicted smokers can be forced to conform to smoking regulations, the governments have a host of other nasty social engineering experiments to conduct on everyone.It won't stop with smoking.We all have much to fear if government imposed smoking bans ever succeed.
Zero Tolerance
A sane compromise such as DSRs, state-of-the-art free-flow ventilation systems and smoking-only hospitality venues would be a great idea as opposed to government imposed, 100% zero tolerance indoor smoking bans.The problem is...None of these rational compromises will be accepted by the anti-smoking lobby and their slobbering followers.The anti's "zero tolerance" stance exposes their agenda for the self-serving, unscientific fraud that is the true basis for all government imposed smoking bans.The antis simply hate the smell of tobacco smoke.Smoking bans are all about intolerance and have nothing to do with protecting the health of anyone.The government wants to conduct social engineering experiments.using smokers as "lab animals."If the addicted smokers can be forced to conform to smoking regulations, the governments have a host of other nasty social engineering experiments to conduct on everyone.It won't stop with smoking.We all have much to fear if government imposed smoking bans ever succeed.
Jan. 4/05 Roxxon
Smoking bans are good for business??
Smoking bans are good for business?Like in N.Y. state?Where the government combined all hospitality industry establishments into one pile?Where the government ignored all the industry lay-offs?Where the government falsely claims that overall hospitality industry businesses were on the rise?The same government who added a new sales tax into the mix and factored that into the equation?The same government that combined off-sales and total alcohol sales into the survey in a pathetic attempt to downplay the huge, negative impact of the state's smoking ban?In Ireland business in the private hospitality sector is down on average by 30%?In a survey conducted by the industry itself.Why would they lie?Why did the industry raise beer prices to off-set their lost smoking trade?Because they are lying?Because Ireland's smoking ban is a popular "success?"Not likely!It's a fact, everywhere government imposed smoking bans are enacted the overall hospitality trade suffers greatly.If smoke-free hospitality establishments were such a "wonderful idea" there would be no need for government imposed smoking bans.The hospitality industry would ban smoking of their own accord.The vast majority of governments will never admit that smoking bans hurt the hospitality industry in a big way.The governments will blame everything and anything except smoking bans for loss of hospitality industry trade, business bankruptcies and unemployment rates.The governments also often have the audacity to claim that hospitality business owners who cannot survive under a blanket smoking ban are incompetent.This is absurd.Many of these hospitality industry businesses thrived when smoking was still permitted by the choice of the private hospitality business owner for many decades.Now they are suddenly incompetent?The anti-smoking looby, the politically correct politicians who enact smoking bans do not want to know the truth, they cannot handle the truth.It would destroy their smoke-free agenda and all the other whopping lies that they spew to anyone foolish enough to listen to their untruthful, self-serving bater.
Smoking bans are good for business??
Smoking bans are good for business?Like in N.Y. state?Where the government combined all hospitality industry establishments into one pile?Where the government ignored all the industry lay-offs?Where the government falsely claims that overall hospitality industry businesses were on the rise?The same government who added a new sales tax into the mix and factored that into the equation?The same government that combined off-sales and total alcohol sales into the survey in a pathetic attempt to downplay the huge, negative impact of the state's smoking ban?In Ireland business in the private hospitality sector is down on average by 30%?In a survey conducted by the industry itself.Why would they lie?Why did the industry raise beer prices to off-set their lost smoking trade?Because they are lying?Because Ireland's smoking ban is a popular "success?"Not likely!It's a fact, everywhere government imposed smoking bans are enacted the overall hospitality trade suffers greatly.If smoke-free hospitality establishments were such a "wonderful idea" there would be no need for government imposed smoking bans.The hospitality industry would ban smoking of their own accord.The vast majority of governments will never admit that smoking bans hurt the hospitality industry in a big way.The governments will blame everything and anything except smoking bans for loss of hospitality industry trade, business bankruptcies and unemployment rates.The governments also often have the audacity to claim that hospitality business owners who cannot survive under a blanket smoking ban are incompetent.This is absurd.Many of these hospitality industry businesses thrived when smoking was still permitted by the choice of the private hospitality business owner for many decades.Now they are suddenly incompetent?The anti-smoking looby, the politically correct politicians who enact smoking bans do not want to know the truth, they cannot handle the truth.It would destroy their smoke-free agenda and all the other whopping lies that they spew to anyone foolish enough to listen to their untruthful, self-serving bater.
