The Stogie Guys

[Editors’ Note: Tomorrow, Virginia’s smoking ban goes into effect. The following guest commentary was originally published in January 2008 when Virginia Governor Tim Kaine began pushing for the statewide smoking ban, but the reasons it gives for opposing the smoking ban remain just as valid today.]

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine recently announced that he’ll renew his fight to ban smoking in all Virginia bars and restaurants. He defended this push by citing the dangers of secondhand smoke, saying, “The scientific evidence about the health risks associated with exposure to secondhand smoke is clear and convincing. Recognizing the negative health effects and high public costs of secondhand smoke, Virginia must act to protect the workers and consumers in its restaurants.”

We’re pleased the governor has such command of the epidemiologic literature. Usually, when politicians make such statements, they have little if any familiarity with scientific research. Kaine should cite the empirical studies showing the health effects of bar and restaurant patrons’ occasional exposure to tobacco smoke. We’re not aware of any such studies; even the much-cited recent surgeon general’s report on secondhand smoke offered no statistical evidence of diminished health from occasional exposure. The findings on health effects that we’ve seen involve people who are chronically exposed to secondhand smoke—people such as the spouses and children of smokers who’ve had decades of regular, concentrated exposure.

The governor further claims that he has “clear and convincing” scientific evidence that a ban would decrease health risks and reduce “high” public costs. Can he tell us what those costs were and how they were calculated? How much will Virginia’s current trends in mortality and morbidity change as a result of his prohibition? Will he promise to repeal the law if no such change materializes?

Of course, people have a right to avoid exposure to secondhand smoke, no matter what studies show. But they don’t have the right to force everyone else to live according to their preference. Fortunately, the world can accommodate their desires along with those of people who don’t mind tobacco smoke, just as it can accommodate people who like Chinese food and people who prefer hamburgers. Restaurant and bar owners want to make money, and they do so by catering to different market niches. In Northern Virginia, many restaurants and bars advertise that they are smoke-free, while others cater to a smoking crowd. This offering of many different choices is a virtue of open markets. So why would Kaine override the smoking choices of different people and instead impose his preference on all Virginians?

The governor noted his concern for the health of hospitality workers, who may have more exposure to secondhand smoke. But when bar and restaurant owners set their smoking policies, they must consider the preferences of their staff or else they’ll find themselves facing rapid turnover and paying higher wages. Why should all Virginia bar and restaurant workers be forced to work in a nonsmoking environment that only some of them demand?

Liberal societies allow people to make decisions that others don’t like. If some Virginians want to eat and drink in an establishment that allows smoking, and some workers want to work there, and some entrepreneur wants to finance that business, why does the governor think he should overrule them?

–Tom Firey and Jacob Grier

[Tom Firey is editor of Regulation magazine, which is published by the Cato Institute. Jacob Grier, formerly of Cato, is a friend of StogieGuys.com. He blogs at JacobGrier.com.]

photo credit: 50states.com

Spokane, Washington ran into some resistance recently when it’s public officials attempted to expand the city’s already expansive outdoor smoking ban to include municipal golf courses. Only after “an outcry from players and smoking rights advocates” did the city council back off on its attempt to ban cigar smoking on the city golf course. At least for now.

Ban advocates on the city council said they’d “wait for people to calm down” before trying to pass the bill again, possibly in a year or so. Apparently they see no connection between the lack of “calm” and their action to sever the longstanding link between golf and cigars.

Many professional golfers, including Rocco Mediate, Davis Love III, and Darren Clarke, are cigar smokers who will take their stogies on the course with them. Spanish golfer Miguel Ángel Jiménez (pictured), winner of 18 professional tournaments, is often seen playing tournaments with a Cohiba.

Amateur golfers are even more likely to light up a cigar, given that, for them, the golf course is simply a place to relax and have fun, not a job. In fact, with it’s open spaces and generally smoke-friendly attitude, the golf course may be the ideal place to smoke a cigar. But that doesn’t mean anti-tobacco advocates aren’t trying to ban smoking on the golf course, and even with some success.

While the Spokane golf course ban failed, such a ban would hardly be unique. Jurisdictions in Hawaii, California, Colorado, Indiana, Texas, and Minnesota have already pushed smoking bans to include the greens, fairways, tee boxes, and bunkers of local golf courses. A public smoking ban that covered Torrey Pines, host to last year’s U.S. Open, meant that spectators were banned from smoking, although golfers were still permitted to smoke.

