According to a new News7/SurveyUSA poll, 65% of Virginia support a ban on smoking in Virginia restaurants, with 32% opposed to the ban. That's a 2:1 margin in favor of banning smoking in restaurants. According to News-7, "The poll was conducted as state legislators prepare to take up the issue in Wednesday's Veto Session."We'll see what happens today, but again, I strongly urge the General Assembly to protect the health of restaurant workers from a known carcinogen - second hand smoke - and ban smoking in restaurants. Based on all the evidence from other states and cities, restaurants will not suffer, customers and workers will benefit, and life will go on as well or better than before.
True, Philip Morris wants everyone to be able to spread their carcinogens as some sort of Constitutional right, but besides the cancer-stick industry, is there anyone else making a serious argument that government should not be protection peole from this, just as it protects people from asbestos and other carcinogens? If so, I haven't heard it yet, except for the red herring that customers can go somewhere else if they don't like smoke. True, but what about the workers? Nobody ever seems to answer that question, except to pretend it's not a problem. Well, sorry, but it IS a problem, and we can do something about it. Today. So let's do it!
[If you're interested, go vote in our poll...on the upper left side of the page. Thanks.]
This are some of the reasons for a ban on indoor smoking from the American Lung Association:
Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 22,700-69,600 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.
A study found that nonsmokers exposed to environmental smoke were 25 percent more likely to have coronary heart diseases compared to nonsmokers not exposed to smoke.
The current Surgeon General's Report concluded that scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to second hand smoke. Short exposures to second hand smoke can cause blood platelets to become stickier, damage the lining of blood vessels, decrease coronary flow velocity reserves, and reduce heart rate variability, potentially increasing the risk of heart attack.
Your "rights" end when they directly endanger the health and even life of someone else. Sorry, take your disgusting cancer stick habit elsewhere!
As a former smoker and former restaurant employee I support the ban. After I quit smoking it was hard to stay that way when I had to work in such a smokey environment.
Ladders shall be capable of supporting the following loads without failure:1926.1053(a)(1)(i)
Each self-supporting portable ladder: At least four times the maximum intended load, except that each extra-heavy-duty type 1A metal or plastic ladder shall sustain at least 3.3 time the maximum intended load. The ability of a ladder to sustain the loads indicated in this paragraph shall be determined by ***blah blah
Now what would you think if OSHA's rules always had a caveat such as -- "except in the bar and restaurant industries, where we don't give a flying fork about the health of the workers . . .".
I'd really like some of the progressives on this site who oppose smoking bans to address the issue of why we should encourage/permit safety regulations in other industries -- (hey, people are free to leave the construction industry too if they don't like the health consequences) -- but allow a well proven hazardous substance to fill the air. So what's the difference?