one long drag toward the slippery slope: part II

This recent article on I-901 interests me for several reasons.

First, the anti-smoking initiative is opposed by the owner of O'Blarney's, a pub that allows smoking indoors. I haven't eaten there in over a year simply because it stinks inside, and its closest competitor, Brewery City Pizza, is smoke-free.

Second, the argument for the initiative, as I've pointed out before, is pretty poorly supported. Proponents cite stories of first-hand smokers as evidence that secondhand smoke is lethal, and list a controversial EPA classification. The evidence is out there, but it's all about risk. Risky = illegal only in today's hyperlitigious climate.

(Similarly, Red Robin is too loud, and I'm considering an initiative to ban ear-damaging noise in establishments accessible to the public. After all, why should servers and bussers and hosts suffer long-term hearing loss? There oughtta be a law.)

Third, the law is so draconian that it demands a "no" vote.

People can smoke in Heelan's bar, and he was planning on building a deck to accommodate smokers outside, he said. Now he can't build one large enough to get 25 feet away from the door as required by I-901, he said.

A simple indoor ban could have been workable, or, as I argued before, encouraging better indoor ventilation could have largely eliminated the problem.

Fourth, the funding disparity is so wide--

The No On 901 committee has reported raising $4,500 in cash and $5,000 in in-kind contributions. Wilkinson says the total might hit $15,000, enough to cover his expenses.

The I-901 Campaign, called Healthy Indoor Air for All Washington, has raised $938,809 in cash, including more than $500,000 from the American Cancer Society, and $58,798 more in in-kind contributions.

--that it's obviously going to pass. Again, as I pointed out before.

The most damning fact that makes I-901 almost entirely unnecessary is buried in the middle of the article:

The Washington Restaurant Association reports 80 percent of its members are smoke-free now, and it expects 90 percent of them to be smoke-free by the end of the decade.

We don't need a law, especially not a law as poorly written as this one.

No on I-901.