Smoking cigarettes causes lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease, among other terrible ailments. It may be relaxing and smooth, but in the long run it’s just straight-up bad for you.

But that does not give the government the right to say you can’t do it. If I wanted to, I could take a walk around campus and smoke the entire time. I can go home and smoke anywhere I want. But unless there is a patio (which has ambiguous definitions), I can’t have a beer and a smoke at the same time at a bar. I can’t get strikes and spares (or gutter balls) and smoke (but I can drink there).

The most notable difference between smoking and drinking is secondhand smoke. A cocktail does not produce a cloud that everyone in the room gets a taste of. And that is exactly why the smoking ban is justified. Well, almost.

The actual effects of secondhand smoke are really still up in the air. The American Lung Association says that it can cause premature death in children and adult non-smokers exposed to it, they have an increased chance of heart disease and claims that “”secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 22,770 to 69,600 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year.”” That’s a hell of a lot to claim. Maybe it’s all true, maybe it’s BS, but there is one truth that cannot be disproven: Secondhand smoke is irritating. It smells terrible. It makes people cough and gag. It gets in your clothes and hair. It’s just really irritating.

My little sister has asthma. Being around cigarette smoke will trigger an asthma attack. Why should she, or anyone else with asthma, be forced to avoid going somewhere so she doesn’t have to deal with secondhand smoke? It makes my dad’s throat close up and he gets ill. Why should he have to go through that?

Now that’s just my family, but people don’t like it. Think about kids, pregnant mothers and the elderly, people who have very good reasons not to light up. It’s rude to blow smoke all over the place just so you can get your nicotine fix. Everyone in the room is going to get a taste of burning tobacco, and if they don’t want to, why should they have to? That’s what created the question of “”Would you like smoking or non-smoking?””

Having one section to smoke in at a restaurant and another where smoking is not allowed seems like a good idea. Keeping the two groups separate within one establishment was a step in the right direction. It’s too bad that smoke flies through the air and goes right into the non-smoking section. Other restaurants have created a separate room for it. (And that is allowed under the new law, so long as the room is separately ventilated from the rest of the establishment.) Businesses have made attempts to keep both sides happy, but the voters decided it was not enough. Tough, but fair.

So what is the real word here (aside from calling for all tobacco companies to be sued and taken out of business) If people want to go out to eat somewhere, they should not have to limit their selections to avoid smokers. It is simply unfair.

It really cannot be left up to businesses to choose to allow smoking because one way or another, it will alienate a group of clientele. And because the customer is always right, it’s just impossible to appease both smokers and non-smokers alike. And there is no environment in which you should just expect to deal with smoking. Businesses exist to make money, and they should be allowed to decide how they make that money. Smokehouses like The Safehouse that are almost exclusively there for people to smoke should not be forced to change. That’s right; if it’s a place that’s built for smoking then a nonsmoker will probably not patronize it. (But that’s really the only exception.)

Secondhand smoke is a nuisance that is easily rid of. That’s why we just said “”go outside.”” (Even though we didn’t say please.)