San Francisco plan would snuff out smoking even further

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Smokers would find it harder to buy their cigarettes and light up in public under two proposals under consideration by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has proposed prohibiting tobacco sales in pharmacies, including Walgreens and Rite Aid. The city's public health chief said the proposal is modeled on rules in eight provinces in Canada but has not been tried anywhere else in the United States.

... Gone would be smoking in all businesses and bars, which now make an exception for owner-operated ones.

Gone too would be lighting up in taxicabs and rental cars, city-owned vehicles, farmers' markets, common areas of apartment buildings, tourist hotels, tobacco shops, charity bingo games, unenclosed dining areas, waiting areas such as lines at an ATM or movie theater, and anywhere within 20 feet of entrances to private, nonresidential buildings.

... The proposed ban on pharmacies selling tobacco was approved by the Health Commission on Tuesday, and it would take effect Oct. 1 if it's approved by the supervisors. Violators would face fines of $100 to $1,000. It would apply only to pharmacies and not to grocery stores or big-box stores like Costco that also sell tobacco products and have pharmacies inside them.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/15/MNH311PMRE.DTL&tsp=1

[MercutioATC]

1. ...and attaching a "nicotine collar" to every San Frasiscan that would detonate

in the presence of cigarette smoke.

DON'T PASS LAWS TO PROTECT ME FROM MYSELF

In the same vein, don't pass laws to protect idiots from every single thing I may do.

[drmeow]

2. AMEN

And this from a former smoker.

[merwin]

8. Some of them I agree with, like the ban of smoking in lines, and places where

it will negatively affect everyone around the smoker. However, banning it in hotels, tobacco shops, and rental cars is a shit decision.

[rpannier]

12. The banning in tobacco shops is the one that always baffled me

What is the purpose of going into a tobacco shop? To buy tobacco products.

The people who go in there already smoke or associate with smokers.

[comtec]

14. the new smoking ban here in holland bans smoking in "coffee shops"

so you can smoke pot, but NOT tobacco, or pot cut with tobacco (very popular thing to do here).
Basically the ban is a total ban on places where you eat, pubs, restaurants, bars(wtf?).
amazingly it;s been 96% successful, if the reports (yesterday) are to be believed.
I'm genuinely surprised by this because the dutch are stubborn to a fault. But I guess they really are ready for this.

but seriously gavin... :wtf:

[Warpy]

18. That one makes absolutely no sense at all

and I'm horribly allergic to smoke and would love it if some horrible plant virus wiped that particular species out tomorrow. People who sell the stuff presumably indulge in it, so smoke in their place of business is little additional health risk.

It also makes no sense to ban it in unenclosed restaurant spaces.

I don't like the smell outdoors, but it's generally not concentrated enough to set off my asthma. The exception is the queue, where we're all crammed in together. If there are smokers in front of me and in back of me, I have to leave.

Smoking in a rental car makes it stink for the next ten people, but there again, it's not a health hazard to them.

There's got to be somebody in San Francisco who has common sense enough to weed through these proposals and figure out which ones protect health (no smoking in crowds or in enclosed areas with mixed groups) and which ones are nanny state laws that protect people from the annoyance of smelling an unpleasant odor.

[FredStembottom]

20. It's our National Placebo Issue.

Can't stop the trashing of our constitution. Can't end the illegal war. Can't impeach or even subpoena the criminals within our government. Can't tax the rich. Can't move toward energy independence.........

But, DAMN! You can get after those evil, evil smokers again and again and again................

I'm feelin' GOOD! :patriot:

[JesterCS]

23. damn your sig picture =p

i thought a real bug was crawling on my LCD =p

[Kolesar]

27. If you had family with lung disease, you would not want smoking in farmer's markets &dining areas

As it is, there are places that weak people cannot even patronize due to smokers.

BTW, the air today in Cleveland was rated as "Unhealthy".

[NanceGreggs]

3. I live in Toronto, Ontario ...

... and pharmacies here stopped selling tobacco products years ago. So now the convenience stores - not chains, but individually owned and operated businesses - are reaping all of the profits from these sales, instead of just a small portion thereof.

