Voice For Liberty

Tag: Smoking bans

  • Kansas exempts itself from onerous regulation

    Yesterday the Kansas Senate passed a sweeping state-wide smoking bill that prohibits smoking in nearly all indoor places in Kansas.

    Except for casino gaming floors.

    Why? The state hopes someday to generate a lot of revenue from gambling. Does the state realize that customers of some establishments may like to smoke while they’re there, and that banning smoking might be bad for business?

    It’s outrageous that the state so desperately wants to earn as much as possible from gambling that it will tolerate smoking in casinos. It gives an unfair advantage to these casinos as compared to other places of business.

  • Kansas can’t afford a cigarette tax hike

    Research & Commentary: Kansas Can’t Afford A Cigarette Tax Hike
    By John Nothdurft, Legislative Specialist at The Heartland Institute

    The Kansas Health Policy Authority’s recommendation to use a 75-cent cigarette tax increase to pay for health costs should be worrisome — not only to smokers, but also to non-smokers and fiscally responsible legislators as well.

    The approach may seem appealing at first, but such tax increases are notoriously unpredictable and regressive. Funding a high-profile need such as health care with a cigarette tax increase is particularly hazardous because it ties an inherently unstable tax to an increase in government spending.

    A big question mark hovers over how much revenue the proposed cigarette tax hike would actually bring into the state’s coffers. According to the Center for Policy Research of New Jersey, since that state’s cigarette tax was raised 17.5 cents two years ago, the state has actually lost $46 million in tax revenue.

    Many other states have seen lower-than-projected revenue returns after cigarette tax hikes were put in place. This is a result of the general decline in tobacco use nationwide, cross-border shopping, Internet sales, smuggling, and other factors that are causing cigarette tax revenue streams to flatten.

    If Kansas legislators were to hike cigarette taxes to fund health care programs, they soon would be stuck having to choose between rolling back the funding for health care or raising other taxes. A recent National Taxpayers Union study found legislators usually do the latter. “Taxpayers face a seven out of 10 chance of seeing another net annual tax hike within two years of a tobacco tax hike,” the group reported.

    Cigarette tax increases also unduly burden low-income taxpayers and punish local businesses.

    The following articles offer additional information on cigarette tax hikes.

    Cigarette Tax Hikes Burn Hole in State Coffers
    Gregg M. Edwards, president of the Center for Policy Research of New Jersey, an independent nonprofit organization that addresses public policy issues facing New Jersey, reports how his organization found that New Jersey brought in less revenue after its cigarette tax hike than was coming in before it was implemented.

    Debunking the “Tax Thee, But Not Me” Myth: Five Reasons Why Non-Smokers Should Oppose High Tobacco Taxes
    According to the National Taxpayers Union, “the per-capita state and local tax burden in high-tobacco tax states is 8 percent above the national average, while the general tax bill for residents of low-tobacco tax states is 15 percent below the national average.”

    Poor Smokers, Poor Quitters, and Cigarette Tax Regressivity
    Dr. Dahlia Remler, with the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, rebuts the argument that cigarette taxes are not regressive.

    Tax Hikes Often Fail to Generate Expected Revenues
    Economists warn tobacco taxes are an unpredictable source of revenue.

    Six Reasons Not to Raise Tobacco Taxes
    Economist Dr. William Anderson of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs outlines six pitfalls of higher cigarette taxes.

    Tobacco: Regulation and Taxation through Litigation
    Professor Kip Viscusi breaks down the social costs of smoking, taking into consideration a wide array of factors including health costs, sick leave, and the lower pension and nursing home care costs incurred by smokers.

    Cigarette Tax Burns the Poor
    David Tuerck, professor of economics and executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University, outlines how cigarette taxes unfairly burden low-income earners.

    Cigarette Taxes Are Fueling Organized Crime
    Patrick Fleenor, chief economist for the Tax Foundation, shows high cigarette taxes have fueled organized crime and a profitable black market in New York.

    Cigarette Tax Burnout
    Last year Maryland increased its cigarette tax to $2 a pack in order to fund health care … but now the state’s budget is facing a billion-dollar shortfall. This article outlines the budget mess that always results when states rely on cigarette tax revenues even as smoking rates decline.