Patrick Reynolds, the turncoat heir to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco fortune who is now a spokesman for the Foundation for a Smokefree America, stated that the golf course smoking ban was “cutting edge” but “reasonable.” He also told a local reporter that the law would combat litter.

With statements like that, it seems that there is likely to be many more fights over outdoor golf course smoking bans in the coming months and years.

–Patrick S

photo credit: Timeinc.net

With traditionally cigar-friendly locales like Dallas and North Carolina set to enact smoking bans soon, today presents a good opportunity to revisit our case against these unjust and tyrannical laws.

Regular readers will recall that, over the years, we’ve written a great deal about the lamentable spread of state and local smoking bans. While my colleagues and I try to keep our web magazine focused more on tobacco and less on politics, some issues—predominantly taxes and bans—cannot and should not be avoided.

So, here I intend to piece together many of the arguments we and others have made against the draconian smoking ban movement. My goals are threefold: (1) to potentially convince those who remain unconvinced, (2) to refresh our memories, and (3) to provide fellow brothers of the leaf with ammunition for their own debates on the subject.

Protect Whom?

One of our first commentaries on this subject was written back in May of 2006. It was prompted by city officials in Calabasas, California, who had approved a law that prohibits all smoking outdoors (except for in city-approved designated “smoking areas”). Given the complete lack of scientific data regarding outdoor secondhand smoke, I concluded that Calabasas officials weren’t trying to “protect” nonsmokers—they were trying to “protect” smokers, the very people who are consciously choosing to smoke.

That realization shouldn’t have come as a surprise. After all, the aim of every smoking ban, whether outdoors or inside private buildings, is for the government to control the actions of consenting adults.

The argument that bans are needed to protect the waitresses, bartenders, busboys, etc. who work in smoking facilities is also ill-conceived. As our friend Jacob Grier (a bartender) recently pointed out in an op-ed, there are many jobs that expose workers to riskier activities (such as Oregon’s requirement of full-service gas stations, which exposes attendants to harmful gas fumes). Besides, if secondhand smoke is a main concern, one can simply opt for a career or an employer that self-regulates tobacco use in the workplace.

Funny Science

In the open air or inside a bar, “health concerns” seem to be a mere ruse to disguise a movement of politicians, bureaucrats, and busybodies who would simply rather not smell, be near, or tolerate tobacco. Keep in mind that the notion of secondhand smoke as an epidemic is totally overblown.

While the AFL-CIO claims that “secondhand smoke is estimated to cause 65,000 deaths per year in the U.S.,” that number is just plain wrong. It’s 20 times the estimate of the Center for Disease Control, and even the CDC estimate was roundly rejected by a federal court. Thomas A. Lambert’s “The Case Against Smoking Bans” summarizes how various agencies and groups used biased “scientific” studies to make secondhand smoke appear to be risky enough to merit “a significant intrusion on the personal liberty of business owners and their customers.”

It’s Economics, Stupid

Famed George Mason University economist Walter E. Williams argues that smoking bans persist and spread despite common sense because “the cost to nonsmokers to impose their will on smokers, say, in a restaurant, bar, or airplane, is zero, or close to it.” The act of voting for politicians who will impose majority rule over minority rights is inexpensive, and zero-priced activities have sub-optimal outcomes.

Allowing the market to dictate smoking preferences, however, provides for choice. Some establishments will cater to smokers. Others, if demand merits, will spring up as profit-motivated business owners ban smoking to cater to desired preferences. Here in northern Virginia, in the absence of any smoking ban (though a statewide ban is forthcoming), many if not most restaurants are currently smoke-free.

Choose Liberty

The most compelling argument against smoking bans, in my opinion, is the notion that consenting adults have rights to do with their bodies what they so please, and private business owners have rights to offer the accommodations they so choose. Whatever the perceived social ill, government regulation and intervention is usually a “cure” worse than the disease.

–Patrick A

photo credit: Flickr

Here at StogieGuys.com, we highlight the most egregious smoking bans when we can. Telling you about every single one would be impossible given that there are smoking bans in literally thousands of jurisdictions.

We’ve seen government-imposed bans in restaurants, bars, casinos, cars, outdoors, golf courses, cigar shops, and even houses. Each is more ridiculous than the next. And who knows what’s around the corner?

As the following video points out, it wasn’t always this way. In fact, it was only ten years ago that California banned smoking in bars. Most people probably just figured that was California thing. Today, though, smoking bans have become a nationwide thing—something you’ll find in red and blue states, east and west states, north and south states, on the coasts and in middle America.

