I disagree, Jeff. Most Californian adults do NOT smoke--only about twenty percent of them still do. When I go to Nevada where everyone looks, and laughs at me for asking for the nonsmoking section, they look awful because most of them still do smoke.
It's true that this new law is a little rough around the edges, in the sense of uneven enforcement by local officials, but it is a workplace safety law first and foremost. If an individual bar owner with no employees wants to risk his health due to second hand smoke, that is definitely his choice. And if he can construct a sealed room where no employees go, and deliver the drinks by conveyor belt or leave them outside the door, he can still allow smoking.
So just how does this lead Californians to a deeper distrust of and disrespect for the law? I think the right of workers to a safe workplace overrides the rights of smokers to smoke in bars, since there are other options for them, as simple as stepping outside briefly, and I think most Californians agree.
We have a striking billboard here in San Francisco--I'm not sure how widely it is dispersed--but it really appeals to me. There are two glamourously dressed people, a man and a woman, looking like they are out of a forties movie, and the man is saying "Mind if I smoke?" And the woman answers, "Care if I die?" This says it all for me as far as whose rights are paramount in this debate. |
