Smoked out: the ban hits home

Photo by Jonathan Welch

In a day many never thought would come, North Carolina has banned smoking in bars and restaurants throughout the entire state. My latest news article for the Mountain Xpress takes a look at how this fair city is grappling with the new rules:

Smokers will have to go outside to indulge, and hookah bars will close down. The only exceptions the law allows are for cigar bars and private, nonprofit clubs.

“This is a bad idea,” declares a man who identifies himself only as “Steve,” finishing off a cigarette on the lower floor of Broadway’s (smoking allowed inside). “Private enterprise allows a bar owner to choose whether or not to allow it in their establishment. That’s the way it should be. It’s a scary precedent for government to try to control people’s choices.”

But right beside him, “Raymond” (who’s also an occasional smoker) couldn’t disagree more.

“No, I think the ban’s necessary,” he says. “Secondhand smoke is extremely harmful. It should be my right to go into a bar I like and not have to endanger my health. I come here because I like the people and the atmosphere—it’s my place.”

“If smoking offends you, you can choose to go to a nonsmoking bar,” Steve retorts. “It’s my choice, and it’s not harming anyone else.”

A few seats down the bar, Justin Rogers concedes that it’s “a valid debate. Personally, I’d like for bars to be less smoky, but I don’t think it’s the government’s business.”

“Maybe we’ll build a minigolf course in the back, try to qualify as a country club,” the bartender pipes up, to a chorus of laughs.

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Down the street at the Flying Frog (smoking allowed inside the bar), bartender Eric Jorjensen feels the ban goes too far.

“I thought this was a free country,” he observes. “As long as tobacco’s legal—and it is—it should be up to the property owner to decide to allow it or not in their establishment. Do they really want to hurt bars in a recession? Hell, alcohol’s more harmful than smoking: I’ve never seen anyone start a fight because they smoked too much. Are they going to ban that next?”

A few seats down, Asheville resident Jacqueline Edwards sips a gin and tonic and says she’s thankful for the coming ban.

“I think it’s a good thing. Smoke carries, and it will be good to go to a bar and not end up smelling like cigarettes at the end of the night,” she notes. “People can still smoke outside.”

So, what say you, world? Are such smoking bans a necessary public health measure? Or a manifestation of a growing nanny-state driven to restrict vices for our own "good"? 

Thoughts welcome in the comments below.

Comments

[Chris Noble]

It's a small thing, but it bothers the hell out of me. A bar is kind of a last outpost of bad behavior- it's the place you can go to be irresponsible. There's something inherently silly about complaining about health risks in a place where most people go to ingest a large amount of a deadly poison that is often, a) in the form of Jello on the stomach of a waitress, or, b) on fire. You don't go to a bar for your health; that's kind of the whole point.