With smoking bans so clearly on the march, I suggest watching this timely eight-minute video, which discuses how we got here and where we might end up:

–Patrick S

video credit: Reason.tv

[Editors’ Note: The following is a guest commentary from Jacob Grier, a friend of StogieGuys.com whose recent move to the West Coast has him face-to-face with environmental-driven smoking bans.]

My apartment hunt in downtown Portland yesterday brought unexpected frustration. As I strolled among modern high-rises with big balconies, surrounded by restaurants and coffee shops and independent specialty stores, I thought I’d found the perfect city for me. Yet time and again I was told that my kind are not welcome in these apartments: the residences are completely smoke-free, inside and out.

I’m not a frequent smoker but I do think that enjoying a good cigar and a glass of whiskey with a close friend is one of life’s great pleasures. With Oregon’s ban on smoking in bars and restaurants coming into effect soon, my home will be one of the few places that I’m allowed to light up here. Being forbidden from enjoying a cigar or pipe even on my own deck or balcony is close to a deal-breaker for me. Walking around the Pearl District yesterday, passing block after block of apartments where I would not be permitted to pursue my hobby, I felt for the first time what it’s like to be a minority facing discrimination. Admittedly, I suffer for a lifestyle choice rather than for an immutable characteristic of my being, so I won’t pretend it compares to racial or sexual discrimination. But still, it was a new experience for this middle class white guy.

I assumed that these anti-smoking policies were how apartment buildings cater to West Coast nanny state types who have fantastically misinformed beliefs about the dangers of secondhand smoke. However much that might irk me, it would be hypocritical of me to deny them the right to live in the kinds of communities they prefer. I respect their rights of property and freedom of association, even if they won’t extend the same courtesy to smokers and business owners.

Then at one of these properties I learned that there’s actually another force at work. LEED certification, the seal of approval from the U.S. Green Building Council, now imposes strict smoking restrictions on buildings that want to advertise their environmental bonafides.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. In eco-conscious cities like Portland, it’s a marketing advantage to have a building LEED certified. Builders submit their designs to the USGBC, are given a checklist of features the council looks for, and the number of items they can check off determines their LEED rating. Most of these items involve matters like energy efficiency, reusing materials, reducing water use, and other goals clearly related to environmental purposes. You might wonder what controlling residents’ smoking habits has to do with any of this. I certainly did.

It turns out that LEED certification considers six categories of evaluation, one of which is indoor environmental quality. If tobacco smoke is considered a pollutant, banning smoking is one way of addressing it. One could make a plausible case that LEED certified buildings shouldn’t allow smoking indoors, where habitual smokers could pump a lot of smoke into the ventilation systems. But in proximity to an exterior door? Or on a balcony? There’s absolutely no scientific justification for banning this. Walking by a smoker on the way into the lobby is not going to kill anyone. It’s annoying, perhaps, but it’s not a matter that needs to be addressed by green building codes.

To put all this into perspective, of the more than 70 items on the checklist, only 7 are necessary prerequisites. In the indoor environmental quality category, increased ventilation, low-emitting materials use, thermal comfort, and outdoor air delivery monitoring are all optional. In other categories things like materials reuse, building with certified wood, managing refrigerants, using renewable energy, reducing water use, and minimizing the heat island effect are optional. For a project that’s primarily concerned with environmental protection, prioritizing outdoor smoking bans over these other concerns is strange indeed.

As I said before, I don’t object to leasing companies forbidding smoking if that’s what their customers want them to do. I do object, though, to the USGBC forcing bans onto anyone who wants to advertise their green building practices. Most people don’t know the details of what goes into the LEED checklist; they just want to know that a building is energy efficient, clean, and doesn’t waste resources. Banning smoking outdoors has nothing to do with that and muddles legitimate environmental concerns with restrictions on people’s personal behavior. Worse, it casts doubt on the merit of the USGBC’s other standards. If the organization has so little respect for scientific validity when it comes to smoking, it makes one wonder about the entire checklist. Is it guided by respectable science or by political correctness? Not being an expert in design, I have no way of knowing.

–This originally appeared at JacobGrier.com on Oct. 14.

photo credit: Flickr

Here at StogieGuys.com, we make an honest effort not to grumble too often about government-mandated smoking bans and the anti-tobacco zealots who advocate them. While we’ve made no secret of the fact that such invasive bans limit choice, violate private property, and are justified only by shoddy “science,” we try to focus on the more enjoyable aspects of the wonderful hobby we all share in our daily coverage of the world of cigars.

