quote:

ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

quote:

ORIGINAL: adaddysgirl

The gist of this debate started when another poster asked why shouldn't bar owners be allowed to decide what type of establishment they run....smoking or non smoking.  Now that's not a 'democratic' question?

The OP was around smoking being banned in a bar and the owner losing custom as a result. You've lost me with your question.
 
Perhaps because you did not read the entire thread?  i have never responded to the OP.  "This particlar debate" was a response to what i explained before and gave my rationale for, at the very least, allowing designated bars to operate as smoking establishments.  i was not referring to losing customers...and i was not speaking of smoking in public in general.


This wasn't to do about smoking in public places.....grocery stores, clothing stores, places of employment, general public buildings, etc.  It was about privately owned bars and restaurants.  Or do people who buy their own businesses also have no say?  Very democratic!

A bar is a public place. The concept of Democracy is far more than an individual making decisions based on his self-interest as explained in an earlier post.
 
And as explained in an earlier post, a bar is a public place owned by a private individual who has no say in its operation.  So take a public bar....make it smoking for those who smoke....and leave all the others for the non smokers.  i'm not sure what you are not getting about this when you keep coming up with the public place issue.


But then the conversation progressed to in lieu of the government banning all rights to both these business owners and the smoking population....why not allow some private establishments where both could be appeased?  The non smokers could also maintain their 'rights' by not frequenting these particular establishments.  Now...doesn't that sound democratic?  Or isn't that your idea of democracy?

4/5ths of Britons do not smoke so it's fair to say they're firmly in the majority view.
 
Sorry, but i know nothing about Britons...so i prefer not to comment on this.

Democracy appears to be a valid postulation as long as it meets your needs.  Let it 'step on your toes' and see what you call it then.

Yeh, yeh....i know.  It would still be a democracy  [sm=noway.gif]

My post was concerned with the widely accepted concept of democracy - not my version or another individual's version.  Can you distinguish between an accepted concept and an individual's point of view?
 
Hmmm.....the widely accepted concept of democracy.  Seems that may be up for debate as well...depending on who you ask. 

DG
 

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ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

My buddy John, a fellow musician of sorts really has a good mind. His idea might work. Smokers and smoke tolerant people would become members of a club. It could get to the point where almost every bar is a private club. Let's say a dollar a year membership. After the cost of printing the cards the bar owner could spend these windfall profits on a pack of cigarettes.

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

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ORIGINAL: Level

It's not cig related, but an example of when enough people get fed up,  the laws often shift, MC.

The law against the burqa or covering the face while being brought in under the auspices of security is really aimed at those communities that refuse to intergrate, in which women are isolated because they can't speak Dutch and the men are macho and too proud to do a job they consider beneath them so they claim social security and steal to suppliment it. I know plenty of them, there is a gang of them that stand on the corner not far from where I live who make pig noises at passing white women. There have also been a lot of abductions and gang rapes and it all leads back to these so called devote muslims. People are sick of them.

Those people, in the Netherlands or wherever they're found, should be booted out post haste.

However, people are a long way off of being sick of smoking here though we have a fair share of puritans and liberal loonies who never go into a bar but want to ban it for everyone else. I live in a immigrant come tourist area and a larger percentage of the local population smoke than the national average and there are a lot of smoke tourists to. Though I don't smell or get wafts of smoke in my face on the street. I was in my local bar about six weeks ago and a tourist asked me if all the bars were so smokey. I pointed out six bars and cafes to her where she could eat and drink that were none smoking.  She pointed out that those bars were dead and I said yes and so would this one be if it was a none smoking bar too.

A non-smoking ordinance was passed in a neighboring county here a couple of months ago, and they could not even get enough people to sign a petition to bring the ordinance up for a vote. I don't know if it's because it is easy to find other places to smoke, or if it's apathy, or what.

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ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

NG. When you go on like this it just reminds me why I left Britain in the first place and why I should never consider going back.

Thanks very much for the compliment. I'll consider it a worthwhile venture to keep up my style of posting if it keeps you out of the country.

Your civil liberties, freedoms and rights are just meally mouthed and politically convenient to wield power over people you don't like. You're just a zealot.

What's up with you? I know you Yorkshire lot are straight to the point but you've taken a turn for the worse in the last few days. Next you'll be calling me a loony leftie or a tree-hugging lazy dole-waller who's never worked a day in his life scrounging off the entrepreneurship of Tarquin from Bath. It's all true, mind you, but I'd appreciate a healthy spot of tact.
 
MC, when are you next in the North West? I'll buy you a beer and we can put all this bickering to one side. Bring some spends with you though as I'll need to lend a few quid off you to buy that beer (Government cutting down on my welfare pay outs etc).
 
Seriously, MC, next time you're over this way let me know and I'll buy you a beer - would be good to meet the man behind the exchanges on this board.