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Gary K.

Smoking ban
Does it hurt business?
By HENRY J. WATERS III, Publisher, Columbia Daily Tribune
December 15, 2007
According to a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Columbia smoking ban is causing an erosion of bar and restaurant business.

Several additional establishments have closed, citing the ban at least in part.
Logic and instinct tell us the smoking ban is bound to hurt business for some.

What we learned from the recent Federal Reserve study is the overall volume of business is down in the entire restaurant and bar category.

The analysis isolated the smoking ban effect and assigned an overall loss of 5 percent to this factor alone during its first seven months.

Mayor Darwin Hindman continues to say the ban is justified because protecting the public health "trumps" the economic issue.

This is not an adequate defense.

Government never should impose prohibitions or mandates except for adequate reason.
In Columbia, Mo., imposing a smoking ban for the unprovable purpose of a quid pro quo protection of public health does not pass the test, failing to trump the right of choice for sellers and buyers of legal products and services.

The Columbia City Council should not avoid a smoking ban to protect the economic interests of affected merchants. The proposition should be put the other way.

The council should not have passed the ban because without adequate reason it interferes with the freedom of citizens, including the right to pursue profit.

This exercise of government power goes too far. Nobody can prove the alleged health hazard is palpable enough to warrant such stern city lawmaking.

Smoking ban opponents want the council to put a referendum to a public vote, but even if the public might affirm the ban, it still would be improper. Regardless of method, this simply is too much official oversight.

If a smoking ban is necessary to protect public health, that’s an argument for a prohibition of smoking, period, not for a selective ban by a local government that discriminates against a minority of the public without evidence of measurable or substantial health protection.

What the ban clearly does is interfere with the rights of citizens who want to offer and use smoking venues, an unarguably negative factor that outweighs the guesswork and assumptions underlying the ban.

Just because smoking is bad for some smokers’ health does not mean government has a legitimate right to interfere with the habit, let alone the ability of public gathering places to allow it.

If the council wanted to pass something indicating its concern for the health hazards of ambient smoke, it might have tried to set standards for the quality of air inside smoking establishments instead of simply imposing a prohibition.

Even this would have been a stretch; the attempt no doubt would have shown the impossibility for our city government of deciding on a precise standard to enforce.
Instead of making a thoughtful effort to analyze a possible threat, they simply used a broadax.

When government makes a prohibition decision with no more rationale than used by the Columbia City Council in this case, it borders on an unconstitutional infringement.

The ideal solution is for the council to rescind the ordinance, and it should be illegal for such a ban to be imposed even by referendum until more germane evidence of the health effect can be proved.

After all, people who do not want to experience ambient smoke can avoid it without a ban. Where do we get off thinking Columbia government should order anything else?

http://www.smokersclubinc.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4093

An intelligent and beautifully written editorial. Thanks for providing .