Smoking ban lawsuit will fail, get over it

By Editorial Board

Publication Date: 03/28/2007

Would Mary Cook and David Rollings kindly shut up?

The owner of Harry's Chocolate Shop and the employee at the Wabash Yacht Club, respectively, are suing West Lafayette over an aspect of the smoking ban that will be implemented this summer.

According to the duo, their case calls into question "preferential treatment" that will be received by so-called tobacco establishments, like Cafe Hookah.

What they don't seem to understand is that they will lose the case. Smoking bans are in place in numerous major cities in the U.S., such as New York, Boston and every city in California. Clearly there are many precedents supporting the constitutionality of smoking bans.

The nation has been steadily moving toward smoke free restaurants and bars for quite some time, and Indiana happens to be on the late end of the anti-smoking movement. But, despite the state's tardiness, the day has come, the inevitable will happen and West Lafayette will enact the smoking ban on July 1 and remain smoke free from here on out.

So quit whining.

Bars are not a place to go smoke. They are a place to go drink. Precedents have been set across the nation that the right to a healthy bar environment is more important than the right of an individual to smoke.

This is the basis against the preferential treatment argument. Some businesses base their livelihoods on smoking. It would not be fair to shut these places down. But bars are first and foremost alcohol-based establishments.

It's not like on July 1 every single patron of Harry's is going to run to Hookah and never come back. For every angry smoker that storms off, there will be at least one new, happy, non-smoking customer walking in, and possibly more.

So get with the times. Stop whining. The bars are smoke free.