after the initial furore here more than a year ago, things have settled back down. Business is unchanged and anecdotally increased since the ban of smoking in bars and restaurants. The only downside is architectural: bars and restaurants have built ugly outdoor areas for smokers to congregate under cover.
The upside has been good though, smoky smelling rooms, and clothes has stopped, and the bar staff are mostly happy to not be going home coughing and smelling even though they didn’t smoke. It’s not an affront to civil liberties, not after a year and the outcry has died down.

Yet another blogger who missed my point, I see. My problem with the smoking ban is that it has gone too far when businesses can not only ban smoking in or around their facility, but also ban smoking in the privacy of your own personal vehicle (which you bought and pay taxes for) when on their propery. And now, hospitals are threatening to deny the same insurance coverage to their smoking employees that is offered to their non-smoking employees. I, myself, had a hematologist deny any further treatment for an unrelated health issue until I stopped smoking! Today, it is the smokers… but who will it be tomorrow? I’m growing tired of paying high insurance premiums to help subsidize health care expenses for all the people who choose to clog their arteries with fast food, rot their livers with alcohol, and contract AIDS through unprotected sex. Should business start denying coverage for the overweight, the beer drinkers, and the single or gay folks who are at greater risk of having unprotected sex? I happen to think allowing this to happen would certainly open the door.