Maine Smoker's Rights
New York City Smokers are in trouble: WEB BUYERS $MOKED OUT
02/04/2006-Now,
officials say, they're ready to get really serious and impose a $100-a-carton penalty -
plus the $1.50-a-pack tax.
Bloomberg, Heckled, Presses Smoking Curbs
10 October 2002 ~ New York City Council Meeting
City
Council hearings are sometimes important. They are occasionally well attended. But
they rarely feature the mayor, a roomful of his hecklers and a man dressed as a giant
cigarette.
story here
9 October 2002 - New York City
Not only did he catch other people's butts during his 60 years in this vale of tearing eyes, he was a cigarette junkie for half his life. Unlike Bill Clinton, Mike inhaled - not cigars, not pot, but real cigs.
And yet tomorrow in City Hall he will be the lead witness in his effort to persuade the City Council to prohibit smoking almost everywhere in the city. Mayor Bloomberg wants to turn us into Los Angeles East on the grounds of protecting bartenders and waiters from the evils of secondhand smoke.
NY SENATOR PROPOSES BAN ON SMOKING IN CARS
9-23-03
-Notice the legislation doesn't say what happens if the 16-year old is smoking in the car!
article here
Smokers Suing To Stop NY Smoking Ban
7-23-03-
Six New York taverns - including two in Syracuse - sued the state Tuesday and asked a
federal judge to stop authorities from enforcing the new law that bans smoking in all
indoor work sites, including bars and restaurants.
article here
BLOOMY VS. BODEGAS IN BATTLE OVER CIG TAX
October 23, 2002 -- Mayor Bloomberg yesterday lit into bodega owners who griped on the steps of City Hall that their businesses will soon go up in smoke because of a dramatic drop in cigarette sales.
9 October 2002 - New York City
Not only did he catch other people's butts during his 60 years in this vale of tearing eyes, he was a cigarette junkie for half his life. Unlike Bill Clinton, Mike inhaled - not cigars, not pot, but real cigs.
And yet tomorrow in City Hall he will be the lead witness in his effort to persuade the City Council to prohibit smoking almost everywhere in the city. Mayor Bloomberg wants to turn us into Los Angeles East on the grounds of protecting bartenders and waiters from the evils of secondhand smoke.
Antismoking Bill's Chances May Hinge on Personalities
2 October 2002
Relations between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and some members of the City Council have deteriorated to such an extent that Council leaders are warning that the mayor's prized antismoking legislation may be in jeopardy.
Audrey Silk's Speech Given At The Protest Rally:
Let's call Bloomberg's plot what it
really is - The SMOKER-Free City Act.
Many nonsmokers, different from the
anti-smokers, are behind us because
they recognize these extremist measures for what
they really are - An
attack on freedom by our own government and where it could lead
next.
Anti-smokers are waging a civil war against their fellow citizens. The
anti-smoker
crusaders publicly spew their hate of an industry to disguise
what has turned into
their attack on fellow folk.
We are NOT the tobacco industry. We are 30% of
NYC residents. This is
persecution by government against a segment of society
freely choosing to
engage in legal behavior and the bar and restaurant owners who want
to
serve us.
This political action has nothing to do with protecting the health
of
others. Dismissing high-tech ventilation as a solution and banning smoking
outdoors
in a vehicle exhaust filled city proves it's about getting rid of
the smokers, not the
smoke.
Further proof is the most recent news that Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester
Counties
have met with our city leaders to implement a wide-spread ban.
Our elected officials
have colluded against one third of the people. To
protect others??
NO! So that smokers will not have any refuge and will
stop smoking out of
frustration. This is evidenced by Nassau County
Legislator Corbin's statement:
"If
you're downstate you're not going to be able to smoke anywhere but in
your
closet. If we stop the places in which you can smoke, the smokers may
not find it
appealing to smoke."
How dare they use their power to impose their personal
biases on others and
legislate behavior that is legal.
Our founding
fathers assured us we will never get this kind of brutal
coercive government.
Their vision is under siege. Abuse of power is
threatening ALL of us.
When
the anti-smokers ask where in the Constitution it says we have the
"right" to
smoke, ask them where the rights they're claiming are
enumerated. They're
not. They insist the Constitution was written in
their favor. It's
not. ALL the people have the right to pursue happiness
and that's about as much
as they can claim ownership to when referring to
the Constitution, as do we.
The
anti-smokers call us selfish. WE are not the ones asking that the
entire city
accommodate ONLY us. They want it 100% their way when there is
room for
compromise. Who are the selfish ones?
The anti-smokers use the adage
"your right to swing your fist ends where my
nose begins." Saying that,
in their defense to end smoking in bars, is
like saying that to end fighting in a
boxing ring. Stay out of places
where you know "fists are being swung"
and you won't get hit. Any child
understands that.
The owners and
the owners only, of PRIVATE establishments, must be allowed
to decide for themselves
how best to serve their customers - whether to
allow or ban smoking. And
employees and customers can use common sense in
whether to enter one or the other.
