Ruling keeps Houston’s smoking ban on track
A federal judge on Monday rejected bar owners’ complaints about Houston’s comprehensive smoking ban, allowing the new restrictions to take effect Saturday. After a daylong hearing in which the bar owners sought a preliminary injunction against the ordinance, U.S. District Judge Gray Miller found that the city can regulate alcohol-selling businesses to protect the public health and welfare. Miller said the plaintiffs, Crazy Frogs Saloon and the Houston Association of Alcoholic Beverage Permit Holders, did not meet the legal burden required for an injunction. He also rejected claims that the city’s ordinance, which extends the current ban from restaurants to the indoors of most public places, including bars, improperly or unfairly regulated the businesses. He also dismissed claims the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague.
Strike another blow for the rights of non-smokers. No, Houston’s anti-smoking ordinance is not a perfect solution. Only a complete and absolute ban on smoking in any sort of public gathering place would be perfect, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. Before any of y’all get on my case for make an allegedly illogical, emotional argument, let me just state that I’m aware of the alleged logical fallacies inherent in my militant anti-smoking stance…and I don’t much care. If I’m breathing, then I have the absolute right to breath non-tobaccofied air. Your nicotine addiction and the resulting need to light up does NOT trump my right to breath clean air. I refuse to assume the risks inherent in breathing second-hand smoke simply because you must feed your addiction. You don’t have to like my attitude or even agree with it. Just understand that if you light a cigarette in my vicinity, you will NOT like me. Generally speaking, I’m a rather easy-going, laissez-faire sort…until someone decides it’s time to feed their nicotine addiction by polluting air that I must breathe in order to live.
Y’all will just have to pardon me while I celebrate another victory for the lungs of non-smokers. No, I’m not trying to marginalize smokers and turn them into second-class citizens. What I am trying to do is to celebrate the recognition that the lungs of non-smokers have rights that supercede the “rights” of smokers to pollute the air that we, the non-smoking majority, must breathe in order to live. We deserve to be able to go to a bar or restaurant…or really ANY public venue without having to be assaulted and forced to breath second-hand tobacco smoke.
Welcome to the brave new world, y’all…where people can actually breathe. Party on….
Jack, I really do understand your point. I do. But you and I both know that second hand smoke is not nearly as much of a public health threat as the air we all breathe here in Houston (my pool routinely has what is known in the pollution biz as a visible sheen). Second hand smoke doesn't represent nearly as much harm as the obesity that afflicts a large portion of the population - spoken as one who is at least fifty pounds too heavy.
It's a sincere and well-intentioned effort, no doubt. But do we really want to start enacting laws like this? Where will it stop? If it is public policy to reduce health risks and minimize the public costs of bad habits, can mandatory public exercise routines be far behind? Will we ban fat people from living within 1,000 feet of a Dairy Queen? Will we pass city ordinances limiting food intake to fish, vegetables and lean meats, under penalty of law enforced by hard labor to take off those pounds? Will we ban cars that don't hold up as well as an SUV in a traffic accident? It's not a theoretical issue and it's far more immediate than the old "slippery slope" argument. It's here and now.
Time to go have my morning stogie....and enjoy the hell out of it while I still can.
Some people have severe allergic reactions to foods that contain even trace amounts of peanuts. To help these folks make informed food choices, the FDA mandates that foods containing nut products be labeled accordingly, and is proposing that the labeling be expanded to include products that were processed in a facility that also processes foods containing peanuts. Currently the latter measures are voluntary.
On a recent trip to Arizona, I was so bored that I began reading the small print on the back of the in-flight snack. Yep, there it was:
Which is fine and dandy, except for the fact that I was enjoying a bag of honey roasted peanuts!
If you're wondering what peanut allergies and federal warning labels have to do with Jack's latest anit-liberty, anti-freedom, counter-constitutional rant supporting totalitarian government control of individuals and private property, the quick answer is, IT'S NUTS!
Bob - once again you and I agree, which may merit making today some sort of federal holiday. But nuts may be too strong a word. Over-reacting is more appropriate, in my view.
I think it's called putting appearance before substance. Second hand smoke is important, but pales in comparison to real public health risks. But government officials wouldn't dare do what they would need to do to seriously deal with those issues, so they undertake these more or less trivial ordinances, creating for their constituents, as on so many other issues, the appearance of looking out for the public interest. Shutting down petrochemical plants that emit most of the chemicals, often in violation of existing air quality regulations, that create ozone hazards would be a serious and meaningful pro-public health step, but one we will never see.
Printing a message on a bag of peanuts warning that the product may have been processed in a facility that processes peanuts is a bit ironic (and maybe funny) but I have no problem with requiring accurate information on product labels. It's actuallly one of the better things the FDA does.
"NUTS!" applies to the concept of the state controlling individual behaviors on private property, not specifically to Jack. (I'm certain that he is at least as sane as I am.)
Well, congrats. You finally get the right to breath in the pollutant free, crisp and clean air of Houston. Oh wait...