Jan. 4/05
Roxxon
When you drink around others??
When you drink around others you are not giving others a choice either.Second-hand booze is not merely the smell of alcohol, it is the negative consequences that a drunk imposes upon non-drinking people around them.Not many smokers have one too many cigarettes and go home and beat the hell out of their families.How many people start violent fights that lead to serious injury and death because they have had a few too many smokes?The same cannot be said about drinkers.Many drinkers cannot control their alcohol consumption.So I guess that state should ban booze to protect people from themselves and the innocent non-drinkers from the alcohol abusers.Unlike ETS which has never been proven by solid science to have caused the death of a single human on earth.Second-hand booze is a proven KILLER!It is a fact that some people are far better drivers when they are drunk than many sober drivers are.But impaired driving laws were created and are enforced because most drunks are dangerous drivers after over-indulging in alcoholic beverages.Some non-drinkers find the smell of alcoholic beverages as offensive as some anti-smokers find the smell of ETS to be.This analogy and common parallel perfectly illustrates the folly of the governments war on ETS as a "health issue" while they choose to ignore the truly dangerous ramifications of alcohol abuse that effects non-drinkers as well as the drinkers themselves.What "big government" claims when they enact smoking bans is that they must do this to protect non-smokers from the phantom dangers of ETS that are not supported by solid science.Where as, booze is a proven killer even when used as directed and depending on the individual alcohol can indeed kill and directly cause harm to non-drinkers.Therefore those who support government imposed smoking bans, should clearly understand the need for the governments to ban alcohol or at least all "public drinking".For the protection, health and safety of the hospitality industry workers and for the sake of the non-drinking public, including "the children."The anti-smoking booze fans may incorrectly claim that booze unlike smoking does not "harm" others around the drinker.That is not the truth.Only a brain-damaged moron cannot understand that drinking alcohol, especially to excess harms the lives of other innocent people around the drinker.I have seen a couple of acts of extreme violence where innocent children were involved and who were hurt as a result of second-hand booze.Over the past few years.It was truly frightening.If private hospitality business owners and smokers can not be afforded the choice to smoke or allow smoking within the private hospitality industry...Why then should alcohol be any different?What the governments are saying when they ban smoking is they are protecting smokers from themselves and the innocent non-smokers from the phantom dangers of ETS.Since second-hand booze fall-out fuels many forms of violent crime and in many cases ...DEATH...Why should hospitality industry venues be able to continue serving "killer booze" in so-called "public places?"Why is the government failing to protect the innocent non-drinkers, especially the children for second-hand booze exposure.Suck on this you anti-smoking clowns...When smoking bans are enacted throughout the private hospitality industry children of smoking and non-smoking parents are often exposed to more ETS in their homes.This is a direct spin-off of smoking bans enacted by government decree.When many other workplaces banned smoking long before the hospitality industry, the workplace smoking bans intentions were to help smokers quit their habits.I don't know if anyone remembers but the first government imposed smoking bans in workplaces were not based on protecting anyone from ETS exposure.No they were based on fire regulations, even thought the ETS is 'deadly" sham has been alive and well or over 23 years...And decades before Hitler and his Nazi doctors used the phantom dangers of ETS to champion Nazi-Germany's own smoking ban.So what if they could not prove ETS is any form of a measurable health risk then, the scientific community of today ca still not prove that ETS is a pressing health risk to anyone.So booze ruins lives, destroys families, helps induce violent crime that often results in serious injury, rape, murder and death.And the governments ignore the second-hand booze damage tolls.Some people have no realistic conception of just how much alcoholism exists in this world and how many second-hand booze victims there really are.By the Canadian Charter Of Rights shouldn't all children and non-drinkers be protected from the ravages of alcohol and exposure to second-hand booze?Those who support government imposed smoking bans should clearly be able to see the folly of their ways, if protection and the health of the masses is really the job of "big brother" governments.A double edged sword cuts both ways.The anti-smoking-booze fans might not want to see it that way.But when the governments do come for the boozers in public places one day, they should clearly be able to understand why it will eventually take place.Intolerance is a sickening thing.What's good for the "smoking goose" is also good for the"non-smoking-drinking gander."
