re: #337 Gus

In other news…

I can recall when the main objection to these sorts of regulations was that it would put bars and restaurants out of business because smokers would go somewhere else.

Sadly for those folk, there have been some real world results that have shown this false. The best examples are places like Chattanooga, where the adjacent state (Georgia) went smoke-free. By the smokers’ logic, the restaurants and bars across the border would go broke as smokers fled to Chattanooga. Instead, the flow (not severe, but measurable) went the other way. Maybe some smokers went north, but families and non-smokers went south. Within a couple of years, Chattanooga passed a no-smoking law of its own. Objectors floated the economic argument (and got bit by the facts) and so started the “it’s impinging on my freedom” meme they use today.

Idiots.