California has had no smoking laws for public workplaces including bars and restaurants for years. I've been spoiled by not having to put up with cigarette smoke and haven't liked traveling to states where they still have smoking allowed in restaurants and other places. Non smoking sections never worked as smoke travels.
I was a smoker in my late teens/early twenties and never smoked around others didn't care for it. My brother is a respiratory therapist and when people ask him if he minds if they smoke answers "no, I can use the business".
I have an aunt who is in her mid-80's and has smoked all her life. I allow her to smoke in the bedroom when she is here to visit. Not any more. I had to clean the walls of the room down after she left because the smell was so bad. I doubt that she will want to come again when I tell her of the no smoking ban, but it can't be helped. If you have smoke up your nose for that many years, you just don't believe that second-hand smoke can smell as horrible as it actually does. Since I quit smoking, I am so allergic to second hand smoke that it give me serious headaches. There's just no way I would sit in a restaurant with my eyes and nose burning from second-hand smoke.
No wonder you call yourself michibilly. I didn't know there were any states up north that were red-neck enough to still allow smoking in the workplace.
posted by JFKRJK
over 2 years ago
There has been a smoking ban in California for some time now. A few friends I spoke with told me it is even to the point here where there are "designated" smoking areas outside and are becoming fewer and farther away from buildings. I found it interesting everytime I had a cold could not stand the smell of smoke (I didn't smoke when I had a cold, although I had friends who smoked through everything)...the last really bad cold I had did me in and when I got over the cold still could not stand the smell of smoke. That has been over three years now. I still have an unopened carton of cigarettes which in the next 5 or 10 years I may put on ebay.
I hace lived in MI for more than 25 years and the impression that it is somehow a smoker's haven is utterly false (and thank god for that!). of course, my experience is largely from my workplace at the U, where some secretaries with serious tobacco addictions, even as far back as 15 years or so, would have to go out in the dead of winter and below zero (or -10 and -20 with windchill) to smoke. One or two of my colleagues may have secretly broken the law and smoked, but only in the privacy of their own office, woth nobody else present, one of them is retired and the other dead by now. (One a German and the other American, but also of German origin, BTW)
When I was growing up I had to endure my father's second hand smoke sometimes in the small kitchen where we used to have informal lunches and dinners, and I found it very unpleasant decades before it was also found to be harmful. He died recently at 93 and 3/4 years old, but he quit his pack a day or more, cold turkey at 67.
PS I have never, ever smoked one cigarette (or any other form of smoke or other substances) in my entire life, as you may have guessed.
Yes jfkrjk, I think in some ways Michigan is pretty backward and lots of areas, like the one I live in, are pretty redneck. LOTS of people here smoke and I just don't see how they afford it. Often when I'm in the grocery store I'll see people using the WIC (welfare money) card to buy groceries, and then pulling out cash to pay $50 for a carton of cigarettes. How in the world can they afford cigarettes on welfare? Some of these clueless little chimneys are burning up two or more packs per day, or about two cartons per week...at $50 per carton....$100 per week....slightly over $400 per month....nearly $5,000 per year....WFT?????
Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot more inconsiderate smokers than there are considerate smokers in restaurants around here, and their fate is because of their own actions; zero sympath. I was in a restaurant here at lunch, and the place was packed. A table of smokers plopped their butts down right in the middle of the non-smoking section and lit up. When I asked them to not smoke in the non-smoking section, one of the lovely young ladies gave me the finger. No problem, I told her that since she had flashed her IQ at me, I could try and explain it in much simpler terms. In stepped the waitress who told me that 'it's not their fault that the smoking section is full, and that they have no objections to non-smokers sitting in the smoking section'. HUH? Is that really the same thing?
Just about that time our food arrived, and we all got up and left. The manager met us at the door and told us that we had to pay for our food, and I told her that if she booted the smokers out of the non-smoking section, we would be happy to return, and she declined telling me that they are 'good customers'. My friend told her that she was right and that we were not good customers, but former customers and we left, and never returned. She also sent the waitresses around to refill coffee cups. Each time they did that they made a little mark on your bill, and when you got to the register you were charged the cost of a full cup of coffee for each little mark. She's now closed....but I digress.
This smoking ban will also fix our bowling center problem. We are a very small league, non-smoking and mostly over 55. We have about five smokers, four of whom obey the rules, and one, a team captain, who 'sneaks' smokes whenever nobody is looking. Next year, the whole bowling center will be non-smoking since they serve food and our inconsiderate, and possible illiterate smoker will not be smoking anywhere in the building...again...whose fault is this???????
"and I just don't see how they afford it. "
I also thought the same thing many times when I see them in gas stations and checkout lanes at Krogers etc. I guess they are addicts, many addicts can't afford their drugs.
Speaking of affording, how many people have their thermostats at 62 in the winter? Many can't afford to have them at 70 and more, and would save who knows how much a month ($100?) if they switched to 62. ( When I'm alone in a room, I always set it to 62, used to it now, above 65 it feels too warm). Others buy automatic devices that drop it to 60 or below after you go to sleep but i don't bother.
I have a woodstove so the house is usually more like 78, with windows open.
I took my granddaughter to pick out a Christmas tree yesterday morning. We were so excited on that crisp morning just to look at all the trees and "smell" Christmas in the air. It was spoiled by the smoker who was determined to follow us up and down each row. We finally just left. The poor kid has to live with smokers. You would think she could at least enjoy the fresh air.
I understand that addiction is a very hard thing to overcome, with smoking being the hardest, so I'm told. I never smoked, but my father did and was a three to four pack per day kind of guy. He smoked between bites at dinner, and my seat was by the window, so the smoke wafted past me while I ate. When I complained, my mother told me to shut up and eat my dinner.
People who smoke in their homes around children are abusers. Sorry, if that offends smokers but to subject children, whose bodies are still forming, to toxic chemicals is just wrong. If parents have to smoke, and either aren't willing to quit, or just can't, they need to refrain from smoking around their kids, period.
