I'm not a smoker and never have been one.
I think it's fine if others choose to smoke but I can't stand the smell or cigarettes, and don't want to be subjected to the health risks assosiated with them. No smoking sections in buildings and resraunts are and were a joke, smoke doesn't pay any attention to where you sit, it goes anywhere it likes which is generally directly towards anyone who hates it
It's kind of funny, the smoking bans seem to have followed me around in the past 10 years. Back in the early 90's the ban came into effect in California (While I lived there). It was an amazing change! It was actually pleasant to sit and enjoy dinner out or a night at the local pub without the smoke all around you doing untold damage to your body, not to mention stinking up your clothing, etc. Shortly after the ban I moved to Utah where I lived for 7 years, while there the ban was put into effect there as well, and a year after I moved to Washington the ban here was effected! What are the odds?
Concerning businesses losing customers.......Yes, absalutely, they did, but in MOST cases those customers were replaced by more new non smoking customers exceeding what they had before by a good margin. There's one local bar here in Spokane that's been here for 30 years, nice little community watering hole with plenty of TV's for current sporting events, etc. They started serving food (GOOD food and CHEAP!) so more and more people ate there. Problem was that the place was always FILLED with smoke, you would reek of it just from walking through and leaving. For that reason many non smokers would avoid the place. I went there allot before, during, and after the ban, after the ban was voted in (like by a 75% margin of victory BTW) there was a period before it was actually enforced, you should have heard all the smokers grumbling about how the place would go under soon after because they would no longer be there to support the place, etc. Guess what? A year after the ban the place is actually thriving and it's actually a pleasant experience to sit there and eat or have a drink, the owner said his business has INCREASED at least 20%.
