Passage was mostly inevitable, but the D.C. Council approved a smoking ban for bars, restaurants, and other public places yesterday. Mayor Williams seems inclined to veto the bill, despite the 11 to 1 vote, out of fear that it could hurt tourism and general commerce in the District. I'd like to see some mention of property rights for private property, but I guess a Democratic mayor can't utter such heresy. Better to turn the District into another collectivist bastion for people with too much time and not enough brains. Well done.

The ban isn't going to change my behavior any, because I already avoided bars. The abundance of cigarette smoke mattered, but barely. But what about the opposite view? Some people surely enjoy bars and, although smoking isn't the reason they go, it's part of the experience. An extra inconvenience might change their behavior. The statistics allegedly don't bare that out, but they're not really comparing the same circumstances, are they? Consider:

A New York government study showed that the city's bar and restaurant industry was thriving one year after its ban was enacted in March 2003. And in Massachusetts, the Harvard School of Public Health found little or no change in bar and restaurant patronage or tax collections after that state's ban was put in place in July 2004.

Thriving is good, right, but we don't know how relative "thriving" is. Maybe it's the same, but it's possible it could be worse. It could, of course, be better, if the smoke-free advocates are right and people now feel able to go to bars. I guess we'll have to trust the studies, which is fine since none of them have any motivation to find positive results from the ban. Right?

I've already written on the property rights violation of smoking bans, so I'm not going to dig into that again. Instead, I'll highlight this from those directly affected.

"Oh, man, it's gonna hurt," said Rob Klein, the bartender at Chief Ike's Mambo Room, a bar in Adams Morgan. "It's going to take people away from my bar stools, and that's how I pay my rent."

There's an economic impact to such public control of private business? That's certainly an obvious revelation. Why is it that Mr. Klein knows that, but the D.C. Council doesn't? Oh, right, Mr. Klein is wrong, because he's not properly concerned about his health. Thankfully, Smokefree DC is involved.

Smokefree DC applauds those Councilmembers who voted for the measure, because they have rightly ignored “the sky is falling” rhetoric and have stood up for the right of all workers to breathe clean air on the job.

I don't remember reading any such right. Maybe it's the 28th Amendment and I missed the newest printing of the Constitution. Last week was busy for me; it's possible. Someone let me know if you hear something, okay?

Remembering that one council member voted against the bill, I figured it had something to do with the wording of the bill or some displeasure with an exemption here or there, meaning the dissent was more symbolic than anything. Apparently not:

Council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) cast the dissenting vote. Council member Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6) was absent.

Schwartz said the issue was personal choice and freedom. "Don't make me out that I like smoking, because I don't," said Schwartz, an ex-smoker. "Bar and restaurant workers have a choice of where to work, and patrons have a choice of where to patronize."

I know a lot of she angered a lot of libertarians with the recent zero tolerance DUI bill dust-up in D.C., but that's a remarkably sane argument. Voting on business policies with dollars. Who could've imagined such a radical idea? And to counter her "I hate smoking" qualification (which I've given, too, but still... my blog, my rules), here's proof that she knows how to counter the ridiculous "right to breathe clean air" argument with a "you're a nanny statist health crazy" jab:

The longest debate was over whether to exempt the city's eight hookah bars, where people smoke tobacco out of a shared pipe. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) argued that hookah bars should be exempt because tobacco use is the central focus of their business.

Schwartz then jumped on Graham. "If it's all in the guise of protecting worker health, why would you want to kill off the hookah bar workers?" she said to laughs in the packed council chambers. "The hypocrisy is just astounding."

Bingo.

Reading the D.C. Examiner this morning, I came across this in the reader response thread:

The opposition to the proposed ban on smoking in D.C. intrigues me. What about those of us who choose not to smoke and don't want to inhale the smoke that others have inhaled?

Why should the rest of us have to pass through someone else's smoke when we enter or leave an office building or restaurant?

Ummm... would it be too simple to respond that you don't have to pass through someone else's smoke because you have the choice to take your business elsewhere? And that I can't remember the last time I entered a private building that permitted smoking in anywhere other than designated areas, such as smoking rooms in hotels? Or is the right to breathe clean air also a right to impose your personal preferences on private businesses? The answer seems to be yes, I suppose. Silly me. That might be why I didn't think of this:

Choosing to smoke elevates the risk of lung, mouth and throat cancer. Cancer treatments for smokers also add to the financial burden of the rest of us who pay for health insurance.

We don't pay for our health treatments alone; everyone shares in the cost.

Right, because when I purchased health insurance for myself in September, the insurance company completely ignored that situation, failing to put a "Do you smoke?" question anywhere in the application, so that it could charge me a higher rate if I imposed a greater risk on the company. That would've been smart. Maybe some insurance company will do that in the future to factor in the distinction between the smart people and the stupid people.