Yorick, I see you've gone off the deep end. A rare occurence with you - and I am happy to witness it. Look, if the will of the majority was paramount, we'd certainly be in a pickle. The representative democracy's legislature's power has an end point -- defined by the constitution.
Here's a freedom in America: freedom of association. As a recent ABA article pointed out, it has gone hand-in-hand with the Rhenquist Court's federalism agenda. It's part of the First Amendment, which has several different freedoms involved. It is related to freedom of speech. It is why the Boy Scouts, as a private club, can ban gays. It is why the KKK, as a private club, can have hating minorities as its sole purpose (there are social costs in exercising this freedom, such as unpopularity, but it ain't illegal). And, it is why I, as a bar owner, can refuse to let you in for wearing a tacky shirt, and why I can allow people to smoke inside MY bar. Get the frik over it, and go to a different bar. The people in mine want to pollute their lungs, you have no business stopping them.
Now, certainly the law impinges on this broad freedom retail owners have. The Civil Rights Act demands they not discriminate in hiring and demands they not discriminate against customers based on race. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires they provide ingress/egress and other reasonable accomodations to those with disabilities. These things make sense, and just might not be provided by a free market.
But, as was pointed out by Willow on page 2 or so, there are non-smoking bars in here area, which does not ban smoking. Certainly it is blatantly obvious that there are enough non-smokers to have the market provide for these establishments. There is no need to legislate those services that will be provided. You can go to your bar, and I'll go to mine.
John D., you crusty coot, God bless you. But, I doubt you can support the statement that it'll be a cold day in hell before the gobbermint makes you do something you don't want. You pay taxes?
But, I get your point.
Cigarette smoke contains many nasty chemicals, and second hand smoke can and has and does cause cancer. Before making me trot over to any of a hundred websites we can all find by doings a decent alltheweb.com search, why don't we just put this issue aside, because the science is pretty clear. I don't need it to support my argument against a public smoking ban.
To whoever mentioned the cigarettes contain formaldehyde and benzene, you are correct. Cars release benzene at a phenomenal rate -- and a single car makes cigs a small concern. Trust me, I just walked 13 blocks to work through downtown Chi-town an hour ago, and my daily PAH/benzene headache is still throbbing a bit.
Everyday, too.
Do we ban cars??
As for formaldehyde, get this. 18% of all fuel at the pumps in the USA is either MBTE or ethanol. MBTE is pretty nasty when it spills, so ethanol, a "clean fuel" made from grain, is very much preferred these days. In fact the gobbermint, through the USDA (that's right -- it's an "agriculture" concern), gave over $500 million to ethanol production plants last year. It's a clean fuel/ farm subsidy. Well, we're finding out that while ethanol may burn clean, the plants to make it emit lots of nastiness, and are a "major source" under the clean air act for, among other things, Carbon Monoxide (CO)(also in cigs) and Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs). "Major source" means more than 100tons per year in the case of CO and either more than 10 ton per year of one HAP or 25 tons per year (tpy) of combined HAPs.
One of the 4 major HAPs at an ethanol plant is... you guessed it, formaldehyde. And, 10 tpy of gaseous formaldehyde is a frikkin lot. So, while cigs may contain CO and formaldehyde, one of these "clean fuel" facilities, FUNDED BY THE GOVERNMENT, makes all the cigs in the country meaningless. So, quit moaning about the cigerettes in bars and do what I did Friday -- sue an ethanol plant.