Opinion

Waiting to exhale

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The Madison City Council has, for the better part of recent memory, made attempts to improve the conditions of the people it represents: the recent minimum-wage campaign and downtown renewal projects such as Overture and the East University high rises come to mind.

City policymakers recently proposed a ban on smoking in local bars. While we acknowledge their seeming attempt to improve the health and welfare of patrons, this move would prevent bar owners from exercising their essential rights as citizens.

The progressive element of city government, which holds power at present and offers this proposal for similar reasons, would, in enacting a smoking ban, cross a line that must be defended. A business owner must have the right to permit a legal activity at his or her establishment. Smoking is certainly one of these legal activities.

We must acknowledge that secondhand smoke, common in many bars, can be detrimental to one’s health — just like drinking. But there is little doubt that if one does not wish to be around smokers or drinkers, one can always travel to a different establishment.

That’s the power behind freedom: choice. If enough people stop attending smoke-filled bars, those bars will either go out of business or institute nonsmoking policies. Crave Lounge or Dotty Dumpling’s Dowry will only grow in the future.

Yet this proposal would deny that decision to bar owners and the smokers who patronize their establishments.

Taverns and bars, for as long as they have existed, have never been havens of upright and healthful behavior and shouldn’t be expected to become so now. Let’s face it: bars are one of the last public places in society where one can go simply for the reason of no reason at all. The last place where it’s OK to be human.

Bar owners take it upon themselves to provide this setting, oftentimes through much hard work and frustration. As a result, they have always reserved the right to accept or reject any patron, especially important in places where college-age people consume alcohol.

Indeed, it is the owner of a bar who gives it its atmosphere, it is the owner who must fork over rent, and it is the owner who, therefore, should be allowed to make whatever decision he or she chooses about allowing tobacco in his or her establishment.