I always knew that nicotine addiction was very powerful, but I never knew that it made people choose smoking over eating! Do smokers there keep one lit during the meal, or just when they are sitting around the table before and after eating? What does the lunch crowd do at noon now instead of eating at the diner? Pack a sandwich? I’m sorry, but that’s just too hard to believe.

All of us have had restaurant meals spoiled by other diners’ obnoxious behavior: cellphone users, loud talkers, screaming kids… and tobacco smoke. The waitstaff and managers are afraid to offend anyone, so I think it’s up to other customers (i.e. the rest of us) to enforce common courtesy, and not just in restaurants. Haven’t you ever told a loud person in a restaurant to hold the noise down? If you haven’t, what are you complaining about?

I’m especially hard on people who smoke in elevators. No one has broken my nose yet.

The Webmaster and I seem to have come to an agreement that what we need is more courtesy all around. Maybe we could do with a little less insistence on our “rights,” and more consideration of those around us.

I found interesting the info regarding restaurants in Idabel and suspect a similar scenario may be playing out around other rural areas of the state.

Regarding the ‘child ban’, I understand where you are coming from. Being the father of five and grandfather of six I’ve had some experience with the issue and for the most part when the kids were little we confined our dining out to drive-thru or hired a babysitter so that mom and pop could dine out together on special occasions.

On the topic of ‘bans’, there are several that one could logically suggest in addition to a ban on small children.

Off the top of my head there could be bans on:

people with coughs and colds that spread germs all over the place, loud talkers that insist on being heard throughout the restaurant, cell phone users - especially those that insist on basically yelling into the cell phone to be heard over the loud talkers, the ‘waitress flirts’ that insist on hitting on the waitress repeatedly delaying everyone’s service and the various and sundry ‘burpers’ and other types of obnoxious people.

Ban all of these and one’s dining experience would likely be a lot more enjoyable, albeit in a practically empty restaurant that has to charge $100 per-plate just to stay in business…

I live in McCurtain County, and, to my knowledge, no such thing exists here. Idabel, being the largest town and county seat, certainly has nothing, and businesses have notably suffered from the loss of business over the previous year. Broken Bow and Valliant, the other two “decent sized” towns in this county also have no such establishment.

One of our favorite restaurants is a mom and pop establishment as well, and has gone from being standing room only with a 15-30 minute wait shortly after noon to being able to pick any of a number of seats throughout the restaurant at the same time. In Idabel, two ‘eat-in’ national fast-food type establishments, one Mexican restaurant, one Italian, and one Mediterranean restaurant have all gone out of business since this ban went into place, two others have greatly scaled back their hours, and one national chain has suffered a great loss in dine-in business. Our favorite waitress in this location went to management because she lost so much income in tips she could not afford to stay a waitress there anymore. Is it a direct result? Certainly data would have to be collected and analyzed to make such a claim; however it can be said that prior to this ban going into effect, for a period of five (5) years immediately beforehand, not one eating establishment closed down, exclusive of one location which started up and closed down within a 6 month period as it never really got off of the ground.

Now I’d just like to say a couple of things about the conversation here.

1. Certainly Okie, you would not be forced to dine with smokers — unless you chose to go to a restaurant that was all smoking. We often have this debate down here as well; about how much better it would be if restaurants were able to choose for themselves. An establishment which decided to be a smoking establishment would have to prominently display such information so that anyone walking in the door would know precisely what they were walking into. I believe that is only fair, that everyone knows if they walk into a place, they will most likely be exposed to smoke. They can then decide for themselves whether to patronize the location.

Personally, I believe the government feeling that they must make laws to protect the health of perfectly rational adults just seems to scream that they must do so because people are too stupid to decide for themselves what exposure they are willing to have. I believe such an assumption is rude at best, and yet, it keeps happening. What’s worse, though, is that the government passing laws to keep you away from smoke because you couldn’t keep yourself away without them doing so somehow gets applauded by you. I’m not sure how – I know that I, for one, would be rather pissed if the government decided I was too stupid to make my own decisions and so they had to pass laws to make those decisions for me.

2. I’m sorry, I simply can not abide by the belief that one person’s fundamental rights are superior to those of another. The Geneva Convention was put into place to guard against those who would believe such things. Everyone is supposed to have the right to choose the way in which they live their lives, within the bounds of the law. That being said, unless the government decides to outlaw tobacco, which we all know they won’t because of massive tax revenue, they are therefore making engaging in a legal activity an illegal action in a perfectly normal situation.

