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14 March 2003: "The proposed smoking ban in Washington State"

A local issue, for a change.
Here in the fair state of Washington, the State Legislature is working on two bills—House Bill 1868 and Senate Bill 5791—which would ban smoking in all places of business in the state. This issue is being hotly "debated," for instance in the feature "Smoke Out" in last week's issue of The Stranger. But I feel there's one cardinal point not being addressed in the debate: why is this legislation thought to be necessary at all?

I have now spent about five months in Washington State, and in that time it has been my pleasure to visit a goodly number of public eating and drinking establishments. Of this number, exactly four allowed smoking (La Taqueria Dos in Lacey, the 13 Coins in Sea-Tac, the Elliot Bay Brew Pub in West Seattle and the Hi-Line Lanes bowling alley in Burien; and of these, only the bowling alley did not have a separate smoking section). Now, I am a smoker, but since my beloved spouse has asthma, I do not smoke in the house, and I understand and respect any desire on the part of non-smokers (especially those with pulmonary disorders) to be able to go for a meal or a few drinks without being subjected to noxious tobacco fumes. But it's not as if this is currently impossible in Washington, au contraire.

In fact, it's probably easier to easier to find a smoke-free establishment than it is to find one where smoking is allowed. On the website of King County (which includes Seattle), one can find a list of smoke-free restaurants, other entertainment venues and even smoke-free nightlife. Menwhile, Pierce County has 38-page guide to smoke-free establishments, and just in case you don't live in King or Pierce counties, the Washington Department of Health has a listing of smoke-free restaurants by county.
(And I should point out that the definition of "restaurant" seems to encompass just about any place which serves food which requires any degree of preparation on the premises, which means that anything my fellow Dutchmen would refer to as a "cafetaria," "snackbar" or eetcafé would be classed as a restaurant as well.)

So I'm inclined to think that the concerns which House Bill 1868 and Senate Bill 5791 serve to address have already, for the most part, been taken care of by self-regulation on the part of the industry. Smoke-free establishments outnumber establishments which permit smoking, thus providing a plethora of dining/drinking environments for patrons (and working environments for waitrons) who do not wish to be exposed to tobacco smoke. And that being the case, I cannot help but agree with Sandeep Kaushik in the aforementioned article from The Stranger, when he wrote:

What—you don't enjoy the company of the boring, narcissistic health nuts who frequent [nonsmoking bars]? You want to hang out with the cool people in the cool bars? Fine; fuck you, then. Suck it up and quit your whining.

It does rather seem that support for the bills is hardly motivated by concern for people's health. How many of the people feigning concern for the wait staff's health are ready to bust out with arguments in favour of the minimum wage (let alone raising the minimum wage) or legislating better health benefits for wait staff? Damn few, I'll wager. And the attitudes displayed by Jennifer Maerz and Dan Savage in the same article is hardly that of "love the sinner, hate the sin"—hatred of the sinner seems to be foremost here. Savage especially expresses some opinions which are utter bollocks:

The only people I hate more than smokers are dog owners—although I hate dog owners and smokers for pretty much the same reason. While dog owners believe the whole world is one big toilet for their turd-droppers, smokers believe the whole world is one big ashtray. It's all about them—the dog owner and his "right" to let his idiot animal shit anywhere and everywhere, and the idiot smoker and his "right" to fill any room he enters with smoke.

As I said, I don't even smoke in my own house; I sure as hell don't smoke in anyone else's (unless that person is a smoker), and I'll happily walk a few dozen metres to drop my butt in a trashcan (if there is one) rather than ditching it in the street. I don't think I have a "right" to smoke in any given place; I doubt most smokers do. But we certainly appreciate having places where we have the option to smoke indoors, especially in this miserable climate. And I don't see why that option needs to be legislated out of existence, especially since non-governmental measures have already created plenty of smoke-free environments.

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