To
turn a phrase: The right to be intolerant ends where our civil
liberties begin.
That
includes junk science about smoke from my cigarette and exploiting
workers and
individuals who haven't asked for help to promote their
self-righteous, sanctimonious
and puritanical cleansing of smokers from
this great city.
We must resist the
extremists.
Thomas Jefferson said this: "All, too, will bear in mind
this sacred
principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail,
that
the will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess
their equal
rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be
oppression."
Millions
who have wanted to, have stopped smoking without government
intrusion. Millions
more freely choose to continue. The choice to use a
legal product is
normal. Tyranny in America is the aberration.
This is civil war.
More Articles About Mayor Bloomingnuts Smoking Ban
From Chuck Muth's newsletter.
-
Washington Times editorial, 8/14/02
**********************************
Big
Apple's Dudley Do-Gooder
"(New York) Mayor Michael Bloomberg has seen to it
that the cost of
a pack of cigarettes now costs more than $7 - courtesy of targeted sin
taxes
- and he's pushing for a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars for the
next step.
.
. . It all sounds very noble, but the precedent being set by this type of
behavioral
policing is going to be something we will one day
regret.
"That smoking is
unhealthful is entirely beside the point.
Fast-food hamburgers are also bad for
you. So is too much sun. Life is full
of choices that are no one's business
but our own - unless we want to
erect a nanny state in which any self-appointed
do-gooder can use the
machinery of government to enforce lifestyle and habit codes.
"Are
we going to put sin taxes on cheeseburgers, or issue tickets to
sunbathers if they fail
to wear the right amount of lotion? Will
push-ups become mandatory every
morning? The principle is the same, and
therein lies the danger of 'for your own
good' legislation that targets such
things as cigarette smoking.
"...Mr.
Bloomberg and others who object to smoking are free to
patronize other establishments,
and he and those who share his belief should
not insist upon enforcing their
preferences upon everyone else. They
should live and let live."
In California, where the Legislature passed a law in 1994 that banned smoking in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants, many tavern and restaurant owners feared dire economic consequences. Some studies, including one by the state's sales tax collection agency in 1998, actually showed an increase in sales after the law was enacted.
WRONG! The following study shows the REAL truth about how the smoking bans have HURT California:
SMOKING BAN IMPACT ON CALIFORNIA RESTAURANTS
Mr. Bloomberg, who has a school of public health named after him, is aggressively antismoking. When he lobbied for his cigarette tax, he insisted that he did not care whether the city made or lost money, but rather that the tax would keep children from smoking. He has been known to chide reporters for their puffing, and has takes slaps at the tobacco industry in speeches.
He has found a kindred spirit in Dr. Frieden, the health commissioner, who said when he was appointed that his main priority would be to combat smoking. Dr. Frieden has even produced a radio advertisement deploring secondhand smoke.
Funny that he didn't bring this out BEFORE the election, isn't it! And he sure is going against our President's wishes as well:
"The role of government is
not to create wealth.
The role of government is to create an environment
in which
the entrepreneur or small business or
dreamer can flourish. And
that starts with rule of law,
respect of private property, less regulatory burdens on
the
entrepreneur, open banking laws so that all people
have access to capital, and
good tax policy."
President George W. Bush
St.
Petersburg University,
St. Petersburg, Russia
May 25, 2002
Pig in a Poke
Avoidance of sales taxes on big-ticket purchases, such as art, is virtually a tradition. And New York, for one, doesn�t like it .
Read Their Lips: No Taxes/New York
MASTIC, N.Y. � Call it tax avoidance � and call it completely legal.
8 July 2002
Chief Wallace shrugged and lighted another cigarette. "If they're so bad, make them illegal," he said. "In the meantime, leave me alone."
Cigarettes Up to $7 a Pack With New Tax
New York - 1 July 2002
RINO Mayor Bloomberg said: "If it were totally up to me, I would raise the cigarette tax so high the revenues from it would go to zero," said the mayor, who has said he hopes that the higher taxes will persuade smokers to quit and will prevent children from becoming smokers.
The following is from Forces International :
Bloomberg must still be smoking dope if he thinks anyone buys his nonsense that hiking the cigarette tax is a public health measure. The theory that people, especially "the children", stop smoking because of price increases has been discredited for quite some time. When California raised taxes a few years ago its smoking rate supposedly went down. For reasons never explained by anti-tobacco, but obvious to even a casual observer of human nature, the smoking rates in neighboring -- and low tax -- Nevada miraculously rose at just the same time. No one will quit in New York City but many will buy out of state or off the internet.
Even the bozos running New York don't believe people will quit. They estimate the new tax will bring in $111-million in the coming fiscal year. For the next fiscal year they estimate the tax will enrich the city coffers by $116-million. If masses of people are going to quit, as the mayor pretends, why would the taxes collected continue to grow?
