Turning The Ship

Captain Ed makes a course correction on smoking bans:

However, I am no longer so sanguine about these laws. It seems to me that a business owner should be able to set his own rules about the custom he wants, and if he or she doesn't mind smokers in the establishment, the state should not tell them any different. If the state has a great untapped consumer pool of people like me who would hang out in bars every night if it weren't for those darned smokers, bars that banned smoking would pull in good business. That has not been the case, and even it if was, those owners who don't mind smokers would still have the right to serve them.

No one doubts that the proponents of these bans have their hearts in the right place, but it opens a troubling precedent. Once we establish that the state has an interest which overrides two key rights -- the right to assemble and the right to private property -- just to modify personal behavior that the state considers unhealthy, where will they stop? Will Minnesota, like New York City, attempt to ban trans-fats from restaurants? Will we have two-drink limits at bars as well?

Smoking cigarettes is unhealthy and foolish. I was fortunate enough to give them up without too much trouble, and I only smoke a cigar about once or twice a year these days. However, unless the state wants to criminalize tobacco, then it really has no business dictating to bar owners and restauranteurs that they cannot serve smokers, even outside in a patio area.

Why the turn to the starboard position?

I should credit Chad the Elder and Brian Ward from Fraters Libertas for helping me change my mind on this issue. We have had several debates on this over the past few years, and they have been very convincing.