A similar bit of advice applies to any North Carolinian who has strong feelings against restaurants that allow other patrons to smoke: Stay out of those places.
People who object strenuously to breathing other people’s smoke in restaurants — and who aren’t content with simply making smokers sit in separate areas — should restrict their patronage to dining establishments that choose to ban smoking altogether. In other words, why not continue letting what economist and philosopher Adam Smith called “the invisible hand of the marketplace” take care of the situation?
That’s not an entirely satisfactory approach for everyone, admittedly. And it’s not enough for state Rep. High Hollimann, a Davidson County Democrat, who has introduced a bill to prohibit smoking once and for all in restaurants and in bars attached to restaurants. (Stand-alone bars would be exempt, though it’s not clear why. Surely a little alcohol in the blood system does nothing to protect against the carcinogens contained in tobacco smoke.)
Though Hollimann has understandable personal motivations — he has lung cancer and his doctors told him second-hand smoke may be to blame — his bill seems extreme.
Its political chances of passage don’t look at all good, either. This is not hyper-sensitive California. It’s North Carolina, whose economy has traditionally depended heavily on the cultivation of tobacco and the manufacture of tobacco products, and which has always leaned toward more of a live-and-let-live attitude on such matters. In fact, there’s already a piece of protective state legislation on the books prohibiting governments from banning restaurant smoking locally.
A good middle ground would be to repeal that law. If localities want to take the step of declaring restaurants smoke-free within their limits, what right do meddling legislators from elsewhere have to tell them they can’t do so? Let’s ban the ban on bans and let it go at that.