  • Wichita Smoking Ban Starts. Sharon Fearey is Excited.

    Today, September 4, 2008, marks the first day of the ban on smoking in Wichita. It’s not quite a total ban, and that has some smoking ban supporters upset. In a letter to the Wichita Eagle, anti-smoking activist Cindy Claycomb writes “If you are a supporter of clean indoor air, please do not spend your money in businesses that allow smoking indoors, including smoking rooms. If we continue to spend our money at places that allow smoking indoors, that tells the business owners that we do not care — that we will tolerate secondhand smoke even though we all know the harmful effects.”

    Not everyone is upset, though. In the Wichita Eagle article Smoking ban takes effect; for smokers, end of an era, Wichita city council member Sharon Fearey is quoted as “I feel this is an exciting time for the city.” If, like council member Fearey, you appreciate increasing government and bureaucratic management of the lives of Wichitans, you might be excited, too. Those who value liberty and freedom, however, are saddened — even if they aren’t smokers.

    Fortunately Ms. Fearey is precluded from running again for her seat on the city council by term limits. The two architects of this smoking ban — Lavonta Williams and Jeff Longwell — can run for election again. The position held by Ms. Williams is up for grabs in the March 2009 primary. Hopefully the citizens of Wichita city council district one will elect someone respectful of property rights, not to mention personal rights.

    For more coverage of the smoking issue and why it’s important, these articles will be of interest: It’s Not the Same as Pee In the Swimming Pool, Haze Surrounds Wichita Smoking Ban, Property Rights Should Control Kansas Smoking Decisions, Let Property Rights Rule Wichita Smoking Decisions, Testimony Opposing Kansas Smoking Ban, and No More Smoking Laws, Please.

  • Wichita Smoking Ban: Authoritarian, Elitist?

    Here’s some good commentary I received from a citizen. Wichita’s smoking “ban” will take effect before too long.  Smoke ’em while you can, I guess.

    Wichita’s Smoking Ban and the latest authoritarian arrogance emitted by elitist professor

    University of Kansas School of Medicine professor Dr. Rick Kellerman is on the front page of the May 30 Wichita Eagle.  Kellerman is upset that a complete ban on smoking is not expected to be adopted by the city council at their June 3 meeting.

    Who appointed Dr. Kellerman to be Wichita’s doctor?  The doctor’s elitist and authoritarian statement in today’s Wichita Eagle indicates that he is either trying to become the 21st century version of the Prohibition era’s Carrie Nation or the 20th century’s version of the infamous Nurse Ratched (see Ken Kesey’s classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) for improper behavior.  The arguments that Kellerman uses could also be used to ban everything from firearms, cars, risky behaviors from hang gliding to bungee jumping, and a host of activities that free people exercising their freedom in a responsible way may decide to engage in performing.

    While it is a common leftist trait to call their political opponents, “fascists” it is a historical fact that the most famous anti-tobacco and anti-smoking advocate in the first half of the 20th century was Adolf Hitler who was happy to use his tyrannical powers to impose his will upon his subjects.  This was (and is) part of the authoritarian elitism that underlies all totalitarian ideologies.

    Dr. Kellerman’s desire to follow in these footsteps here in Wichita as part of his campaign to destroy invidual liberty, property rights for individuals and business owners, as well as broadly restrict select human freedom.  Dr. Kellerman knows better than the peasants what is good for us.

    Obviously this arrogant professor has never read Thomas Sowell‘s The Vision of the Anointed Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, a book that describes Kellerman’s ideology and elitist arrogance perfectly.  The same issue of the Wichita Eagle has a small story about California’s state senate has passed a ban on smoking within one’s own apartment.  Friendly fascism of the nanny state elitists like Dr. Kellerman are active all across this country.

  • The smoking ban in Wichita

    Some commentary regarding Wichita’s half-passed smoking ban that I received.

    University of Kansas School of Medicine professor Dr. Rick Kellerman is on the front page of the May 30 Wichita Eagle. Kellerman is upset that a complete ban on smoking is not expected to be adopted by the city council at their June 3 meeting.

