Smoking Ban Again an Issue
In the 2008 legislative session, the measure was never heard. Last year, a similar one was referred back to committee and died in the Oklahoma House. But in 2010, the issue of a statewide smoking ban in Oklahoma is sure to be heard again.
Several years ago, Oklahoma put into effect legislation banning smoking in restaurants as of March 1, 2006. However, the law gave exceptions for separately ventilated rooms and bars. But those exceptions need to be eliminated say the American Heart Association and the Oklahoma Department of Health. The groups are urging lawmakers to put forth legislation this coming session establishing a comprehensive ban on smoking in public places
Twenty-seven other states have done just that, and I have no doubt we'll eventually get there. At issue in the near term, though, is the amount of money many restaurants spent to accommodate smokers by building separate rooms. Over the past couple of years, Oklahoma lawmakers haven't seemed anxious to make it appear those expenditures were unnecessary for the long run.
Comments
Don’t you think it’s time to leave a smoker alone. If the Amer Heart Assoc want to pick on something, help the over weight and obese people and over tax them. Have they ever read the label on food and the ingredents? SHHEZZZZ
I was so glad we actually passed something years ago. Too many restaurants either sat you close to the smoking section or had you walk through smoking to get to the non-smoking section. I personally do not want my life shortened because of the decisions of other people. They also need to pass a non-smoking law that limits the distance a smoker can stand to a pubic entrance.
Freedom….if a restaurant or bar owner what’s to provide a smoking area….isn’t that their business?
Restaurants and clubs know what there customers want.
All others….go to another establishment. Small businesses have so many regulations and laws already. I am not advocating smoking, by any stretch of the imagination! I am just saying laws, laws and more laws. Enough already. If they just have to get into people’s business, get the drunk drivers off our streets and the child molesters & rapists in jail…FOREVER, so I won’t hear about one more child or woman dumped in the garbage!
I remember being told as a child that your rights end where someone elses begin. So Ill stay happy with being able to go into a restaurant as we can now with a seperate smoking area. Yet as a non smoker I have a right to a clean smoke free area entering businesses. So yes I would also be for something banning how close you can smoke to an entrance of a business. As well I agree with the smoking bans in parks. It has rarely been a smoke issue in the park, it is the nasty trash the smokers leave behind. Broken cigerettes and butts every where. Makes the sand look like a giant ash tray. Children have a right to a clean environment. Smokers have a right to walk around smoking , smelling badly of the smoke and they certainly have a right to destroy there lungs. They do not have the right to include the rest of us by default.
if people are so afraid of a little smoke why then are they not of a flower or tree pollen and the fumes of gasoline when fuelin’ their cars; hey how about an aircraft flying over head. i know i will not live for ever and neither will ya…
I just love how we’re told that we all have rights and freedoms, yet for a certain group their rights and freedoms have been taken away. I can understand both sides of the arguement. Smokers feel they should be able to smoke wherever it’s their right. Non smokers believe they have the right to breathe “clean fresh air.” I put that in quotations because our air is far from clean or fresh. We have polluted so much that unfortunately cigarette smoke should be the last of our worries. There needs to be a happy medium somewhere. Non smokers need to realize that they probably have a nasty habit as well that not everyone wants to be around. So think about it long and hard before they ban your bad habit and take your rights and freedoms away!
Some smokers are very intelligent people… I am sure of this because I know some of them. However based on the comments here it seems that intelligent people who smoke do not try to justify their bad habit with some idiotic “its my right” BS…. If you smoke, just admit its a bad habit and realize people without that particular bad habit are not interested in suffering because you cant kick the habit or are too foolish to try.