The Observation Deck

I am more than happy to share ideas and opinions on topics of reasonable disagreement. I can respect differing viewpoints on even hot button issues like eminent domain, abortion, war, etc. However, much like the "issue 1" gay marriage ban*, this proposal is nothing more than political orthodoxy run amuck (with a side order of arrogance and intolerance).

I am in fact a study writer. I do industry studies for the Freedonia Group. Our products are the best in the business, and used by 90 percent of the Fortune 500. Our products are non-political in nature.

However, my experience in study writing shows me that studies can be easily manipulated to say anything the writer wants. The examples I cited are just a few. So my reaction to Charyn's study thumping (the secular equivalent to bible-thumping) is extremely skeptical.

Common sense dictates that this idea is not only a gross violation of property rights, but just plain stupid. Fewer customers=less sales**. That is why the bar owners are against it. Not because they are tools of big tobacco, not because they are afraid of change.

The apologists for this nonsense also ignore the obvious fact that drunken smokers will be spending more time outside, which will obviously increase the amount of disturbances and further aggravate neighborhood problems.

Thankfully our city council shot this down. A statewide initiative will be badly beaten (hey, for once the people of Ohio will actually get an election right!).

*Both issues involve needless government interference into private lives of consenting adults. Also, Issue 1 proponents were quick to dismiss the concerns of businesses like Proctor and Gamble that expressed disagreement with the issue. Much like smoking ban proponents, Kenny Blackwell and Company claimed that the state's economy would not be hurt by passing the issue. Heck, maybe they were right. Proctor and Gamble has not packed up and moved to Massachusetts. However, just because the sky didn't fall after the election doesn't make the gay marriage ban right.

**Cite all the studies you want....I would just LOVE to meet the hypothetical health nuts that are avoiding bars to save their lungs, but would be happy to return once the ban is in place so that they can destroy their heart, hearing and liver. If these people actually existed, bars would have smokeless nights already.

Well, you can have your surveys and your polls. Smoking and second hand smoke dangerous?? Lets get real!!!
Any one 50 years or older remembers the steel mills, chrome plating and plastic plants in Cleveland. Houses burned coal for heat, all the other food additives and other little nice things they didn't put on labels. People didn't worry about dieing. They were too busy living, working hard and yes even smoking. I believe we have become they weak generation, we don't appreciate every day, appreciate our kids and our neighbors.

Grow up, look at grand parents head stones they lived into their 80's and 90's, living with far more pollution then we have now!!! Their average so called life expectancy in 1950 was 58 years old.

They didn't have instant communication to worry about new diseases, smoking bans, they had a cigar and a shot and beer, no remote controls for t.v. and radios. They had less stress with out all the so called modern conviences we have, they lived a long life. Why, they didn't sit around and worry, they worked hard, walked to many places, ( God forbid we walk now ) They actually loved the person, that they were with. They helped people who had less then they did and they had very little. They came here with very little and had morale fiber. We have everything as a convience now and we worry about disease and death!! Think we bett change our thinking.

Want to live long?? Quit worring about a new study, new disease or how to compete with your neighbor. Smoking won't kill you!!! Inactiveity will, get out and visit your neighbor, talk to them, help them, go out and play with your kids. Stop griping and use your electronics less, you may actually see a sunset, learn your neighbors name, loose weight, make a future memory by actually playing and talking to your children. When every one quits smoking? What will be the next challenge?? Short people, slow people, ugly people, think its time we grow up and accept people, not change them!!! We are too busy changing everyone except ourselfs!!

This will be my last post on this thread because I have no use for hostility; however, I want to clarify a few things.

Phil: Thank you for pointing out that I was citing studies of historical occurrences and not predictive studies of possible consequences.

Mike: You have very valid concerns about studies and I attempted to be very sensitive to the political nature of this issue. I tried to find studies that were not presented by anti-smoking groups, nor by tobacco-industry groups for the very reasons that you cited. As an actuarial student, i am QUITE aware of what can be done which is why, for the edification of others, I pointed to a few key things that one should look for when evaluating a study.

