Quote:
Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald
That may be the way it is in Chicago but in AZ and CA, restaurants have the discretion to have separate smoking areas. Most find it more cost effective to have the smoking area outside instead of having separate rooms with separate air handling systems. Just having a smoking area on one side of a room and and non-smoking on the other side isn't enough to protect non-smokers (especially those with allergies or other respiratory diseases; if you had my allergies, you would be singing a different tune) from smoke, no matter where people may be seated. One of the downsides of living in societies is individual rights end at the point they start to infringe on the rights of others. If people in society don't respect that, then rules (such as laws) have to be made and enforced to ensure those rights. If you don't like it, then become a hermit.
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Not the way it is in Chicago. Of course, the "outside" option would be a little dicey in January...
As for your allergies, I'm sorry you have them but I don't think you have or should have a legal "right" to impose your problems on other people. We all have problems. I have a son who cannot eat more than about 10 foods, and it's a physical problem, not a psychological one. His body rejects most foods. There are many places he cannot go out to eat at all because they do not serve what he can eat. We could use a law requiring all restaurants to accommodate his needs, right?
That's not to say that I don't think that you shouldn't be accommodated. I just think that it is in the long run more damaging to achieve that outcome by law than by custom. For big things, we need laws. When we use law to regulate small things, no matter how discomfiting they may be for a few, we are turning over our lives to the government.
I don't think that the law should either ban smoking or require that it be permitted. I think that it is none of the government's business.