    Who appointed Dr. Kellerman to be Wichita’s doctor? The doctor’s elitist and authoritarian statement in today’s Wichita Eagle indicates that he is either trying to become the 21st century version of the Prohibition era’s Carrie Nation or the 20th century’s version of the infamous Nurse Ratched (see Ken Kesey’s classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) for improper behavior. The arguments that Kellerman uses could also be used to ban everything from firearms, cars, risky behaviors from hang gliding to bungee jumping, and a host of activities that free people exercising their freedom in a responsible way may decide to engage in performing.

    While it is a common leftist trait to call their political opponents “fascists” it is a historical fact that the most famous anti-tobacco and anti-smoking advocate in the first half of the 20th century was Adolf Hitler, who was happy to use his tyrannical powers to impose his will upon his subjects. This was (and is) part of the authoritarian elitism that underlies all totalitarian ideologies.

    Dr. Kellerman’s desire to follow in these footsteps here in Wichita as part of his campaign to destroy individual liberty, property rights for individuals and business owners, as well as broadly restrict human freedom. Dr. Kellerman knows better than the peasants what is good for us.

    Obviously this arrogant professor has never read Thomas Sowell’s the Vision of the Anointed, a book that describes Kellerman’s ideology and elitist arrogance perfectly. The same issue of The Wichita Eagle has a small story about how California’s state senate has passed a ban on smoking within one’s own apartment. Friendly fascism of the nanny state elitists like Dr. Kellerman are active all across this country.

  • Haze surrounds Wichita smoking ban

    Remarks delivered to Wichita City Council, May 6, 2008. Listen here.

    Smoking ban supporters claim that they have the right to go to bowling alleys, bars, and other such places without having to breath secondhand smoke. That’s false. No one has the right to be on someone else’s property on their own terms. The property owner controls those terms. If the bar owner lets the band play too loud (or maybe not loud enough), or the restaurant is too dimly lit, or the floor of the steakhouse covered with discarded peanut shells, do we want to regulate these things too?

    Some have compared a smoking section in a restaurant to a urinating section in a swimming pool. This comparison is ridiculous. You can’t tell upon entering a swimming pool if someone peed in it. You can tell, however, upon entering a bar or restaurant if there is smoking going on.

    Some make the argument that since we regulate businesses for health reasons already, why not regulate smoking? Without agreeing with the need for these regulations, the answer is this: First, these government regulations don’t necessarily accomplish their goal. People still become ill from food, for example. But there is some merit here. Just by entering a restaurant and inspecting the dining room and the menu, you can’t tell if the food is being stored at the proper temperature in the restaurant’s refrigerators. But you can easily tell if there’s smoking going on.

    A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property. Markets -– that is, people freely making decisions for themselves -– will let property owners know whether they want smoking or clean air.

    The problem with a smoking ban written into law rather than reliance on markets is that everyone has to live by the same rules. Living by the same rules is good when the purpose is to keep people and their property safe from harm. That’s why we have laws against theft and murder. But it’s different when we pass laws intended to keep people safe from harms that they themselves can easily avoid, just by staying out of those places where people are smoking. For the people who value being in the smoky place more than they dislike the negative effects of the smoke, they can make that decision.

    This is not a middle-ground position, as there really isn’t a middle ground here. Instead, this is a position that respects the individual. It lets each person have what they individually prefer, rather than having a majority — no matter how lop-sided — make the same decision for everyone. Especially when that decision, as someone said, will “tick off everybody.” Who benefits from a law that does that?

  • It’s not the same as pee in the swimming pool

    In a column in the February 27, 2008 Wichita Eagle (“Smoking ban issue not one to negotiate”), columnist Mark McCormick quotes Charlie Claycomb, co-chair of Tobacco Free Wichita, as equating a smoking section in a restaurant with “a urinating section in a swimming pool.”

    This is a ridiculous comparison. A person can’t tell upon entering a swimming pool if someone has urinated in it. But people can easily tell upon entering a restaurant or bar if people are smoking.

