Smoking in Indianapolis bars: Ban or no ban?

Dan Cecil and his cigarette, and Lindsay Grace with her no-smoking sign. (Credit: Michelle Pemberton / Metromix)

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Nothing ignites fury like a public health vs. personal freedom debate. On Nov. 30, a proposal to ban smoking in most Indianapolis workplaces — including bars and bowling alleys — will return to the City-County Council. Those who welcome the ban say it will make employees and patrons safe from the toxic effects of secondhand smoke (and prevent a large percentage of intoxicated showers and misguided laundry attempts at 3 a.m.) Those who oppose the ban say it steps on personal liberties and interferes with the rights of business owners.

Metromix turned to two impassioned people on the subject, Lindsay Grace, campaign coordinator for Smoke Free Indy, and Dan Cecil, one of Indianapolis’ most vehement  defenders of the right to inhale, and asked them to forcefully debate their positions.

Opening arguments:

Lindsay Grace: Smoke Free Indy believes that every worker in Indianapolis should be protected by law from the 4,000 deadly chemicals found in secondhand smoke (including the 49 known to cause cancer in humans).

Smoke-free  laws across the world have protected bank workers, flight attendants, grocery-store workers and coffee-shop employees from secondhand smoke, and none of those businesses went under.

Just because you are a bartender, you don’t get the same right to breathe clean air? Seventy percent of the U.S. is protected from secondhand smoke in their workplace (yes, including bars). Why is Indy so far behind?

Dan Cecil: If all the other states were jumping off a cliff, would you want Indiana to do that, too? There are times when I’m happy that I live in a late-adopting state. It helps retard the progress of silly fads and bad laws.

No one loves bartenders more than I do. I love them so much that I’ve given them tremendous sums of money over the years with my very own nicotine-stained hands. But I find the attempt to make this an issue of workplace safety to be a tad disingenuous. If you take a job in one of the few places in which smoking is still allowed, you know that you will be exposed to second-hand smoke. Whether or not you take that job (or frequent that establishment) is your choice.

This is an instance in which the free market doesn’t need any help sorting things out. The greater the demand for nonsmoking establishments, the more of them there will be. Unfortunately, some folks aren’t satisfied until they’ve forced everyone to bend to their overweening will. Cigarettes are still a legal product. Private businesses shouldn’t be forced to outlaw them just to satisfy the in loco parentis contingent.

Grace: Encouraging public health, worker safety and the livability of a city is not a fad. These type of laws are currently working well all over the world — yes, world. In the majority of cases, compliance is high, enforcement easy and the public (even smokers) support the law. This issue has always been about workers’ rights to a safe, smoke-free environment. Given the state of the economy, a job is a job is a job.

And businesses aren’t “private.” They allow the public in and have to follow rules set forth by governing bodies to provide a safe establishment in which people patronize. Using your argument, alcohol is a legal product, so a bar, a “private” business, should be allowed to sell alcohol to minors because well, it’s their establishment and they don’t want big bad government telling them what to do.

Cecil: The fact that other cities have enacted these unnecessary laws has no bearing on whether or not we should. After the ban failed to pass, I read a quote from one of your colleagues in The Indianapolis Star in which he stated that he was sad that he lived in such a “backward” city. Well, la dee da. Being different isn’t the same thing as being “backward.” Sometimes being different is just being right.

Private businesses are, in fact, private businesses. That’s why they call them that. Unless you want to nationalize them, they will remain private businesses. The weakness of the economy doesn’t make where you decide to apply for employment any less voluntary. If being a waitress or bartender is your goal, you can always concentrate on finding a job in one of the many bars and restaurants in our fair city that don’t allow smoking.

To be honest, I think our laws related to alcohol are also quite silly, so that example of yours is kind of lost on me. I’m very tired of people who refuse to mind their own business and let a fella live life unmolested by one nagging restriction after another. I was born free, just like Andy Williams, and I’d like to die that way.

Grace: I’m fine with your right to “live free and die” as long as it doesn’t trump my right to do the same. And in the case of this issue, your rights end when they start endangering my health. In his first inaugural address, Jefferson called for “a wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another.” And Jefferson, as I’m sure you know, was no fan of government.

Cecil: If you choose to enter an establishment that allows smoking, you’re endangering your own health. Don’t try to blame your choice on the smokers. There is absolutely no one forcing you to enter these places, and we’d probably all be happier if you didn’t. Believe me when I say that us smokers aren’t crazy about elitist bed-wetters fouling our air with their faux coughs and hostile looks. The difference is that we aren’t trying to get any laws passed to dictate your lifestyle choices.

Grace: Funny, because you are the one that sounds like the elitist here (“we’d probably all be happier if you didn’t.”) I’ve been polite this entire debate, and kept on message, there is no reason to get personal. I was a smoker for 10 years, ages 13-23, and never once had feelings like you do toward smokers. Even if I could smoke inside, most of the time I’d step outside to be polite to those around me, especially my nonsmoking friends.

Cecil: This entire debate is very personal. When you try to pass a law that bans an individual from choosing to engage in a certain type of behavior that you find disagreeable, that’s personal. We smokers have been shoved onto a few little reservations, and now you wish us to be banished entirely. So, yeah, it feels a tad personal. I’m sorry that I suggested that nonsmoking whiners wet the bed. I have no evidence that this is the case. By the way, if you think secondhand smoke is bad, you should experience secondhand urine.

Grace: It’s personal to a lot of people (including myself), but more importantly, it’s important to those who work in a smoke-filled environment and want the same protections of a safe working environment that most of us have been granted. And we aren’t trying to banish you entirely, we are simply asking that you please step outside. And if you ever decide you are ready to quit, we can help you with that, too.

Cecil: I’m not a quitter. According to your Web site (www.smokefreeindy.com), your goal is to eradicate smoking from our city entirely. That’s what it says, anyway. And since lobbying groups aren’t known for their tendency to accomplish something and go away, I presume that you have an agenda that goes beyond curbing this one bit of freedom. So, just out of curiosity, what other steps lay along your heroic path?

Grace: As our Web site states: Smoke Free Indy is “dedicated to reducing secondhand smoke, tobacco usage and tobacco initiation through education, prevention and advocacy.” I’m not sure how you got “eradicating smoking from our city entirely” from those clearly stated goals. Tobacco is a legal product, and it’s not our position to advocate for the banning of such a product.

Cecil: I would explain where that comes from, but I’ve discharged my duties in this regard and want nothing to disturb my coffee and cigarettes.