Roxxon
When you drink around others??
When you drink around others you are not giving others a choice either.Second-hand booze is not merely the smell of alcohol, it is the negative consequences that a drunk imposes upon non-drinking people around them.Not many smokers have one too many cigarettes and go home and beat the hell out of their families.How many people start violent fights that lead to serious injury and death because they have had a few too many smokes?The same cannot be said about drinkers.Many drinkers cannot control their alcohol consumption.So I guess that state should ban booze to protect people from themselves and the innocent non-drinkers from the alcohol abusers.Unlike ETS which has never been proven by solid science to have caused the death of a single human on earth.Second-hand booze is a proven KILLER!It is a fact that some people are far better drivers when they are drunk than many sober drivers are.But impaired driving laws were created and are enforced because most drunks are dangerous drivers after over-indulging in alcoholic beverages.Some non-drinkers find the smell of alcoholic beverages as offensive as some anti-smokers find the smell of ETS to be.This analogy and common parallel perfectly illustrates the folly of the governments war on ETS as a "health issue" while they choose to ignore the truly dangerous ramifications of alcohol abuse that effects non-drinkers as well as the drinkers themselves.What "big government" claims when they enact smoking bans is that they must do this to protect non-smokers from the phantom dangers of ETS that are not supported by solid science.Where as, booze is a proven killer even when used as directed and depending on the individual alcohol can indeed kill and directly cause harm to non-drinkers.Therefore those who support government imposed smoking bans, should clearly understand the need for the governments to ban alcohol or at least all "public drinking".For the protection, health and safety of the hospitality industry workers and for the sake of the non-drinking public, including "the children."The anti-smoking booze fans may incorrectly claim that booze unlike smoking does not "harm" others around the drinker.That is not the truth.Only a brain-damaged moron cannot understand that drinking alcohol, especially to excess harms the lives of other innocent people around the drinker.I have seen a couple of acts of extreme violence where innocent children were involved and who were hurt as a result of second-hand booze.Over the past few years.It was truly frightening.If private hospitality business owners and smokers can not be afforded the choice to smoke or allow smoking within the private hospitality industry...Why then should alcohol be any different?What the governments are saying when they ban smoking is they are protecting smokers from themselves and the innocent non-smokers from the phantom dangers of ETS.Since second-hand booze fall-out fuels many forms of violent crime and in many cases ...DEATH...Why should hospitality industry venues be able to continue serving "killer booze" in so-called "public places?"Why is the government failing to protect the innocent non-drinkers, especially the children for second-hand booze exposure.Suck on this you anti-smoking clowns...When smoking bans are enacted throughout the private hospitality industry children of smoking and non-smoking parents are often exposed to more ETS in their homes.This is a direct spin-off of smoking bans enacted by government decree.When many other workplaces banned smoking long before the hospitality industry, the workplace smoking bans intentions were to help smokers quit their habits.I don't know if anyone remembers but the first government imposed smoking bans in workplaces were not based on protecting anyone from ETS exposure.No they were based on fire regulations, even thought the ETS is 'deadly" sham has been alive and well or over 23 years...And decades before Hitler and his Nazi doctors used the phantom dangers of ETS to champion Nazi-Germany's own smoking ban.So what if they could not prove ETS is any form of a measurable health risk then, the scientific community of today ca still not prove that ETS is a pressing health risk to anyone.So booze ruins lives, destroys families, helps induce violent crime that often results in serious injury, rape, murder and death.And the governments ignore the second-hand booze damage tolls.Some people have no realistic conception of just how much alcoholism exists in this world and how many second-hand booze victims there really are.By the Canadian Charter Of Rights shouldn't all children and non-drinkers be protected from the ravages of alcohol and exposure to second-hand booze?Those who support government imposed smoking bans should clearly be able to see the folly of their ways, if protection and the health of the masses is really the job of "big brother" governments.A double edged sword cuts both ways.The anti-smoking-booze fans might not want to see it that way.But when the governments do come for the boozers in public places one day, they should clearly be able to understand why it will eventually take place.Intolerance is a sickening thing.What's good for the "smoking goose" is also good for the"non-smoking-drinking gander."