As a smoker, I realize that cigarettes are not a healthy choice. But at the same time, there is a sense of balance here: I am no longer buying cigarettes in a place that sells drugs whose side-effects can include heart attack and sudden, inexplicable death in an attempt to treat maladies that may be annoying, but have been proven to be non-fatal.

How ironic that one set of snake-oil salesmen are being driven out of certain marketplaces, only to make more room for snake-oil salesmen of equally toxic substances labeled as "cures".

[comtec]

15. I'd say homeopathics are far worse

because they keep people from seeking real medical attention.
sadly they are V E R Y popular here.
there is a slightly better vetting process for that kind of snake oil here, but not much.
there is no law against word of mouth, and the health shops are very mouthy on this stuff.
sadly there's nothing i can do to convince my wife otherwise :(
She has diabetes, and carries around a insulin pump to stay alive (small very handy, it's swiss!)
we HAVE medical here... but the doctors here are very Calvinistic and ... imho, LAZY,
so if someone wants to improve their health they are really on their own, medically wise.
if you are dying, or something, they are capable enough, but ...
well lets just say there are no "mercy grace" hospitals here like in grey's anatomy lol

i have to admit if waiting in line (county back in CA) but getting competent, interested medical attention wasn't sometimes better than (7-4) medical attention from a lazy bastard...

The trick is to find an ex-pat doctor, or a dutchie who has lived outside the Netherlands for a while. the real world has a way of cleansing the dutch and opening their eyes.

*ahem* sorry... :rant:

[Zhade]

35. Indeed! Homeopathy quackery KILLS.

NT!

[truthisfreedom]

4. I'm an occasional smoker and I'm all for these laws.

Bring 'em on. Help people quit, so they can live and not burden our health care system.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

5. Actually, smokers die sooner so they don't burden the health system

It's all the healthy people living well into their 80s and 90s who cost all the money, due to long term care.

[Sodbuster]

7. Damn those do- gooders that lead a healthy lifestyle costing the "system" too

much money. What are they thinking?

[Truth4Justice]

10. Not all of them. Many suffer from emphysema and other problems before they die, and they

don't contribute as much to Medicare, because they are ill.

[Truth4Justice]

11. Amen. Hope you can quit someday. I quit smoking back in 1981;Best thing I ever did.

[Book Lover]

6. The tourists will never stand for it

And in SF, what the tourist wants, the tourist gets.

[mntleo2]

9. what amuses me is ...

has the banning of smoking done one thing for the pollution and other chemicals people are exposed to every day? WA laws are what SF is considering and I look at the skyline in my city and it is just as smoggy as it ever was and the PCBs and chemicals used in buildings is ever present, smokestacks are belching invisible death everywhere, you just don't see it through the filters, but you are still breathing it. Do not see the asthma levels going down and lung cancer is on the rise. Who will they blame next? When will candy be banned for making rotten teeth and obesity, which impinges on people due to rising health costs? Hey I have an idea! lets ban all corporate raised food too since it is full of chemicals and genetic tampering ...and next, we gotta ban meat that is polluting the rivers with the waste they produce on corporate farms, beef especially, since mad cow does not show up for years and you never know ... Nope, even though tobacco smoke has been the LEAST of what we all breathe, it is ALL about cigarettes, it is the EVIL REASON for all the ills of this society and lets pretend that the rest of it all is, well, invisible and therefore does not exist ...

sometimes people make me secretly smile ...

Cat In Seattle

[CreekDog]

30. of course smoking bans have reduced pollution exposure

they've reduced the prevalence of smoking as a habit. they've reduced indoor air pollution that people (smokers and nonsmokers) are exposed to from second hand smoke. they've reduced one's exposure in public places.

one of my first jobs at a gas station full of smokers (i didn't know that when i was hired) i had to breathe all that second hand smoke when they came into the room i worked in, the same for the customers who smoked. state workplace safety laws probably prohibited this back then but i didn't know the rules

at another job at a hospital, they changed the rules on smoking to prohibit smoking anywhere on hospital property. two ladies i worked with that previously went just outside the double doors to smoke under the awning were then only allowed to smoke off property, all the way across the parking lot and onto the sidewalk of the boulevard we were on. they quit altogether. they also mentioned that years before when smoking was banned inside, they still smoked, but reduced it to a couple breaks per day.

a lot of people don't realize that the indoor air pollution they are exposed to is perhaps even more of a problem than what they are exposed to outside, outside air disperses. further, cigarette smoke is filled with carcinogens.

