Pinthouse Pizza
Here's the Truth – Many of You Are Just Plain Wrong!
RECEIVED Tue., May 3, 2005
Dear Editor,
Vote no on the May 7 smoking referendum. The true issue here is freedom of choice.
The "save live music in Austin" argument stinks. The logic that no smoking will kill live music makes as much sense as the logic of WMD in Iraq and the impending ruin of Social Security in America. All are manipulation of facts.
This town treats its musicians like demigods. We forget they put their pants on like the rest of us, one leg at a time. Live music and musicians are great and are to be supported, but don't use them to manipulate votes.
A bar should have the choice to choose whether it will be smoking or nonsmoking – whether the choice is made by market forces or by the owner(s). It's a freedom of choice.
Bar employees are the only ones with limited choice. They can't choose if the bar they work at will be smoking or nonsmoking (ideally the bar employees would vote on the nature of their bar every so often – but, hey, that's too socialist for us); however, they can choose the type of bar that they will look for employment in. No one is going down in a coal mine for 16-hour days to come up and have their subwages consumed at the company store. And don't forget a fair number of those bar employees are smokers themselves.
The arguments that the anti-smoker forces make are equally flawed. Yes, smoking will kill you, this is a fact. But if smoking is really such an evil, then outlaw tobacco. Don't leave tobacco legal, but make it illegal to smoke it.
Finally, if you are in a bar, why not ask the person next to you if it's OK to smoke? Or if you are a nonsmoker, ask the person next to you to stop smoking if it really is an issue for you.
So in the end it's freedom of choice. Vote no on May 7.
Vote no on the May 7 smoking referendum. The true issue here is freedom of choice.
The "save live music in Austin" argument stinks. The logic that no smoking will kill live music makes as much sense as the logic of WMD in Iraq and the impending ruin of Social Security in America. All are manipulation of facts.
This town treats its musicians like demigods. We forget they put their pants on like the rest of us, one leg at a time. Live music and musicians are great and are to be supported, but don't use them to manipulate votes.
A bar should have the choice to choose whether it will be smoking or nonsmoking – whether the choice is made by market forces or by the owner(s). It's a freedom of choice.
Bar employees are the only ones with limited choice. They can't choose if the bar they work at will be smoking or nonsmoking (ideally the bar employees would vote on the nature of their bar every so often – but, hey, that's too socialist for us); however, they can choose the type of bar that they will look for employment in. No one is going down in a coal mine for 16-hour days to come up and have their subwages consumed at the company store. And don't forget a fair number of those bar employees are smokers themselves.
The arguments that the anti-smoker forces make are equally flawed. Yes, smoking will kill you, this is a fact. But if smoking is really such an evil, then outlaw tobacco. Don't leave tobacco legal, but make it illegal to smoke it.
Finally, if you are in a bar, why not ask the person next to you if it's OK to smoke? Or if you are a nonsmoker, ask the person next to you to stop smoking if it really is an issue for you.
So in the end it's freedom of choice. Vote no on May 7.
Geoff Treitel