3. Finally, I will just broach the most interesting argument I have heard on this topic in sometime, which was made to a group discussing this yesterday:

I know the arguments about second-hand smoke. It smells bad. It’s a health risk. Having to be exposed to it ruins a dining experience for a nonsmoker. Therefore, we believe the next step in this banned by the government process is to outlaw all children under the age of 13 from being taken to restaurants.

They smell bad, especially the babies.
They are carriers of germs, which therefore puts at risk the health of everyone in the restaurant they are in.
They make noise, often very loud noise, which frequently parents have learned to tune out due to exposure, but that ruins my dining experience.

So, ok, we can continue making laws about what is and is not allowed in privately owned businesses based on the same criteria used for the smoking ban.

Let’s see how many people will grab the soap box to support the child ban, shall we? And just how many do you think will claim a parent’s rights are less than those of a nonparent, as the parent has chosen to have the children??

It’s equally ludicrous, in my opinion. It’s a legal activity, which the government benefits from while making it as hard as they can for it to happen. Wonder how much people will like the sales and income taxes in this state quadrupling when the government gets their way and huge amounts of people quit smoking, so they must generate the revenue in another way? It could be said that those extra taxes put my health at risk; I may no longer be able to afford adequate care. They would certainly make things less pleasant. How on earth could they be legal?

The point? You see, when assessing the same criteria to much more socially acceptable activities, it’s much easier to see just how obscene these arguments really are.

Point taken.

Of course we tend to frequent the ‘mom and pop’ type restaurants, so that might account for the difference.

We dine out once, maybe twice, a week now and often find more customers in the smoking section than in the non-smoking section. I would also point out that our dining out is typically for the evening meal, rather than breakfast or lunch and usually neither the smoking or non-smoking sections are full at that time in the places we patronize.

The idea of a ’smoking only restaurant’ is one I researched and concluded that under current Oklahoma law is for all intents and purposes impossible to implement.

Currently there is no ratio specified between the amount of seating in the non-smoking versus smoking sections. In theory a person could set up a restaurant with a smoking section containing 99.99999% of the seating for smokers and the rest for non-smokers. However the State Department of Health could quickly and easily re-write its rules to specify a ratio with the non-smoking section required to be larger in size.

And silliness is sometimes a good thing.

But the terms “smoker” and “non-smoker” are confusing this discussion. Let’s use the terms “smoking” and “non-smoking” instead. Restaurants don’t refuse service to smokers. They simply prohibit the activity of smoking. I eat “among smokers” in restaurants all the time, and so can every smoker. All they have to do is refrain from the activity of smoking until they go outside.

I’m happy that Oklahoma allows restaurants to establish environmentally-isolated “smoking permitted” sections. Quite a few restaurants do that. When they don’t, I assume that it’s because there isn’t enough demand to make it worth the expense. In my experience, “smoking permitted” sections usually aren’t full when the rest of the restaurant is. Some non-smokers will eat there rather than wait for an empty “no smoking” table. For my part, I’d rather wait.

A “smoking only” restaurant? That’s an interesting concept! Would I be barred unless I agreed to light up once I sat down?

I’m kidding about being forced to light up, of course, but it’s no sillier than the remark about smokers dragging non-smokers into their smokeholes.

Unfortunately those that oppose smoking tend to be focused on their rights exclusively and at the expense of the rights of others when it comes to smoking bans.

I would never propose to force you to dine among smokers.
Why do you support laws that ban me from dining among smokers, since I am one myself?

This is where total smoking bans infringe the rights of association of those that wish to be among smokers in restaurants.

What is so wrong with smokers having restaurants that cater to them and non-smokers having restaurants that cater to them? Are my rights inferior to yours? If so, why?

The Oklahoma smoking ban in restaurants is slightly fairer than that of Arkansas in that while all restaurants in Oklahoma are required to be non-smoking there is a provision for restaurants to have a ’smoking room’ provided it is environmentally isolated from the non-smoking section and passes health department inspection.

What is not permitted under the Oklahoma restaurant smoking ban is a ’smoking only’ restaurant and that is in and of itself discriminatory. Evidently there is a fear on the part of the state of Oklahoma that smokers might rush outside a smoking only establishment and drag non-smokers inside…

It’s my guess that sales in our local restaurants are greater now than when they were full of smoke. Nobody closed here, and two new places opened recently. You may be eating out less now, but we are definitely eating out more, leaving our pockets a bit emptier. And remember that even in this rural area there are more non-smokers than smokers.

As with so many things, it’s a balancing act. You have every right to smoke all you want - as long as you keep your foul-smelling smoke away from me. If that’s discrimination, then so be it.