I will agree to a workplace smoking ban under one condition: that it applies to all smoke. The damage done to our health by secondhand smoke is nothing compared to car exhaust and coal plant emissions. What about mechanics who must breathe in fumes from automobiles all day? Why not use our status as the windiest city in the universe to our advantage by building windmills rather than coal power plants?
Stop lying to us. The smoking ban is not a health issue, public or private. If city councils cared about the health of the general populace, then they would ban SUVs on city streets in favor of electric cars, seek out renewable energy with no poisonous byproducts and provide affordable health insurance for these waitresses and bartenders they pretend to be concerned about. If people individually worried about their health when at the diner or the bar, they wouldn't order cheeseballs before their lard-fried entrée or buy that second pitcher of beer.
What's this ban really about? It's about a vocal minority of non-smoking snobs who are not satisfied with going to the 90 percent of the restaurants that cater to them.
As for saving the lives of the workers, I speak for myself and my comrades in the food service industry when I say, don't do us any favors, most of us smoke anyway, and I'm serious about the electric cars and windmills.
Markus Krueger
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Fargo
