BuckeyeBlog

Britain’s famed Winston Churchill once quipped that “men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” The Enquirer editorial board once again stumbled blindly over the truth and hurried on in its Monday criticism of proposed changes to the Ohio Smoking ban:

Worried about its effect on bars, private clubs and other businesses, Sen. Bob Schuler has introduced legislation he says will spell out exemptions for family-owned businesses, patios and private clubs…
But while the proposed legislation might broaden private-club language in a sensible way, it would blast a hole through language restricting smoking in family-owned businesses. The broad proposed language would allow smoking in any free-standing, family-owned business – adding thousands of public smoking spots across the state.
Besides giving family-owned businesses a loophole not available to their competitors, the revised language would blatantly undercut Ohioans’ expectations for the legislation – that smoking would be widely banned in public places, including restaurants, bars and other businesses.

The editorial board rests the ban’s legitimacy on the fact that it represents the desire of the voters to ban smoking in “public” places. However, these businesses are public only in the sense that they serve an unrestricted base of customers. The entities themselves are not publicly, but privately owned. The smoking ban infringes on the right of business owners to use their private property as they see fit. The Enquirer ignores the stubborn fact of private ownership, instead using the phrase “public smoking spots” to describe “family-owned” businesses. The Editorial board doesn’t even attempt to address the impetus for the proposed bill, which stems from sponsors’ concern of the ban’s economic impact. The ban’s negative effect on Ohio’s economy is where the skeletons really start falling out of the closet, which may explain the board’s reluctance to address that issue, given its stance. Perhaps the Enquirer even welcomes the negative economic impact; after all, when Ohioans no longer have any money to spend, how will they buy harmful cigarettes?

Tags: property rights, smoking ban

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 9:50 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.