eggwards | Mar. 9th, 2005

Today Houston City Council voted down a total smoking ban for Houston's restaurants and bars. Instead, they chose to just ban smoking in restaurants, probably creating a whole lot of trouble of what is a bar, and what in one of our city's fine eateries. The original measure was proposed by one council member, a dermatologist, worried about the city's health. Still, as the city is constantly ranked as America's fattest, smoking is seemingly side health issue. Isn't smoking supposed to make you loose weight?

most of the measures opponents didn't oppose the heath ideal, although no-one has been known to actually stop smoking just because they can't smoke at the local Chili's, voted against the full ban stating that they were concerned about losing business, tourism and conventions. There was a worry that many conventions would skip Houston in their considerations if they were considered unfriendly to smokers, and had to make special accommodations for events.

Of course, what was more troubling was that officials with Alcoholics Anonymous, the National Retailer Federation, the National Convenience Store Operators and the National Tobacco Retailers Association already threatened to pull their conventions out of Houston, should the ban pass. There was no word on what would happen with a partial ban.

Houston joins Dallas in having the partial ban. Dallas bars are often very smoky affairs, and older ones, like the Dallas Eagle will always leave you feeling like you've been living in a chimney. The Houston Ripcord can be just the same, of course, the two bars I mention also have a heavy cigar element that most bars don't.

I guess I'm of two minds about the smoking ban. As a non-smoker, I like the thought of not being bothered by smoke, and not coming home afterwards smelling horrible needing to clean my hair and clothes. This doesn't happen often when going to a restaurant, but in a bar, here, sure.

On the other hand, there's something that rubs me the wrong way about making laws limiting people's freedoms. Sure, laws are passed everyday that do this, speeding laws, and regulations, but a smoking ban is closer to a morals clause in my book than actually regulating safety or commerce and such. Here you're making a law based on the opinion that you feel people will make a bad choice, or that they can't help themselves and will cause themselves harm.

Of course, there's also the claim that secondhand smoke causes others harm, and that's usually the biggest argument used tin the passing of non-smoking ordinances. I'm not really sold on that, and I think that most restaurants have done a pretty good job of offering smoking and non-smoking sections the last few years, that it isn't much of an issue there. Bars don't really do that.

From what I know, New York and California bars haven't really suffered from their ban, but heck, has smoking rates really gone down, or just moved elsewhere? Out to the streets? I don't know if they passed a law like we have here in Houston though, you can't smoke within 25 feet of the entrance of a public building. That matched with loitering laws might make it hard for diners to find a place to light up.

Perhaps it would have been better if the city did more that would encourage restaurants and bars to have smoke free options rather than forcing them to bow to anti-smoking advocates? It seems awfully heavy-handed, and short-sighted to think that taking away a venue for something will actually stop a behavior.