As of tomorrow, Illinois jumps in with 19 other states in declaring indoor environments as smoke-free. Yahoo! It’s been too long in coming.
Very sad.
We have allowed an authoritarian state, in which the state can just declare something like this instead of letting the private property owner make the rules for the use of their own property.
The basis of all law (property) has been undermined and now law is whatever the authoritarian state declares.
Mob rule in action.
But hasn’t law always been whatever the state/government declares? Whether authoritarian or not?
Also, if the law is anything like the one here in the UK, it applies not to private property but public places where the rights of workers not to have smoke inflicted on them are being upheld through this law. Everyone is still free to smoke within their own homes, I believe.
Also, if the basis of all law is property, then I’m with Proudhon and the rest of the anarchists when he says “Property is theft”.
Preach it, brother. Although I sympathize with Bruce and those in his position, I sympathize more with those who are forced to bend to this dictatorial rule. People of the world should always be able to privatize their behavior control and recognize those boundaries.
Privatize - keep their behavior in private control without affecting me. Boundaries - their second-hand smoke knows no boundaries. All in all, if they can smoke in public and keep their smoke to themselves, I’m all for it. I like the ol’ saying, “Go ahead and smoke, just don’t exhale.”
I want to be able to enjoy a burger down the road at the Butterfly Restaurant without it tasting like cigarettes.
Mary makes a good point. If the Butterfly Restaurant were a private organization in which only their family members could enter, then they should be free to allow smoking. Since the restaurant is open to the public, enforce the restrictions to the fullest extent and allow me to eat in peace.
There is a difference between “open to the public” and “public property”. A restaurant is private property. They allow you to go onto their property and by you doing so, you are accepting the rules they have imposed, which may be that it is a non-smoking environment, or it may be that they allow smoking.
Is it a right to force this place to serve you a burger in an environment of your satisfaction? Or is it your right to not go there and go somewhere else in which the environment meets your requirements?
I assume you guys in the USA know about Britain going smoke free this year then? You can’t smoke in any enclosed public places, so pubs and resaurants are a completely different scene. Good for non smokers, not so good for smokers… 
I know the difference between the two. Yes, they are privately owned but they offer services to the public. That makes the environment within a public place. If they are going to cater to the public, then give me a fair shake at a nice-tasting meal. You’ve been to Rochelle. There was not a sit-down restaurant available in town that offered a smoke-free environment. Mary and I have been denied the right to utilize a nice public eating establishment without having to wait until we drive out of town. That is, there was not a smoke-free eating environment in town…up until now. 
Another freedom taken away for another state, the 51st state lost it on the first of July 2007.
Cheers.
I’m back to the rights of those who work in such places. They may not have the same choice as the customers. Their choice may be to go there and earn a living or not go there and condemn their family to living below the poverty line.
(I can’t believe I’m backing the now over-prescriptive health and safety legislation, but) surely this falls within the remit of providing a safe workplace?
The environment is enclosed (indoors), therefore it’s not public property. Just because they voluntarily let you in, it does not mean you get to make the rules.
I offer services to people from China, but China has no authority over how I run my business. But according to your logic, they would.
Sounds like there was an opportunity for someone to open up a smoke-free restaurant and cater to that specific market.
The worker can voluntarily choose to work in such an environment and agree to such in the contract they have with the property owner. They have choosen this environment because the risk caused by the environment is acceptable to them because of the reward (pay) they receive. They can choose to work in a better environment for them with less reward (less pay, farther away, etc.).
In an economy where there is very little unemployment this may be possible. Where unemployment is high, and/or where the jobseeker has few skills the choice is limited.
Your argument that the risk caused by the environment is acceptable because of the pay they receive is the same argument used by employers in the past: “They have the choice to work down the mines/up the chimneys/with asbestos/in my sweat shop”.
I’m with Greg and Gilby on this one. It should be the restaurant owners’ decisions how to run their properties.
For a much more controversial outlook, I honestly wouldn’t care if some dumbass redneck in Mississippi opened a restaurant that only served white people. I think he’d be a freakin’ lunatic, but it would be his choice. I think the same would apply to someone who wanted to make his restaurant open only to black people. Personally, I would think that it would be a pretty despicable thing to do, but I don’t have the right to tell them how to run their property.
Yeah, let’s get rid of health inspections too! Who’s to say that it’s unsanitary to tenderize meat by stepping on it? Shouldn’t the private property owner get to prepare meat however they want? 
Note: Yes, I had an uncle who worked at a restaurant that actually did this. Either that, or he was hiding the real reason for having blood soaked work shoes.
Nope. What gives the state/government the authority to declare laws? By definition then it has to be authoritarian.
Law has a basis in natural law, which is quite simple: don’t violate the property of others, and honor your contracts.
In other words, nobody but the property owner has authority over that property. Contracts extend privileges to the use of property to someone else.
Proudon is a socialist anarchist. When taken under context, he means property privileges that cause exploitative conditions. He’s also said that “property is freedom” in which one is only free when they are the sole owner of their possessions and what they create. Together, he’s really referring to the exploitation of wage labor, in that the laborer is inputing labor to produce more value from the capitalist’s property than they receive in a wage. The flaw with this is that the risk is on the property owners and therefore they need to receive some compensation for that risk.
Ah, so what causes unemployment and oppression?
Lets see: minimum wage, unions, payroll taxes, working condition regulations, licenses, unemployment insurance, the Federal Reserve (it’s booms and busts), etc.
In other words, you’re basing your argument on more regulations on the fact that the government caused problems from its past authoritarian regulations.
Get rid of government impose health inspections, yes. But a business will not last long if they are unsanitary. They have the consequences of being sued from illnesses derived from this. Further, in a free market, you would still see restaurants being inspected and certified by an independent third party and you as a customer will check the certifications before eating there.
Oh, the restaurant was there for a long time, well before and after my uncle worked there.