I actually think what Warren and I are admitting maybe helps our cause. If enough people don’t want smoking in bars–and there are enough smokers who feel uncomfortable smoking in people’s faces at a dinner table or worry that a gal won’t find it attractive in a bar–then bars and restaurants, etc. will likely ban them on their own. TGI Fridays sends you straight to the dry cleaner, Chili’s doesn’t. The market at work. I was joking about the Hail Nurse Bloomberg thing. But I do think the practical preferences on the ground from the examples in these nanny cities, etc. often suggest smoking bans are something that would happen naturally. Both, yes, because of conventional wisdom about secondhand smoke, but also just as a matter of comfort and manners. The government shouldn’t be dictating, but I think we would wind up there if it weren’t (and the latter is be the way it should be decided, of course)
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About the Author
Kathryn Jean Lopez is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and the religion editor of National Review. Sign up for her weekly newsletter here. She is the author of A Year with the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living.
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