Lots of people agree with waitress/bartender Chrissy Pluth–they’re OK with secondhand smoke (Voice of the people, Dec. 3). Understandably, many just don’t like regulations. I’ve had two jobs that color my opinion of secondhand smoke. When I was in college (longer ago than I care to admit), I worked at a car dealership cleaning used cars for sale. Smokers’ cars took 10 times as long to get ready for sale as non-smokers’ cars.
Later I had a job repairing computers. Smokers’ computers were obvious at a glance, and suffered many times the problems of non-smokers’ computers. Floppy-disk drives often failed. Fans clogged up with horrid brown glop, causing overheating and component failure. Electrical contacts became unreliable with a coating of tar.
But, hey, I’m sure that stuff is OK for other people’s lungs.
No one wants regulations, but non-smokers don’t want to breathe that junk. I always wondered: How does the smoke know to stay in the smoking section?
It sounds like more of a technological problem than a legal one.
If owners of restaurants and bars are so sure a public smoking ban would hurt their businesses, maybe they should invest in really aggressive air-cleaning systems. They could advertise: “We are friendly to smokers’ freedom and non-smokers’ health.”
