Brooke Oberwetter writes at CEI’s OpenMarket that restaurant smoking bans infringe upon the economic liberty of business owners. That’s not a controversial position among libertarians. Oberwetter also notes that everyone within a given restaurant is there voluntarily, and thus any risks associated with secondhand smoke are freely assumed. Again, every libertarian is nodding in agreement.
I think, however, that Oberwetter may be missing the point of smoking bans. She presents a classic “nanny state†argument that interprets a ban as a message to “business owners and their customers that they’re just too stupid to make their own decisions about the risks they take.†But paternalism may not be the issue here.Exhibit A is an advertisement that has run in several Washington-area newspapers to advertise the capital’s smoking ban, which took effect on Tuesday. The ad, paid for by a group that lobbied for the city’s smoking ban, presents a collage of different individuals with thought balloons expressing support for the ban. Here are four of those thought balloons:
- Now my $100 hairdo doesn’t have to smell like smoke!
- Now I can wear my contact lenses without smoke irritation!
- Now my $500 suit doesn’t have to smell like smoke!
- Now I don’t have to worry about respiratory problems when I go out to party!
This isn’t paternalism. It’s class warfare. The professional class—those who sport $100 hairdos and $500 suits—doesn’t want its lifestyle impacted by what it considers lower class behavior. Even the health arguments are couched in lifestyle concerns (being able to breathe while “partyingâ€.) The ad doesn’t portray a single restaurant worker, even though ban supporters in D.C. maintained that safeguarding worker health was a primary goal. Clearly, the ban represented a socially acceptable form of class discrimination.
The first libertarian defense to something like a smoking ban is to emphasize rights, as Oberwetter did. But it’s hard to convince the general public that this is a matter of rights when restaurants are already the most regulated service business in any given locality. Oberwetter herself acknowledged this in the last sentence of her post. Given that the public accepts—and expects—the state’s intervention in every restaurant decision from zoning to cooking standards, it’s conceptually difficult to isolate a single regulation and demand special outrage. Perhaps a better way to address the latest wave of restaurant regulation—which includes subjects like tans fat bans, not just smoking bans—is to show how regulatory proponents are engaging in simple class warfare, rather than enter into an abstract argument over rights (however correct that argument is.)
There’s also a hypocrisy element to this. How many times have regulatory champions denounced Wal-Mart or some other mass-market retailer for bankrupting small businesses? In truth, it’s the class warfare of the regulators that harm smaller firms and open the door for the larger ones. Regulations like smoking or trans fat bans have a much higher marginal impact on the family-owned diner than the corporate chain restaurant. Yet the banners are allowed to portray themselves as working class champions.
If smoking ban advocates want to portray themselves as yuppies with $100 hairdos and $500 suits, then opponents should do everything they can to support and promote that image. In the long run, class warfare makes a better political theme than the “nanny state.”
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I’m willing to bet that many people, but mostly woman, whom are not all professionals spend over $100 easy at a salon every couple of months…..but does smoke make long hair smell?
On the one hand, I fully understand why we should not interfere with a proprietor’s right to decide whether smoking will be permitted in his/her establishment.
On the other hand, as someone who has severe allergies and blew out a disc and fractured a vertebrae from a hard cough and ended up with back surgery and a year’s recovery, I breath a sigh of relief that I no longer have to leave parties or avoid certain restaurants.
And yes, smoke will make your hair smell. I don’t, however, spend $100 every couple of months. I get my hair cut at a franchise and dye my own hair. Total cost…$20.
Is there anything wrong with smokers-only establishments?
I think the main reason for smoking bans, as well as most other stupid regulations (from airline security to zoning) is that those in power need to make the rest of us aware that they are in charge. The process begins at birth, it is stepped up during the typical thirteen year sentence in the government schools, and it is reinforced through measures like these. For some sick twisted people it is fun to watch others bend to their will, many of these people go into politics or interest groups that advocate more restrictive policies. I think actual policy objectives – like “public health” (whatever that means) exist, but only as secondary considerations.
So, were worried about clean safe air, huh?
Then why are there no regulations anywhere in the USA limiting and controlling radon in bars and restaurants? No owner anywhere has to test the air in their establishments for radon, or take remedial action if the radon if the levls are above the danger limit of 4.6 pCi/liter.
Radon causes approx 21,000 lung cancers in nonsmokers each year in the USA.
And what about toxic mold? No bar or restaurant owner anywhere in the USA has to fix that either, if a problem is uncovered.
It’s perfectly legal for anyone still contageious with the flu to enter any public building anywhere America. The flu kills approx 35,000 americans each year.
So do these activist groups realy care about clean safe air? Do they really care about the health and safety of workers? No… otherwise they’d be pushing for regulation of real health risks present in the air in public places.
I think these points go a long way towards exposing the true motives of these groups pushing for bans. Their interests are just plain selfish, and not concerned with protecting the public.
If I were not a smoker, I would be more concerned with dying of radon-induced lung cancer, or catching the flu, than washing my hair, or taking my $400 suit to the drycleaners. Better yet, i’d just patronize establishmants which cater to nonsmokers’ tastes.
Please read my economic study on the negative effects of smoking bans at http://kuneman.smokersclub.com/economic.html
also see http://www.uwm.edu/~sjadams/smoking%20ban_current.pdf
and consider all studies consistently find income loss causes lowered life expectancy in the USA. Http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/320/7239/898?eaf
and, of course, please visit my webpage at kuneman.smokersclub. com
David W. Kuneman
Dir of Research
The Smokers Club, Inc
***On the other hand, as someone who has severe allergies and blew out a disc and fractured a vertebrae from a hard cough and ended up with back surgery and a year’s recovery, I breath a sigh of relief that I no longer have to leave parties or avoid certain restaurants. ***
Not to make light of your situation, it sounds highly remote. Just as remote as the second hand smoke rationale, which is very likely person specific. Are we to have a society that is wagged by the statistical tail?
Examples, some people have allergies to nuts. Should restaurants ban all nut products because the possibility of contamination (daycares are doing such as this, peanut butter, a childhood staple, is but a memory)? Same for eggs, wheat, various sugars etc etc. It is up to the individual who exist nearly 3 standard deviations from the norm to look out for themselves, aware or no. It is not up to society to hyper-cleanse itself to accomodate the outliers? If nothing else the cost is too great.
But we have endless new laws that try to accomplish just this. Protect the micro-minority, regardless that it destroys liberty for everyone else. Toss in that it’s not necessarily Good for them in the first place and the writing is on the wall. All this along with socialized health care and eating potato chips, drinking beer, and lighting up a cigar are direct attacks on the public treasury.
Brad,
Someone asked if smoke makes one’s hair smell and I answered yes…because it does.
And just because I don’t think smoking should be banned, doesn’t mean that I think it’s beneficial to one’s health.
The idea that I’m not allowed to express how I feel about a particular substance without someone yelling “nanny” is annoying to say the least.
CEI a.k.a the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Among other things, they believe that people designated as “public figures” should be REQUIRED to consent to answering questions from “approved” journalists.
Now, if that is not “statist” which is something the CEI-libertarian contingent seems to hate, now I don’t know what is.
Wow.
Brooke Oberwetter does not believe in global warming.
Stephen Hawking believes in global warming.
Brooke Oberwetter takes herself very seriously.
Stephen Hawking does not take himself seriously.
Figure it out.
Anyone who thinks Brooke Oberwetter takes herself even a little seriously has never met Brooke Oberwetter.
As I recall, she also has near-total ambivalence to the issue of global warming.
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