Jan. 3/05
Roxxon
If the 8 million smokers in Canada all quit smoking tomorrow the governments at the federal and provincial levels would be mortified.That huge taxation, revenue loss would be a very, "bitter pill" for them to "swallow."Though many politicians would love to see smoking eradicated from the face of the Earth...Virtually none of them wants it to take place during their shift in power.Health groups like the Lung Society and the Cancer Society rely heavily on funding from big tobacco, though it's true that the money comes through and in direct source, smokers taxation and government funding.These "health" groups are as addicted to big tobacco's "blood money" as much as any smoker is addicted to nicotine or smoking.The WHO plans to go after the drinkers next.Big tobacco has been fun to rape, pillage and plunder.Big booze will be equally as fun to demonize and denormalize.Even ten years ago no one ever thought that the governments would have the audacity to ban smoking in private hospitality establishments.What did you expect the governments to say?"The smoking bans that we have enacted are killing the hospitality trade, many people are losing their jobs and livelihoods."Do you honestly expect them to tell the truth?That would be admitting that smoking bans are a bad idea and those governments could be sued for smoking ban damages to the hospitality industry.The only real reason that the anti-smokers push for government mandated smoking bans...The antis know all too well that there is no huge demand for smoking bans throughout the entire industry.In a free market many businesses that chose to voluntarily go smoke-free, returned to permitting smoking when their bottom line was compromised directly due to banning smoking.If the government enacts an industry-wide smoking ban, the private hospitality industry must STAY smoke-free.They have no choice other than to violate the ban or to challenge the ban in a court of law.That World Health Organization "World Tobacco Treaty" is one scary piece of work.It does not just advocate the banning of smoking indoors it also proposes the banning of smoking outdoors as well.The Treaty is based on the denormalization of smokers and smoking in society."A New World Order!"Anyone who buys into the treaty is a fool.It's not just about smoking.The WHO have bigger and nastier plans in store for everyone, that is if smoking bans imposed by government decree are ever successful.Booze and "unhealthy foods" are next on the WHO's agenda.Everyone including the anti-smokers have much to fear if smoking bans and their true intent and basis are ever realized.It's funny when people who support the kind of government-over-regulation that smoking bans are made of.Those same smoke-intolerant humans cry and wail loudly when their civil rights and liberties are stripped from them due to similar forms of smoking-ban-like government over-regulation.For many of the anti-smoking crowd, government mandated smoking bans are a form of revenge.Revenge against smokers.For many years it was the non-smokers were marginalized by smokers.The non-smokers were forced to endure second-hand smoke virtually everywhere that they went.This was wrong and unfair.Non-smokers began to gain a breath of fresh air when governments began to enact smoking bans within true public places.Most affected businesses went smoke-free voluntarily without a fuss.Shopping malls, banks retail stores and other places with public access saved on upkeep, fire insurance rates.Still the smokers had a last bastion, the private hospitality trade.Since private hospitality establishments are not really public places, the governments have no business banning smoking on or in private property of the trade.Patrons (the public) have conditional access to private hospitality industry establishments.Providing that they follow the "house rules" of the private business owner.The private business owner has the right to eject or refuse service to anyone who does not comply with the conduct code of that private establishment.Those who believe that private hospitality industry venues as they are defined in government mandated smoking bans are really public places are fools.If that were true, the government would have the right to ban smoking in every private home as well.Or in homes where children live, for that matter.The truth is...No one is forced to patronize or to work in a smoking-permitted or smoke-free hospitality establishment.Everyone should have a choice.Since there are both smoking permitted and smoke-free hospitality industry establishments in a free-market, why