The Louisiana Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Living requested the cities of Monroe and West Monroe and the
Ouachita Parish Police Jury to consider an ordinance that would ban entirely indoor
smoking in places of public commerce, going beyond state law that does not ban
it in establishments that primarily act as bars and in gambling locations. Apparently,
private lodgings would not be covered. Monroe’s City Council will take up such
an ordinance next week.
Often, the narrative surrounding the issue of where smoking should be
permitted gets framed in terms of smokers having rights to light up, or in
other to engage in a certain kind of behavior. Often ignored is the liberty of
others not to have fumes from tobacco intrude upon their breathing. Opponents
of these bans say the resolution is to let the market decide, for if there’s
enough demand for smoke-free watering holes (places where the majority of sales
are food already have smoking indoors banned) or bingo halls, they will be
supplied.
But it’s not as simple as that because smoking is not just an inconvenience
to some people. At least 12.7
million adult Americans are under diagnoses of suffering various forms of chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease, but the number could be twice as high, which
would mean about eight percent of the population. People with this condition
would have difficulty breathing in a smoke-filled environment and, ironically,
the most common associative behavior with those who develop COPD is smoking.
Others in smaller numbers suffer from worse pulmonary difficulties, and
often not of their own choosing. For example, somebody with a genetic disease
such as muscular dystrophy may find themselves having to breathe through
mechanical ventilation. For such a person, one whiff of smoke could send them
into immediate if not life-threatening pulmonary distress.
While these people do not comprise a large potential customer base, the
roll of those potentially adversely affected also includes employees of these
establishments. Thus, somebody with COPD has their choice of jobs circumscribed
not because the inherent duties of the jobs are beyond their capabilities, but because
of an environment they are working in that has nothing to do with the service
being provided, but instead is created by the voluntary behavior of patrons.
And that is why, in this clash of rights, the case for allowing indoor
smoking is not compelling. People should have the right to be able to work
without having a non-bonafide occupational qualification preclude that.
Potential patrons in the stream of interstate commerce who face physical limitations
should not be limited in their choices to patronize not because they are unable
to access the service but because of the actions of others, based upon chosen
behaviors they are allowed to impose on the indoor environment.
Where the rights of those who physically cannot choose to tolerate a
behavior of others clash with those of those who can choose to engage in the behavior
and still access the same service without acting that way, the former must be
given preference. Smokers can patronize nonsmoking establishments without
physical distress, but the same is not true for some nonsmokers concerning
smoking establishments. By definition, the curtailment of liberty of the
affected nonsmokers is greater, more consequential, and more fundamental in
that they are excluded from certain commerce, while smokers suffer no such
exclusion, and their inability to smoke in these places of commerce is less
consequential and fundamental simply because they choose their behavior, while
the others cannot choose their physical limitations.
Tobacco addicts would not be prohibiting from smoking in public; the
proposed Monroe ordinance, for example, allows them to light up more than 15
feet from an entrance to an indoor place. That might not work well for some
places, but the solution is, as they often advocate in support of smoking
indoors, market-based: businesses that have plenty of available outdoor space
15 or more feet away from a door can attract smokers, and businesses wishing to
cater to them can design their accommodations to provide that kind of buffer.
No group that chooses to behave in a certain way should have its
preferences take precedence over those whose physical limitations are not a
matter of option or behavior when that behavior has nothing to do with the
business itself. These ordinances should pass in Ouachita Parish, as happened
nearly two years ago in Alexandria, and Caddo and Bossier governments would be
wise to emulate here.
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