But understanding what’s happening in the increasingly hostile smoking ban movement is an essential tool in asserting our freedoms as cigar smokers and standing up for the rights of restaurant and bar entrepreneurs across the nation. In that spirit, and since I haven’t written anything similar since March, I offer the following news items for your consideration. They are by no means all-inclusive; they’re simply a few of the more interesting smoking ban stories to surface as of late:

1. Charleston, WV: “Some Kanawha County bar owners are uniting Tuesday night to make one clear statement about the new smoking ban. They’re putting the ashtrays back out, allowing smokers to light up once again, and breaking the law. It’s all to protest the expanded ban, which eliminates smoking in most public places including bars and gambling parlors. It’s like old times inside the Black Hawk Saloon. Business is booming for owner Kerry Ellison on this night dedicated to smokers. Ellison is breaking the law and proud of it. He’s standing up against the smoking ban he says has cut his business in half.”

2. Davenport, IA: “Regardless of your opinion on Iowa’s smoking ban, some of the temporary administrative rules—such as the distinction between bars and restaurants—go beyond the intent of the law…Obviously, legislators intended for bars to permit smoking outside. However, instead of being explicit in their definitions, legislators defined bars as venues where serving food is ‘incidental’ to the consumption of alcohol, but they didn’t define ‘incidental.’…But the [Iowa Department of Public Health]’s definition means that bars serving burgers, chicken, or anything requiring a grill are considered restaurants. The Iowa law was already more strict than the one in Illinois, which permits smoking in almost all outdoor locations, including the outdoor seating areas of bars and restaurants. But the interpretation by IDPH pushed Iowa’s rules to the extreme.”

3. Chillicothe, OH: “An Ohio group is launching a campaign with the hope of repealing some provisions of the statewide smoking ban approved by voters and instituted in the spring of 2007…Opponents of Ohio Bans says the bill will restore exemptions to the smoking ban for family-owned businesses, outdoor patios and private clubs—organizations that have been vocal in opposition to the ban and have said they have been financially hurt by it.”

–Patrick A

photo credit: Flickr

It should come as no surprise to regular StogieGuys.com readers that government-mandated smoking bans and the anti-tobacco zealots who advocate them get no sympathy here. We’ve made no secret of the fact that such invasive bans limit choice, violate private property, and are justified only by shoddy “science.”

So when I come across interesting stories about bar owners who either outright defy or creatively sidestep smoking bans, I have to applaud them. These entrepreneurs are rightfully taking steps to regain control of the establishments they risked so much for and worked so hard to open – much to the chagrin of bureaucrats and tobacco-hating buffoons. Below are three of my favorite smoking ban defiance stories from recent headlines; they range from courageous to downright ingenious:

1. Colorado Springs, CO: “Several bar owners around Colorado Springs refuse to go smoke free despite the state-wide smoking ban that’s been in effect for nearly two years. The owner of Murray Street Darts, Bruce Hicks, says he’s not stopping his customers from lighting up. He does however ask that they donate $1 if they do decide to smoke inside his bar. Hicks says he’s using the money to pay smoking tickets and lawyers. Hicks has been going to court to battle his smoking tickets and he believes he’s winning. ‘I’ve gotten 23 tickets and 19 of them have been dismissed so far,’ said Hicks.”

2. Blackpool, United Kingdom: “Hamish Howitt, 55, of Park Road, Blackpool, denied five counts of failing to prevent smoking in his Del Boy Sports Bar. Howitt, a non-smoker, was fined £1,950 and told to pay £2,000 costs. On Wednesday, Preston Magistrates’ Court was told that officers from Blackpool Council found Del Boy’s ‘thick with smoke’ on five occasions in November 2007. A board outside the premises read: ‘Our political conscience will not allow to put smokers and non-smokers on the street. It’s our choice.’ Howitt, who represented himself, said the Health Act 2006 was ruining his business and had left him ‘on the verge of bankruptcy.’”

3. Maplewood, MN: “A new state ban on smoking in restaurants and other nightspots contains an exception for performers in theatrical productions, as long as patrons are notified in advance. So some bars are getting around the ban by printing up playbills, encouraging customers to come in costume, and pronouncing them ‘actors.’ The customers are playing right along, merrily puffing away – and sometimes speaking in funny accents and doing a little improvisation, too. The state Health Department is threatening to bring the curtain down on these sham productions. But for now, it’s on with the show.”

–Patrick A

photo credit: Flickr