Definitely a big step for Virginia...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/09/AR2009020902444.html

Most Restaurants Would Be Affected

By Anita Kumar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 10, 2009; A01

RICHMOND, Feb. 9 -- The Virginia House of Delegates approved a plan for a ban on smoking covering most of the state's restaurants and many of its bars Monday, marking a significant political and cultural shift for a state whose history has been intertwined with tobacco for centuries.

Virginia has repeatedly resisted efforts to curtail smoking in public places, even as health concerns over secondhand smoke prompted 23 other states and the District to start enacting prohibitions.

The vote Monday makes it likely that a ban in some form will become law. The Republican-controlled House has been a choke point for years because of the strong influence of rural lawmakers who consider tobacco a critical ingredient in the state's economy, and because of their resistance to imposing limits on personal freedom. In Virginia, where one in every five adults is a smoker, government restrictions on smoking in private establishments have been limited to day-care centers, certain large retail stores, doctors' offices and hospitals.

Currently, individual bars and restaurants impose their own smoking rules. This bill for the first time puts the government into that mix and covers almost all dining rooms and bars in the commonwealth.

No big deal really. The only thing they'll have to do is put in a ventilation system in a separate room. And as much money as they bring in from smokers, I don't see them not doing it.

And I don't know why they are calling it a ban. People will still be able to smoke inside the facility.

Probably because they're not allowing it in the whole building anymore? Either way, it will be a nice change.

It'll only be "nice" for non-smokers.

Why? If there is a separate room for smoking, what's the problem with that? The smokers will still be able to go to the bars and restaurants they want to go to and smoke inside if those places should choose to have a smoking room.

There's always been a designated smoking area. It's just that some people wined just a little bit more to completely shut them out.

When's it going to stop?

There were no designated smoking areas in bars. Restaurants, yes, but when you were sitting right next to that area, it really didn't make a difference that the area was designated for smoking.

I am a non-smoker and have always been a non-smoker.

I think these laws are crap!

Smoking is a legal activity that consenting and now surely informed (you'd have to be living under a rock to not understand the possible dangers of smoking) adults may choose to engage in.

Please don't give me that crap about second hand smoke. If the government really cared about environmental dangers (second hand smoke is an environmental danger) to adults and children they'd be much more worried about cleaning up industrial pollutants in the food supply, air and water than second hand smoke.

These laws are just another case of parent government imposing it's will on a citizenry they figure is too stupid (humm maybe we are) to take care of themselves.

Do smokers cost the rest of us more money in health care? Perhaps but following that logic so do over weight persons, drug users and drinkers. Bet many are thinking...well that's fine they should stop that too. But follow it some more and so do people with genetic dispositions to cancer, people who have more than one child, people who are chronically ill...the list goes on.

I cannot wait till the government decides to legislate against all those things too under the guise of "protecting us" There might be some howling then but gosh...what will there be to point to? This issue...the first step (okay maybe not the first) on the slippery slope to the government managing our private lives in our own best interest (sarcasm on) for the financial benefit of our employers and insurers.

People sitting back taking this and worse yet being happy about it makes me more ill than someone lighting up to smoke while I am eating. (Rude)

Outstanding, Lynann! Bravo!

Overweight people are not forcing those around them to eat. Drug users are not forcing those around them to do drugs (unless it's being smoked and others are breathing in what they're smoking). Drinkers are not forcing those around them to consume alcohol. Smokers however are forcing those around them to breath in the smoke.

So no, it's not the same thing.

Awesome Lynann!

One of the two main arguments of ban supporters is that smokers cost non-smokers more money in terms of health care missed days at work etc.. The other is the second hand environmental dangers to non-smokers caused by tobacco smoke.

It absolutely is the same thing when you extend the argument. Oh, and you don't have to reach far to do it either.

Morals nazi's (under the guise of caring about health) have publicly pointed to the success the smoking ban people have had and expressed their willingness and desire to use these same strategies to eliminate drinking.

But it doesn't end there. Consumption of fatty food surely costs corporations, employers and insurers, big bucks as well. Many have voiced concerns and indeed have been successful, at least here in Michigan, in limiting the choices of adults about their own bodies when they are not in the workplace or on the clock in regards to diet and smoking.

Anyone not seeing the connection and possible implications of these actions is fooling themselves.

This nanny state crap really bothers me.

The thing that bugs me is non-smokers (and ANTI-smokers) whining that they are "forced" to inhale smoke. Well, what's preventing THEM from going somewhere else? Why is the smoker the "bad guy", and forced to leave? Is the person who doesn't smoke somehow better than the one who does?

Seems awfully one-sided to me.

How is that fair, though? You want to force non-smokers to go somewhere else if they don't like smoking. Yet, you're not for the smokers being able to go wherever they want, and smoking in the designated area they're given.

The point is, non-smokers (and ANTI-smokers) are constantly preaching about their "right to breathe clean, fresh air", so why not send THEM outside? What gives them more "right" to be somewhere (or anywhere)?

And the irony in sending somebody outside thinking they're going to be breathing clean, fresh air is mind-boggling.

They're not even talking about sending them outside. They're giving places a choice to have a smoking room.

Skip it.

The majority of Americans do not smoke. Why should a minority interest such as smokers decide this issue. Havings there own place to smoke is not discrimination but reasonable accomodation.

What prevented you from not visiting those places where owner didn't restrain his smoking patrons?

Nothing. I had the choice of whether to go or not. Just like the smokers have a choice of whether to go or not.