    Besides this, Mr. McCormick’s article seeks to explain how markets aren’t able to solve the smoking problem, and that there is no negotiating room, no middle ground. There must be a smoking ban, he concludes.

    As way of argument, McCormick claims, I think, that restaurants prepare food in sanitary kitchens only because of government regulation, not because of markets. We see, however, that food is still being prepared in unsanitary kitchens, and food recalls, even in meat processing plants where government inspectors are present every day, still manage to happen. So government regulation itself is not a failsafe measure.

    Markets — that is, consumers — do exert powerful forces on businesses. If a restaurant like McDonald’s serves food that makes people ill, which do you think the restaurant management fears most: a government fine, or the negative publicity? Even small local restaurants live and die by word of mouth. Those that serve poor quality food or food that makes people ill will suffer losses, not as much from government regulation as from the workings of markets.

    But I will grant that Mr. McCormick does have a small point here. Just by looking at food, you probably can’t tell if it’s going to make you ill to eat it. Someone’s probably going to need to get sick before the word gets out. But you easily can tell if someone’s smoking in the bar or restaurant you just entered. Or, if people are smoking but you can’t detect it, I would image that the danger to health from breathing secondhand smoke is either nonexistent or very small.

    The problem with a smoking ban written into law rather than reliance on markets, is that everyone has to live by the same rules. Living by the same rules is good when the purpose is to keep people and their property safe from harm, as is the case with laws against theft and murder. But it’s different when we pass laws intended to keep people safe from harms that they themselves can easily avoid, just by staying out of those places where people are smoking. For the people who value being in the smoky place more than they dislike the negative effects of the smoke, they can make that decision.

    This is not a middle-ground position. It is a position that respects the individual. It lets each person have what they individually prefer, rather than having a majority — no matter how lop-sided — make the same decision for everyone. Especially when that decision, as Mr. Claycomb stated in another Wichita Eagle article, will “tick off everybody.” Who benefits from a law that does that?

    Other articles on this topic:

    Property Rights Should Control Kansas Smoking Decisions

    Testimony Opposing Kansas Smoking Ban

  • Property rights should control Kansas smoking decisions

    A system of absolute respect for private property rights is the best way to handle smoking. The owners of bars and restaurants have, and should continue to have, the absolute right to permit or deny smoking on their property.

    Not everyone agrees with this simple truth. Some ask why is there no right to clean air when there is the right to smoke. The answer is that both breathing clean air and smoking are rights that people may enjoy, as they wish, on their own property. When on the property of others, you may enjoy the rights that the property owner has decided on.

    It’s not like the supposed right to breathe clean air while dining or drinking on someone else’s property is being violated surreptitiously. Most people can quickly sense upon entering a bar or restaurant whether people are smoking. If people are smoking, and patrons decide to stay, we can only conclude that they made the choice to stay. The owners of bars and restaurants do not have the power to force people to stay and breathe smoke.

    Employees may make the same decision. There are plenty of smoke-free places for people to work if they don’t want to be around smoke.

    Some think that if they leave a restaurant or bar because it is smoky, then they have lost their “right” to be in that establishment. But no one has an absolute right to be on someone else’s private property, much less to be on that property under conditions that they — instead of the property owner — dictate.

    Property rights, then, are the way to solve disputes over smoking vs. clean air in a way that respects freedom and liberty. Under property rights, bar and restaurant owners will decide to allow or prohibit smoking as they best see fit, to meet the needs of their current customers, or the customers they want to attract.

    A property rights-based system is greatly preferable to government mandate. Without property rights, decision are made for spurious reasons. For example, debate often includes statements such as “I’m a non-smoker and I think that …” or “I’m a smoker and …” These statements presuppose that the personal habits or preferences of the speaker make their argument persuasive.

    Decision-making based on personal characteristics, preferences, or group-membership happens often in politics. Lack of respect for property rights allows decisions to be made by people other than the owners of the property. In the case of a smoking ban, the decision can severely harm the value of property like bars or restaurants that caters to smokers. This matters little to smoking ban supporters, but as we have seen, they have little respect for private property.