I am fully against smoking bans because of the property rights issues - I think that we need LESS governmental interference where property rights are concerns (as well as tort reform but that is a rant for another day) and any attempt by the government to dictate to me what I can do and where makes me very irritated to say the least (yes, bad democrat... BAD democrat....). I will argue this point next to you all the day long; however, I will not base my argument on facts that I find to be wholly unsupported through reasonably objective studies.

And Bill? Puh-leeaaaze. Just because your grandma didnt die of lung cancer doesnt mean that there werent thousands of people that did. You want to argue for rights at least get your facts straight. Smoking will kill you. That is a fact and to deny it well..

that would be why I wont bother to post again.

~Charyn.

Bill Koltiska wrote:Well, you can have your surveys and your polls. Smoking and second hand smoke dangerous?? Lets get real!!!
Any one 50 years or older remembers the steel mills, chrome plating and plastic plants in Cleveland. Houses burned coal for heat, all the other food additives and other little nice things they didn't put on labels. People didn't worry about dieing. They were too busy living, working hard and yes even smoking. I believe we have become they weak generation, we don't appreciate every day, appreciate our kids and our neighbors.

Grow up, look at grand parents head stones they lived into their 80's and 90's, living with far more pollution then we have now!!! Their average so called life expectancy in 1950 was 58 years old.

They didn't have instant communication to worry about new diseases, smoking bans, they had a cigar and a shot and beer, no remote controls for t.v. and radios. They had less stress with out all the so called modern conviences we have, they lived a long life. Why, they didn't sit around and worry, they worked hard, walked to many places, ( God forbid we walk now ) They actually loved the person, that they were with. They helped people who had less then they did and they had very little. They came here with very little and had morale fiber. We have everything as a convience now and we worry about disease and death!! Think we bett change our thinking.

Want to live long?? Quit worring about a new study, new disease or how to compete with your neighbor. Smoking won't kill you!!! Inactiveity will, get out and visit your neighbor, talk to them, help them, go out and play with your kids. Stop griping and use your electronics less, you may actually see a sunset, learn your neighbors name, loose weight, make a future memory by actually playing and talking to your children. When every one quits smoking? What will be the next challenge?? Short people, slow people, ugly people, think its time we grow up and accept people, not change them!!! We are too busy changing everyone except ourselfs!!

good points, bill. i guess a person doesn't have to be a know-it-all, righteously indignant shrilly to get a good point across. post more often, man, you are a breath of fresh air (no pun intended).

Charyn Varkonyi wrote:
that would be why I wont bother to post again.

~Charyn.

you're cute.

HAHA

Just out of curiosity, how many of you who are so vehemently opposing a ban or even denying that smoking is dangerous are smokers themselves?

If so, is it more out of personal self-interest that gives you the position that you hold or is it that you actually believe that second-hand smoke is not harmful?

Bryan Schwegler wrote:Just out of curiosity, how many of you who are so vehemently opposing a ban or even denying that smoking is dangerous are smokers themselves?

If so, is it more out of personal self-interest that gives you the position that you hold or is it that you actually believe that second-hand smoke is not harmful?

Bryan

Let me jump in as I am on fire this morning.

I smoked 3 packs of Lucky Strikes for 15+ years. I have not smoked in 15 years. Do not miss it, glad I stopped.

I believe that cigarettes can cause cancer, as can many things. I believe that second hand smoke can be dangerous, as are many things.

But I believe that every study out their is flawed, slanted and mostly BS.

Let's look at Asbestos, and the firestorm it created. Asbestos is dangerous, especially in high quantity and in dust form. Many fine people died from asbestosis and cancer that were in the asbestos industry, or married to someone in the industry. But to my knowledge NO ONE outside of that industry ever got it or died from it. Yet we went out to rid every building of it. At the time no one would listen to the single fact that it was safer to leave it in place than remove it.

The same is now true with smoking. I used to run nightclubs, and spent a lot of time in bars, homes, public places in the 60s and 70s where 3/4 of the people there were chain smoking. Then second hand smoke would have been a killer. Today, I think it is nothing but BS, a red herring by do-gooders who need a cause. The concentration of smoke in public places today is not 5% of what it was. Cigarette smoke damage unlike asbestos is also reversible in the body.

