Should smoking be banned FULL STOP?!

You and I are saying nothing new, these aspects have been covered time and again on various threads of this forum. I shall however repeat, for your benefit that the licensee of premises holds the license provided they abide by the regulations. If the regulations are varied because of the implementation of a smoking ban, the landlord/landlady will loose their license if they flout the regulations. It has happened in other countries where smoking bans are implemented and it would happen here.

Alexandra, none of us are in a position to actually legislate any of these opinions, but I think it's a given that, if you support an idea which forces it's ideals upon someone, then you are forcing you're ideals on someone. Just as much as we - your opposition - are enforcing our view onto people. Our view, however, is that the property owners should have total choice as to what occurs of their property, so I think it would be stretching the term "enforcing" a bit too far to be legitimate.

What you are saying is that the "right" of people to go out and have a good time is, on this issue, more important than the (actually legitimate) rights of property owners (that I didn't just make up and put in inverted commas) to chose what legal activities occur on their own property, when all their patrons are entirely aware of the rules and consciously decided to enter the cafe/bar/wherever?

Why does everyone keep changing what im saying! Did i say my right to "go out and have a good time" is greater than the "rights of a property owner"? Cause i dont ever remember saying that! What im saying and have said in numerous posts over and over again (and as yawn has clearly said what i wanted to say but couldnt say well) was that im concerned over the health issue and EVERYONES right to breathe healthily hence LIVE wherever they go!

But you're including private property on your list - pubs, clubs, cafes, etc. If you don't want to go to a smoky environment, don't go to a cafe which allows people to smoke. Why is that not a viable solution? Everyone who DOES go there are doing so out of their own free will.

Hmm...I just thought I'd come and give my two cents. I think smoking should be banned everwhere. If people want to give themselves lung cancer then that's their choice. But smoking in public increases the risk to other people...However, if peole can still smoke in their own homes, then they're still increasing the chances of their friends and family getting lung cancer...who knows, their family may include a young child they're hardly going to complain against it, yet it will still be damaging their health.

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Btw-I think those rooms made of glass they have in Airports are kinda good-The one i saw you couldn't see inside due to all the smoke and the only people in their were smokers killing each other.

If all cafes allowed people to smoke (which in Cy they all do!) then where does that leave non-smokers? Should we be forced to sit outside on the pavement because smokers want to do whatever they want to? Yes we choose to go in there, but what if some of our friends are smokers and we go into a cafe and they start smoking, why should we be forced to breathe in that rubbish? We shouldnt, its plain as that!

Why dont you get the argument? Its quite simple really. If the gov told the owners that there was a total ban on smoking then that would be it. Yep sure they wont like it initially but i think they'd get used to the idea, just like with hard drugs or with lilac wallpaper. So banning it completely there wouldnt be as big a problem as you make it out to be!

IF?! Hard drugs are illegal. This argument always gets brought up, Yawn did too, and I don't understand it. You're saying if the government made smoking - like hard drugs - illegal, then no pubs would allow it.

I have never mentioned hard drugs in my quest for rationality regarding the smoking ban debate! I don't need to clutch at any straws since the crux is sufficiently strong to stand alone on its own merits.

OK - since you seem to give greater credence to proprietors being able to instil their own provisions you need to look at the wider picture.

We live in very litigious times. Pubs/clubs/cafes employ staff to run the venues. Employers have a duty of care to their staff under the Health and Safety legislation. Employees whose health is disadvantaged because of working practices can claim against both the state (by way of industrial injuries law) and individual employers by way of seeking compensation for exposing them to known carcinogenics.

Seeking to impose total bans on smoking in places, apart from one's own home (and even here there are the same potential implications) is to negate the risk of litigation and compensation in addition to improving the health of the nation.

These facts alone must override any lesser considerations of so-called 'rights' since they are of much greater importance to the 'good' of the nation.

Continuing the line of debate that you seek to bring to prominence is a 'no-winner'.

I have never mentioned hard drugs in my quest for rationality regarding the smoking ban debate! I don't need to clutch at any straws since the crux is sufficiently strong to stand alone on its own merits.

OK - since you seem to give greater credence to proprietors being able to instil their own provisions you need to look at the wider picture.

We live in very litigious times. Pubs/clubs/cafes employ staff to run the venues. Employers have a duty of care to their staff under the Health and Safety legislation. Employees whose health is disadvantaged because of working practices can claim against both the state (by way of industrial injuries law) and individual employers by way of seeking compensation for exposing them to known carcinogenics.

Seeking to impose total bans on smoking in places, apart from one's own home (and even here there are the same potential implications) is to negate the risk of litigation and compensation in addition to improving the health of the nation.

These facts alone must override any lesser considerations of so-called 'rights' since they are of much greater importance to the 'good' of the nation.

Continuing the line of debate that you seek to bring to prominence is a 'no-winner'.

Smoking affects others not just the consumers where as eating fatty foods affects just that persons health

You cant split the private domain

Interesting. Why not?

Because a compromise is hypocrisy. Compromise is not a virute.

Interesting. Why not?

Because you have to tell me where and why my rights end.

Its the equivalent of trying to applying habeus corpus only half of the time.

"its helping people not putting them at an unfair disadvatange"

Your response doesnt seem to be exactly in keeping with the question.

Well there are laws which are waived to some extent. There could be a compromise. How about a ban in pubs (linked to licensing laws perhaps) whilst allowing people to smoke in their private homes.

So should the state get to decide when your rights to private ownership apply and where they end, on a whim?