BCT Editorial – 5/3/07

This page was last updated on May 3, 2007.

Inertia; Editorial; Beaver County Times; May 3, 2007.

This is at least the 12^th anti-smoking editorial since March 2005. There have been so many the Times is recycling editorial titles. The previous 11 editorials were “Momentum,” “Banned in Beaver,” “Get used to it,” “Trendy #1,” “Straggling behind,” “Salutes & Boots,” “Smoked out #1,” “Smoked out #2,” “Trendy #2,” and “Smoke free,” and “Smoked out #3.” The comments in those critiques apply to this editorial as well.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I were writing an editorial to convince readers to agree with my position, I wouldn’t use “Trendy” as the title. To me, it conveys messages of smoke (no pun intended) blowing in the wind and/or being a slave to fashionable positions.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Allegheny County was to go smokeless on Tuesday. However, a court injunction put it on hold. Do you think anyone is Harrisburg noticed?

“With a few exceptions, Allegheny County would have banned indoor smoking in most public places, including restaurants and bars. It wasn’t doing anything radical. Indoor smoking bans are being adopted all over the country, including neighboring Ohio.”

[RWC] “It wasn’t doing anything radical.” Sadly, this is true. Remember, what isn’t “doing anything radical” is telling private property owners they may not allow consenting adults to partake in a legal activity on their property.

Note the bogus use of the term “public places.” As a reminder, restaurants, bars, et cetera are private property. As detailed below, even private clubs count as “public places.” Things like a courthouse are public property and I have no problem with legislators banning smoking in taxpayer-owned buildings.

“But Harrisburg is the place where inertia goes to vacation. That’s because lawmakers figured out a long time ago that doing nothing doesn’t offend as many voters as doing something does.

“That’s why those who favor a ban on indoor smoking need to become more vocal and push lawmakers from being bodies at rest to being bodies in motion.

“Unless lawmakers are pressured into joining this national trend, they will continue to do nothing. Inertia applies to politics as well as physics.”

[RWC] Here’s a brief recap of the situation. First, though, I’ll repeat the fact I don’t smoke and never have. I don’t allow anyone to smoke in either my car or home. That said, I’m not a fanatic. I don’t tell others they can’t smoke in their cars or homes when I’m present. After all, it’s their property and they set the rules, just as I do on my property. While I choose nonsmoking when I can, I also patronize smoking-allowed facilities.

· Smoking is a legal activity.

· There is no such thing as either nonsmoker or smoker rights.

· As noted above, restaurants, bars, et cetera are private property.

· Individuals on private property are there by choice. No one forces anyone to work at or patronize a business, club, et cetera that allows smoking.

· Individuals have no inherent right to be on someone’s private property. If a restaurant owner doesn’t want you in his restaurant, he is within his rights to have you removed. Those “No shirt, no shoes, no service” signs are one example.

· As a reminder, many (most?) smoking ban laws also treat private clubs as “public places.” The Allegheny County ban covers private clubs because it bans smoking “In any workplace” (section 880-2.A.1.4).

While the Allegheny County ban currently exempts homes except in certain circumstances, at what point will all private property become a “public place?” Is it when I choose to pay someone to mow my lawn instead of doing it myself? Is it when a deliveryman delivers or picks up a package from my house? Is it when you have a party and – horror of horrors – you invite people who don’t live in your house? If you rent a room to a boarder, is your house now a “public place?”

You may consider the idea smoking bans will be imposed on homes is farfetched, but you would be wrong. Awhile back I read an article about a Maryland municipality trying to do just that.

While I don’t recall the details of the Maryland case, I can predict the “camel’s nose in the tent.” One of the things the banners like to tell us is we need to ban smoking in “public places” because so-called “second-hand smoke” is bad for kids. I think it’s fair to say kids spend far more time in their homes than in restaurants and bars. If we’re really to protect kids from “second-hand smoke,” doesn’t it follow we must ban smoking in homes with children?

As you may have guessed, my opposition to smoking bans on private property has nothing to do with smoking. As noted above, I don’t participate. My problem is the incursion on property rights. Make no mistake, smoking bans on private property are every bit as bad for property rights as was the Supreme Court ruling (Kelo) that taking private property (eminent domain) and giving it to another private citizen is OK when it results in increased tax receipts.