That said, I also think cigarettes should be made illegal, and every penny tobacco companies have should be taken from them and applied to health costs. They lied, they cheated and they created weapons of mass destruction. But not to people that do not smoke them.

To me, 75% of the entire green movement is a scam, designed to make us feel good, and fleece us of money. The idea is gold, the execution, and concepts crap, and snake oil.




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Master OBY erroneously stated with regard to asbestos

But to my knowledge NO ONE outside of that industry ever got it or died from it.

I was involved in the early years of asbestos litigation. In point of fact, there are a goodly number of persons, not directly working with the insulation, who died from it. These people include(d) wives who contracted mesothelioma from dust on their husband's clothes, job site non-asbestos workers who suffered exposure as well as revovation industry workers exposed in tear outs (the bulk of my clients were roofers who were exposed to friable asbestos fibers in tearing off old asbestos roofing materials).

Jeff

Jeff Endress wrote:Master OBY erroneously stated with regard to asbestos

But to my knowledge NO ONE outside of that industry ever got it or died from it.

I was involved in the early years of asbestos litigation. In point of fact, there are a goodly number of persons, not directly working with the insulation, who died from it. These people include(d) wives who contracted mesothelioma from dust on their husband's clothes, job site non-asbestos workers who suffered exposure as well as revovation industry workers exposed in tear outs (the bulk of my clients were roofers who were exposed to friable asbestos fibers in tearing off old asbestos roofing materials).

Jeff

Jeff


Read my post. I covered everything you mentioned. Mechanics, roofers, pipe-fitters etc. came down with asbestos due to the nature of their job, which was working with asbestos. I would be interested in you digging up the case of the child walking down the hallway at school that came down with it.

You actually made my point that it is far more dangerous to remove it than leave it there. The safest thing to do with asbestos is paint it with a latex paint.

As long as we are kicking this I would like to through in some questions and thoughts. In those cases who would be responsible? The person that makes the asbestos product though it was cleared or ignorant at the time. Or if the roof was removed by order, and that order caused the problem? In the 20s, 30, 40s etc, asbestos was treated like plaster. Huge bags dumped out into buckets, mixed by hand. the worker was probably picking his nose, clothes saturated with it. Or my experience, asbestos in brakes. A mechanic removes the brake, sticks his head in the wheel well and blows the brakes off with dust flying back in his face. Again the clothes are covered in dust.

So here is the question. who gets sued. The maker? The employer? The mechanic that didn't wear the mask of blew the dust on his fellow worker? The mechanic that did not bother to change his uniform at work and drove home? The school that hired the guy to remove the asbestos, the government agency that told people to remove it? The removal company? Or all of them?




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so we can revist



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Richard

I am not asking for any change in the regulations.

As I skimmed the notes it seemed to me that many thought business would pick up or many said, if these places were smoke free we would go or go more often.

Rules are rules.

I would just like to stimulate others to go out and have a meal.

I know times are tough, but there are some great deals out there, especially if a person is cooking for one or two.

As I hit the establishments around town, it would seem some are really hurting. I cannot be as caviler as some as say well I guess they deserve it. They advertise, they serve great food at reasonable prices and are pretty good people with long histories in Lakewood.



FWIW


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Jim O'Bryan wrote:Richard


I would just like to stimulate others to go out and have a meal.

I know times are tough, but there are some great deals out there, especially if a person is cooking for one or two.

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As I said in a previous thread, I frequent Lakewood establishments to the fullest extent possible - I can't remember the last time I went out for a meal that wasn't in Lakewood.

In the 20+ years I've lived in the city, there have been many places that have opened, closed, changed theme, some even ending up as a CVS. I suspect that restaurants will continue to be a constantly changing, evolving sector.

Bars, those places that serve alchohol, and alcohol only to a clientle, of lets say 50+ - that sector of the industry, I would guess, was shrinking from the 1960's onwards. Business models do get outdated and outmoded - Is the smoking ban the only responsible factor, is it a far wider societal shift?

It's hot, humid and I'm getting a cold one from the fridge - 20 years ago this conversation would have been in a corner bar

Nice coverage of the Walk and Roll on the local news that I caught