Jump to full article: Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch, 2009-12-01
Author: Staff Reports
Intro: Virginia's new restaurant smoking ban takes effect today, imposing on everybody the preferences of some. Although more than 70 percent of the state's restaurants already forbade smoking, the General Assembly and Gov. Tim Kaine felt the remainder ought to be forced to do so as well. Henceforth, no smoking will be permitted in a restaurant unless it builds a separately ventilated smoking area -- something few will suffer the trouble and expense to do.
That still doesn't satisfy the prohibitionists. A lobbyist for the American Heart Association complains that special smoking rooms will "continue to expose workers and customers to secondhand smoke."
Well, yes. But why should they worry about that, when -- after all -- the whole point of the smoking rooms is to permit people to expose themselves to firsthand smoke?
Customers who choose to avail themselves of smoking rooms know what they're doing. The new law also eliminates the employee-health rationale, since it no longer will be possible to argue that waitstaff are forced to expose themselves to secondhand smoke because of a lack of employment alternatives. . . .
Supporters of the new law have been very clear about why non-smokers should not have to endure cigarette fumes while they eat. But they have not been at all clear about why non-smokers must be accommodated by divisions within each individual restaurant, rather than by divisions among restaurants.
Patrons formerly sorted themselves into smoking and non-smoking groups by choosing between Restaurant A and Restaurant B. Now patrons will sort themselves by choosing between Door 1 or Door 2 inside those few restaurants where smoking is still permitted. As for the rest, consumers will no longer have any choice at all.'Twas a famous victory.
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