    By respecting property rights, we can have both smoking and non-smoking establishments. Property owners will decide what is in their own and their customers’ interests. Both groups, smokers and nonsmokers, can have what they want. With a government mandate or majority rule, one group wins at the expense of the rights of many others.

  • Testimony opposing Kansas smoking ban

    Submitted by John Todd.

    February 13, 2008

    Senate Judiciary Committee
    Kansas Legislature
    State Capitol
    Topeka, Kansas 66612

    Subject: My testimony presented in OPPOSITION to Senate Bill No. 493 concerning crimes and punishments relating to smoking.

    Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak to you in Opposition to passage of Senate Bill No. 493 concerning crimes and punishments relating to smoking, aka the Kansas smoking prohibition act.

    My name is John Todd. I am a self-employed real estate broker and land developer from Wichita. I currently serve on the Governmental Affairs Committee and the Board of Directors of Wichita Independent Business Association. I am the Wichita Area Volunteer Coordinator for Americans For Prosperity—Kansas. I have been working with the Wichita Business and Consumer Rights Coalition in an effort to stop a smoking ban ordinance currently being debated by the Wichita City Council. I appear before you today as a private citizen, speaking only for myself and not for any other group.

    I do not smoke, but does that give me, or even the majority of non-smokers in our state the right to use state law to restrict the rights and freedoms of those people who choose to smoke? A Democracy is like two wolves and a sheep deciding where to go for lunch. The lone sheep would have to agree with De Toquiville who described that situation as the “tyranny of the majority.” The pledge of allegiance describes our country as a “republic.” Our founders established a republican form of government in order to protect the individual’s rights from the tyranny of the majority.

    The sale and use of tobacco products is legal in our state. The sale of tobacco products produces tax revenue for our state, and government officials think that is positive. And, our Federal Government still subsidizes the growing of tobacco in tobacco growing states.

    The passage of Senate Bill # 493 is not needed because the smoking problem has been solving itself, for several years on the local level, without government intervention by the natural and voluntary action of our free market economic system. Over the last two to three decades, restaurants, bars, and other businesses have been “voluntarily” regulating smoking and non-smoking in their businesses all over our state without the need for government mandated regulations, and without the need for government enforcement. This move to non-smoking establishments has been consumer driven, and businesses have voluntarily responded to this demand. Some businesses owners still choose to offer smoking for their customers since their customers demand the freedom to smoke. Freedom demands choice by business owner and customer. And, Private Property Rights are best preserved when property owners are free to use their property as they see fit. State government needs to stay out of the smoking debate.

    Several cities in our state have adopted smoking ban ordinances while others have not. There are studies that show smoking bans cause economic harm to some businesses, and I have heard testimony from business owners in Wichita who have or will be impacted negatively by the passage of a proposed smoking ordinance by the City of Wichita. Like most regulations, the ordinance is complicated to the point of making it unenforceable. And, who is going to enforce the ordinance? Will additional city staff and the resultant bureaucracy be required for enforcement? What is enforcement going to cost? Will enforcement be selective or arbitrary? What economic impact will the ordinance have on business? Is the ordinance even necessary?

    The proponents of the ordinance are voicing concerns about public health and public health costs associated with smoking. Will this same group be pushing for city ordinances dealing with obesity with mandated diet and exercise? What will the penalties for failure to comply? Who will decide the standards?

    The proponents of the proposed city smoking ban ordinance appear to be the same group who want to direct the lives of other people since they know what is best for them. They have no problem supporting law that limits individual freedom of choice, and private property rights.

    Milton Friedman says, “A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that…it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

    The “voluntary” and “market-driven” solution to the so-called smoking problem has been happening automatically all over Kansas without the need for additional state law that criminalizes and punishes people who are partaking in their freedom to enjoy a legal product and activity. Senate Bill #493 looks like another regulation on the backs of business and property owners with the potential for creating an enforcement process that will be impossible to police, but at the same time create another level of expensive bureaucracy for a non-existent problem. I ask you to oppose the passage of Senate Bill #493.

    Related articles:

    It’s Not the Same as Pee In the Swimming Pool

    Property Rights Should Control Kansas Smoking Decisions