Smokers uniting to fight taxes, bans - Hawaii Editorials

Four years ago, who would have ever thought that the ban on smoking in bars and restaurants would lead to the current recession?

This is an astounding finding.

Hopefully Crowley and Tenn will receive the Nobel Prize in Economics for their groundbreaking research.

I applaud their efforts! Bar owners should be able to decide if they want to allow smoking. A majority of their customers smoke. I am not talking about restaurants or dance clubs, I mean the local bars. Just drive by one and see all the customers outside on the sidewalk - NOT spending money inside!

Wow the days of sitting in a bar with cigarette smoke bellowing out the front door is gone. As a none smoker it was part of gathering with friends having a after work beer. Alcohal and tobacco go together and was excepted in bars at that time. I was the one outside the bar every 20 minutes or so to catch a breath of fresh air. Today we still gather with the smokers going outside for a amoke while I remain inside picking on all the good pupus. Boy times change...Too me it really never bothered me and enjoying my buddies was more important.

Law makers did the right thing by putting public health ahead of the greed of some bar owners and the self-destructive impulses of nicotine addicts.

"They no not what they say." Forty years down the road...with COPD, they will finally see the light. But, alas... way, way too late.

Better brace yourself Hawaii;

By law, effective October 1st, 2009, the cigarettes you are now enjoying will be gone. Your governor Lingle, very "under the radar" signed into law the so called "Fire-Safe" cigarette law. The only cigarettes you will be able to get are the highly disgusting and ironically extremely more fire hazardous 'FSC cigarettes'.
This will be mandatory for every brand of cigarette, and these new cigarettes make people extremely, and I mean extremely, sick - extremely fast. You will hate it. I guarantee it.

Don't beleive it? Google search: fsc cigarettes

-Attn:'second-hand smoke' crybabies - Just wait untill you get some whiffs and experience the side effects of the soon to come FSC cigarettes. Even you will be begging for the current (soon to be former) traditional cigarettes to come back.

Very, very seriously, Hawaii, BEWARE.

i am in favor of smokers having rights but have you notice how smokers throw their cigarette buds on the street ,out the freeways. It is gross and why should others pick up after them.

And not to mention all the smoke breaks a smoker will take during a day going outside causing unproductive work.

yes smokers have rights but i don't want it to overtake the rights of non smokers

one more thing,if there is going to be more taxes added to buying a cigarette, then set aside the money so that when smokers get cancer that money will go toward the health related issues from being a smoker.

I'm not a smoker. I think smoking should be allowed in bars. You are in there for entertainment, and watching all the different antics of smokers pursuing their habit is fascinating to any student of the great apes. Just ventilate the dive properly so the smoke doesn't hang around. It would be nice if those filter butts were biodegradable, they are an eyesore.

People do not smoke. Cigarettes smoke and people smoke the cigarettes. Anyway, there is more than enough smoke coming from car exhaust pipes if people want to inhale that and it's tax free.

That's my contribution for today so have a wonderful day in paradise.

OnlyParadise wrote:

i am in favor of smokers having rights but have you notice how smokers throw their cigarette buds on the street ,out the freeways. It is gross and why should others pick up after them.
And not to mention all the smoke breaks a smoker will take during a day going outside causing unproductive work.
yes smokers have rights but i don't want it to overtake the rights of non smokers
one more thing,if there is going to be more taxes added to buying a cigarette, then set aside the money so that when smokers get cancer that money will go toward the health related issues from being a smoker.

You think there's health related issues with cigarettes now, just wait untill the new, soon to be in Hawaii, "FSC cigarettes" take their toll...
You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Smokers stink! They just don't know it.

Smokers stink!

Why in the world would you want to put that disgusting thing in your mouth and why in the world would anyone want to kiss some who STINKS!

As an experienced veteran of bars, I can tell you that it has been more than pleasurable to sit in a bar and drink my beer without that disgusting smell emanating from other patrons. When I get home after an evening of imbibing I don't have to fumigate my hair, clothes, and body anymore. Most of my smoking friends tell me that, after the ban, they have cut down considerably on their smoking. As in the DUI checkpoints, seat belt reguirments, and the most recently passed cell phone ban for drivers, sometimes you have to pound good behavior in people who are wont to disregard their own health and welfare as well as those around them.

What ever happened to "going green"? Why do we need more greenhouse emissions from drunkards?

Isn't it typical that our lolo legislatures listen to a bunch of drunks. I bet Ricky Kiramatsu, Bill Brennan, and Mr. I-have-the-wrong-contact must be behind this push.

Korean Bar Veteran wrote:

As an experienced veteran of bars, I can tell you that it has been more than pleasurable to sit in a bar and drink my beer without that disgusting smell emanating from other patrons. When I get home after an evening of imbibing I don't have to fumigate my hair, clothes, and body anymore. Most of my smoking friends tell me that, after the ban, they have cut down considerably on their smoking. As in the DUI checkpoints, seat belt reguirments, and the most recently passed cell phone ban for drivers, sometimes you have to pound good behavior in people who are wont to disregard their own health and welfare as well as those around them.

I hope that you continue to enjoy your time in the bar, hopefully alone. I also hope that Hawaii tourism continues to decline after becoming a fascist state. One would think, after being bombed in WWII and the resulting impact of that war, that Hawaii would understandd what it means to lose freedom. Clearly, it did not. Perhaps it was a mistake to make Hawaii a state.

KEEP ALL THE BANS IN PLACE! LEt THE SMOKERS GO OUTSIDE AND NOT POLLUTE OUR AIR!

somecommonsense wrote:

I applaud their efforts! Bar owners should be able to decide if they want to allow smoking. A majority of their customers smoke. I am not talking about restaurants or dance clubs, I mean the local bars. Just drive by one and see all the customers outside on the sidewalk - NOT spending money inside!

This is very good news.

The less that smokers spend on alcohol, the less likely they will contract an alcohol-related disease.

It also reduces the likelihood that they will be driving while under the influence and the less lkely it will be, therefore, that they will cause a car crash that will cause pain and suffering and loss of life.

And the less they spend on alcohol, the more money they'll have left over for their families and wholesome things in life.

It's all good!

Amazing wrote:

Hopefully Crowley and Tenn will receive the Nobel Prize in Economics for their groundbreaking research.

Or at least a prize for literary fiction.

Or the "Dumbest Editorial Written Award."

You can't possibly be ignorant enough to think Japanese tourists quit coming to Hawaii because they can't smoke in bars. You can't possibly be that ignorant.

Can you?

Before the ban in a lot of places went into affect(thankfully), I went with some friends to a bowling alley to bowl a few frames one evening. The stench from the overwhelming number people who were slowly killing themselves lighting up every few minutes drove us out before we even paid for the first game. KEEP THE BAN IN PLACE EVERYWHERE! If you want to kill yourself, use a gun. It takes less time, doesn't smell as bad as a 100 cigarettes lighting up at once and probably will cost less in the long run.