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Smoke is disgusting. All the evidence suggests it burns your lungs; in great enough quantity it will almost certainly kill you. It certainly smells — and not the type of smell you find in grandma’s kitchen: that part-sulfur, part-tar invasion of your nostrils that scrunches up your brow and makes your eyes water. It hangs in your clothes, in your face and in your lungs.
Most bar patrons, smokers and non, know the facts about cigarettes, and they are certainly aware of the several ugly aspects of lighting up presented above. Yet the fact remains that smokers continue to smoke, and non-smokers continue to enter plume-filled bars to drink alongside their slightly more reckless brethren. This is called free will, a concept that once meant a lot in this country but has slowly given way to a rebirth of the “nanny state.”
The practice of regulating and licensing bars from a city perspective is, in the broadest sense, the practice of condoning the behavior those establishments promote.
The city of Madison has very few problems enjoying the tax revenue the entertainment industry produces through the sale of drinks and food, and no one contends that nightly doses of Schlitz and bar burgers are doing anyone’s arteries a favor. To single out the practice of smoking as specifically worthy of reprisal is tantamount to indicting the bar culture in general.
Putting smoking in a league of its own is just another insidious encroachment on the “unclean” lifestyle the bar culture presents. If this precedent becomes the standard, the mandatory greasy brat smothered in kraut might be the next casualty.
The oft-cited “workplace-safety concern” is simply not an issue. Coal miners, oil riggers, roofers, fire fighters and thousands of other occupations are significantly more dangerous than bartending. The reality is that many bartenders are themselves smokers, and those who aren’t still applied for their job voluntarily, knowing full well the job’s atmosphere and workplace hazards.
The anti-smoking zealots in Madison have many smoke-free entertainment options on campus and downtown. If they feel they don’t have enough, they can always open their own bar (assuming they agree to surveillance cameras) and ban smoking, the upside to a market based economy based upon free enterprise. We suspect the market for such an establishment would be insatiable.
You may personally be in favor of smoke-free bars, and surely the majority of students do not smoke and presumably would prefer not to inhale second hand smoke. We both fall into both categories. But if the city protects its citizens from hazardous smoke, why not protect its citizens from other known harms?
Sport-utility vehicles are known to endanger other drivers on the road in collisions with smaller cars so why should we allow anyone to drive vehicles other than mopeds? And even mopeds pump more carcinogens and toxins into the air than a cigarette, negatively affecting local residents and the global community. So why not ban the internal-combustion engine and bike to West Towne to buy your earth shoes and hemp sweater?
If our government insists upon setting the precedent of protecting its citizens from any potential negative externality presented by others, there is no clear criteria for drawing the line and thus no limit to the freedoms that could fall under attack. Eventually we won’t even be allowed to leave our own homes and apartments for fear that we might somehow unknowingly harm those around us if allowed in public. Before we know it, body odor and bad breath may be cause for incarceration.
Conjuring Orwellian visions of “big brother,” the city of Madison now spends less time protecting you from pot holes and than protecting you from the occasional pack of Parliaments. Since when did we elect alders to watch out for the excesses of our personal lives?
We didn’t, any more than we elected them to make invading Iraq illegal on the Isthmus. This isn’t the first time the Madison City Council has overstepped its bounds; let us all hope against hope it will prove the last.
Eric Cullen (ecullen@badgerherald.com) is a sophomore majoring in political science. A.J. Hughes (ahughes@badgerherald.com) is a wannabe smoker.