then should the government impose smoking bans?The antis always hate the answer to this question and any other kind of truth for that matter.There simply is not the demand to ban smoking throughout the entire private hospitality sector.If there was such a demand, private hospitality industry businesses would choose to become smoke-free of their own free will.Many hospitality industry businesses that have attempted ban smoking on a voluntary basis have failed and returned to allowing smoking.This is why the anti-smoking faction must employ "big brother', politically correct governments to impose and enforce smoking bans.The antis and the governments can use all the bogus polls, statistics, junk science, propaganda, ambiguous surveys and manipulated figures that they'd like to.This however does not make what they say the Gospel truth by any means.One simple question completely refutes every word that the anti-smokers say about the hospitality industry being unaffected by smoking bans.Why would the hospitality industry workers and business owners lie, what do they have to gain by lying?If smoking bans were great for business they would accept them and not be fighting their imposition.In fact many private hospitality business owners and their employees are non-smokers and still the vast majority of them refute every word the anti-smoking liars say regarding smoking bans being great for business within the industry.It's this simple:If hospitality businesses did as well or better by becoming smoke-free, there would be no need for government imposed smoking bans.I have received several letters and e-mails from private hospitality industry workers and business owners.Many of these people are non-smokers and at first were willing to embrace government mandated smoking bans.Until that is...They found out the sad truth, smoking bans are very bad for many hospitality industry businesses.Nevermind the ETS is deadly sham and the other host of whopping lies that the anti-smokers use as a means to forward their smoke-free agenda.We are talking about real people, the true victims of smoking ban negative fall-out.This is a crying shame.It's too bad that so many people must suffer greatly due to the selfish intolerance of the anti-smoking army and power-mad, over-regulating governments.
Roxxon
If the 8 million smokers in Canada all quit smoking tomorrow the governments at the federal and provincial levels would be mortified.That huge taxation, revenue loss would be a very, "bitter pill" for them to "swallow."Though many politicians would love to see smoking eradicated from the face of the Earth...Virtually none of them wants it to take place during their shift in power.Health groups like the Lung Society and the Cancer Society rely heavily on funding from big tobacco, though it's true that the money comes through and in direct source, smokers taxation and government funding.These "health" groups are as addicted to big tobacco's "blood money" as much as any smoker is addicted to nicotine or smoking.The WHO plans to go after the drinkers next.Big tobacco has been fun to rape, pillage and plunder.Big booze will be equally as fun to demonize and denormalize.Even ten years ago no one ever thought that the governments would have the audacity to ban smoking in private hospitality establishments.What did you expect the governments to say?"The smoking bans that we have enacted are killing the hospitality trade, many people are losing their jobs and livelihoods."Do you honestly expect them to tell the truth?That would be admitting that smoking bans are a bad idea and those governments could be sued for smoking ban damages to the hospitality industry.The only real reason that the anti-smokers push for government mandated smoking bans...The antis know all too well that there is no huge demand for smoking bans throughout the entire industry.In a free market many businesses that chose to voluntarily go smoke-free, returned to permitting smoking when their bottom line was compromised directly due to banning smoking.If the government enacts an industry-wide smoking ban, the private hospitality industry must STAY smoke-free.They have no choice other than to violate the ban or to challenge the ban in a court of law.That World Health Organization "World Tobacco Treaty" is one scary piece of work.It does not just advocate the banning of smoking indoors it also proposes the banning of smoking outdoors as well.The Treaty is based on the denormalization of smokers and smoking in society."A New World Order!"Anyone who buys into the treaty is a fool.It's not just about