[comtec]

13. As a non-smoker, and a virulent anti-smoker this is too much

People need places they can light up.
Annoying and it is not right to out right ban smoking in this way.. I mean.. smoke shops? banning sale of tobacco completely?
Gavin have you lost your mind!? Remember prohibition? oh yeah THAT worked a treat!

[onehandle]

16. Good. One step closer to a smoke free country.

It's coming and it's not just liberal areas. Many Republican jurisdictions are banning public smoking also.

[Fumesucker]

17. I guess I'm a bit of a rarity, a lifetime non smoker who isn't much bothered by tobacco smoke

I don't really care all that much if people smoke around me.

That being said, I'm entirely in favor of the most draconian anti-smoking regulations possible unless or until the absurd drug war is brought to a complete end.

By complete end, I mean legalization and regulated sales.

Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and if I cannot have my recreational drug of choice in a safe, legal environment then why should I care about anyone else having theirs?

[WriteDown]

19. banned in tobacco shops???

What twilight zone episode is this? Just make it illegal in San Fran if that's what they want.

[The2ndWheel]

21. If nothing else, the show is fun

Ban this, enforce that, let people choose here, don't let people choose there. The right of the individual and of the public constantly, and increasingly, coming into conflict. The energy wasted by all sides as what they fight for is stripped away here, and cut away there, only to come back again, then the process starts over.

There isn't much that is more entertaining than the fight for perfection.

[Coventina]

22. Wha? Is Canada part of the United States now?

"the proposal is modeled on rules in eight provinces in Canada but has not been tried anywhere else in the United States."

:shrug:

[JMackT]

24. One step closer...

...to a nanny state.

You dont know whats best for me.

[tidy_bowl]

25. To paraphrase Sinclair Lewis.....

....when fascism comes to American cities it will come wrapped in the flag of the nanny state. Kinda boils down to which police state you'd rather have not whether one is already at hand.

[dflprincess]

26. Lord, I'm glad I quit smoking -

Minnesota already has banned smoking in a lot of the areas San Francisco is proposing - life is just easier not looking around for a place to smoke (especially in January). BUT - I still think they're going overboard.

I've begun to suspect that smoking vs non is becoming one of those issues the powers that be use to keep our minds off the important stuff (add it to the God, guns and Gays, list). If we're all busy looking over there, we won't notice that our pockets are being picked.

[Contradistinction]

28. Darn

I thought this was a free country. Guess not.

[ForPeace]

33. That remark is sooo 20th century.

Don't you know we gave up our freedoms to fight terra?

[phusion]

29. Speaking of snuff...

Have any smokers here tried Swedish Snus? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snus

I don't smoke, but I do use Snus occasionally. It's discreet, tastes good (IMHO), and is a lot healthier for you (comparatively!).

I usually buy mine from www.buysnus.com

Something like 60% of Swedish men use Snus...

[NuttyFluffers]

31. we already ignore most vice laws here, what's another "blue law"?

if you want to do anything here in the city, it's available. all you need is the proper company to gather around. this will only affect the "Boy Scouts" and tourists. oh, and a few nanny state fuckers who will feel license to berate people -- but we already tell those people off anyway. it's amazing what a little returned hostility can do to clear up areas of such "undesirables."

[mulsh]

32. Good move for a tourist oriented city like SF.

Coming from across the bay I'm always happy to see the SF board of supes make stupid moves. It's already illegal to spark up in bars and restaurants oh and parks, why not make it more difficult for the people who pay for lots of SF's ammenities?

[Zhade]

34. Where the ban protects non-smokers from being forced to inhale cancer, I support it.

NT!

[benEzra]

36. Why not air quality standards for nonsmoking areas instead?

Oh, those wouldn't punish those sinners like banning cigarette sales in Rite-Aid would. And it wouldn't protect our pure pristine eyes from seeing those (gasp) Marlboro cartons when we check out.

[Name removed]

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