smoking.The WHO have bigger and nastier plans in store for everyone, that is if smoking bans imposed by government decree are ever successful.Booze and "unhealthy foods" are next on the WHO's agenda.Everyone including the anti-smokers have much to fear if smoking bans and their true intent and basis are ever realized.It's funny when people who support the kind of government-over-regulation that smoking bans are made of.Those same smoke-intolerant humans cry and wail loudly when their civil rights and liberties are stripped from them due to similar forms of smoking-ban-like government over-regulation.For many of the anti-smoking crowd, government mandated smoking bans are a form of revenge.Revenge against smokers.For many years it was the non-smokers were marginalized by smokers.The non-smokers were forced to endure second-hand smoke virtually everywhere that they went.This was wrong and unfair.Non-smokers began to gain a breath of fresh air when governments began to enact smoking bans within true public places.Most affected businesses went smoke-free voluntarily without a fuss.Shopping malls, banks retail stores and other places with public access saved on upkeep, fire insurance rates.Still the smokers had a last bastion, the private hospitality trade.Since private hospitality establishments are not really public places, the governments have no business banning smoking on or in private property of the trade.Patrons (the public) have conditional access to private hospitality industry establishments.Providing that they follow the "house rules" of the private business owner.The private business owner has the right to eject or refuse service to anyone who does not comply with the conduct code of that private establishment.Those who believe that private hospitality industry venues as they are defined in government mandated smoking bans are really public places are fools.If that were true, the government would have the right to ban smoking in every private home as well.Or in homes where children live, for that matter.The truth is...No one is forced to patronize or to work in a smoking-permitted or smoke-free hospitality establishment.Everyone should have a choice.Since there are both smoking permitted and smoke-free hospitality industry establishments in a free-market, why then should the government impose smoking bans?The antis always hate the answer to this question and any other kind of truth for that matter.There simply is not the demand to ban smoking throughout the entire private hospitality sector.If there was such a demand, private hospitality industry businesses would choose to become smoke-free of their own free will.Many hospitality industry businesses that have attempted ban smoking on a voluntary basis have failed and returned to allowing smoking.This is why the anti-smoking faction must employ "big brother', politically correct governments to impose and enforce smoking bans.The antis and the governments can use all the bogus polls, statistics, junk science, propaganda, ambiguous surveys and manipulated figures that they'd like to.This however does not make what they say the Gospel truth by any means.One simple question completely refutes every word that the anti-smokers say about the hospitality industry being unaffected by smoking bans.Why would the hospitality industry workers and business owners lie, what do they have to gain by lying?If smoking bans were great for business they would accept them and not be fighting their imposition.In fact many private hospitality business owners and their employees are non-smokers and still the vast majority of them refute every word the anti-smoking liars say regarding smoking bans being great for business within the industry.It's this simple:If hospitality businesses did as well or better by becoming smoke-free, there would be no need for government imposed smoking bans.I have received several letters and e-mails from private hospitality industry workers and business owners.Many of these people are non-smokers and at first were willing to embrace government mandated smoking bans.Until that is...They found out the sad truth, smoking bans are very bad for many hospitality industry businesses.Nevermind the ETS is deadly sham and the other host of whopping lies that the anti-smokers use as a means to forward their smoke-free agenda.We are talking about real people, the true victims of smoking ban negative fall-out.This is a crying shame.It's too bad that so many people must suffer greatly due to the selfish intolerance of the anti-smoking army and power-mad, over-regulating governments.
