Quote :

"SECTION 2. Effective January 2, 2010, G.S. 130A-22 is amended by adding a new subsection to read: "(h1) A local health director may take the following actions and may impose the following administrative penalty on a person who manages, operates, or controls a public place or place of employment and fails to comply with the provisions of Part 1C of Article 23 of this Chapter or with rules adopted thereunder or with local ordinances, rules, laws, or policies adopted pursuant to Part 2 of Article 23 of this Chapter: (1) First violation. – Provide the person in violation with written notice of the person's first violation and notification of action to be taken in the event of subsequent violations. (2) Second violation. – Provide the person in violation with written notice of the person's second violation and notification of administrative penaltie s to be imposed for subsequent violations. (3) Subsequent violations. – Impose on the person in violation an administrative penalty of not more than two hundred dollars ($200.00) for the third and subsequent violations. Each day on which a violation of this Article or rules adopted pursuant to this Article occurs may be considered a separate and distinct violation. Notwithstanding G.S. 130A-25, a violation of Article 23 of this Chapter shall not be punishable as a criminal violation.""

$200 * 365 days = $ 73 000 yearly cost

[Edited on May 15, 2009 at 3:11 PM. Reason : page 2]

5/15/2009 3:10:40 PM

I don't think anyone would be willing to pay $73,000 to allow smoking, but I also doubt an inspector would visit a particular place nearly that frequently.

In Charlotte I think there are like 175+ restaurants or bars within a 5 block radius of center city...seems like a lot of ground to cover, and thats just a small area of Charlotte

5/15/2009 3:26:21 PM

^ depends - $73k/year/per bar could easily pay the full salary for an inspector plus a lot of profit for the State. I mean, just assign one guy to downtown Charlotte and every night he walks from bar to bar writing tickets. Before long he's paid for himself and everythign else is profit

5/15/2009 3:38:00 PM

I'll admit, that part is ambiguous.

However, both you and I can be confident that so long as a hookah bar is in operation for a given night it is in violation of the law. So can a local health inspector.

Sammy's, down the street, may ignore it many many times until customers inform the local health inspector, and I'll admit I don't know who this is. Even after that, they may have deniability that "it was the customer" and could sustainably play cat and mouse with the health inspectors and vigilant customers. Marrakesh, on the other hand, who's business during the night is hookahs but also sells lunch during the day has absolutely no chance of fitting the criteria set by the law to legally operate as long as it keeps its hookah business.

Perhaps the health inspector would have to stop by every day, perhaps the county could just preemptively send them a bill for all the days in the month. The city could hypothetically turn a blind eye, but if they don't all hookah bars are done for.

[Edited on May 15, 2009 at 3:48 PM. Reason : ]

5/15/2009 3:43:45 PM

The law also allows localities to create more strict laws, and I'm sure a health inspector could use repeated offenses as an excuse to shut down an establishment. I'm sure that, for a while, lots of bars will skirt this. However, smoking is banned in tons of places, and I can tell you that I went into tons of bars in NYC without even seeing a lit cigarette inside. This will happen here eventually, too.

5/15/2009 3:52:28 PM

Quote :

"He could easily, it seems to me, be a cigar bar, which needs to get 25% revenue from cigars and 60% from alcohol."

Because of his location (on Franklin Street), and the same for Marrakeshh, the major income is from college students, who are more frequently than not under 21. Therefor the more likely distribution is 25% alcohol, 70% tobacco, and 5% product distribution (hoses, coals, accessories, etc).

Quote :

"I wonder what will happen to Marrakesh."

The owner of Hookah Bliss tried to rally other likewise shop owners together, but the owner of Marrakesh (who also owns Casablanca downtown) said he was just going to wait and see what happens and not do anything about it, but now he's freaking out because he will have to close both shops on January 2 as well.

Quote :

"But my understanding is that you can't now just become a cigar bar, either. There's some kind of approval process and probably a limit to how many can exist."

Correct, but I'm not well informed enough about that process to comment on it.

Quote :

"Chalk one up to unintended consequences, I guess. It seems like they should make an exception for establishments that are specifically designed for smoking."

State congress members are now saying that hookah bars never crossed their minds while this bill was in progress, and they are saying they never meant to put these places out of business. However, there are a few legislators who are now trying to make specialty shops exempt from the smoking ban through a backdoor amendment on another bill.

**I would also like to comment that many of these hookah bars already don't allow cigarette smoking inside.

You make a conscious decision to enter a place that you know will be filled with smoke, so its not like anyone is involuntarily suffering through second-hand when going into a hookah bar.

[Edited on May 15, 2009 at 4:00 PM. Reason : -]

5/15/2009 3:57:29 PM

Quote :

"You make a conscious decision to enter a place that you know will be filled with smoke, so its not like anyone is involuntarily suffering through second-hand when going into a hookah bar."

More specifically, the law attempts to protect non-smokers who frequent bars and other establishments from smoke. But a hookah bar is as close as you're going to get to a place that only caters to smokers.

Just like a "cigar bar" doesn't really cater to people who don't smoke cigars. But you'd be a dumbass to walk into a cigar bar and complain about the cigars. Duh. If you "regulate" these kind of places, you can't claim to be doing it for the sake of bystanders. Smoking is legal, it is thus your liberty to engage in the practice as long as you don't infringe upon the liberty of others. However, the state infringes on your liberty when they prevent the gathering of people to engage in the legal action of smoking or prevent a business from catering to smokers exclusively.

I'm curious who they were thinking about with the cigar bar provision. Possibly some of our tobacco company specialty tobacco stores.

5/15/2009 4:21:08 PM

Quote :

"just assign one guy to downtown Charlotte and every night he walks from bar to bar writing tickets"

i guess, although thats still a lot of ground for one person to cover

i can just anticipate a situation where health inspectors come around regularly, with the sole purpose of checking on whether or not anyone is smoking in a particular establishment, and there is a "yo theres 5-0 put that shit out" type mentality

plus, in charlotte at least, while the population continues to grow as well as the number of bars and restaurants, funding continues to decrease for various government personnel and cuts are made, meaning there will be less health inspectors in mecklenburg county next year than this year, which again just makes it seem like it would be harder to keep tabs on everyone

how often do health inspectors generally check the health and sanitation of a restaurant currently? once a month or so?

[Edited on May 15, 2009 at 5:02 PM. Reason : OH SHIT! Internal Server Error]

5/15/2009 5:01:49 PM

Quote :

"You make a conscious decision to enter a place that you know will be filled with smoke, so its not like anyone is involuntarily suffering through second-hand when going into a hookah bar."

Damn fucking right.

I can understand the smoke ban for more family/general oriented facilities that are primarily are a restaurant but make a secondary profit from drinks; even effectively functioning as a so called "bar" during the night.

Examples would be places like Sammy's, Jax, Ruckus, Hibernian. Some places would fall in a grey area like East Village or Flying Saucer.

NONETHELESS if you attend a Dance Club like PI or the office, Club/Bar like Hi-5, Hookah Bar, or somewhere like Buckhead/Rum Runners/PB's; you do so KNOWING people may smoke. If your pussy dries out and shrivels up then do NOT go. Otherwise let business makes its own decisions. If they are smart than they will attempt to make their establishment attractive for non-smokers since they are the majority. Doing stuff like good ventalations, restricting smoking to certain areas, etc.
I do not even fucking smoke but tired of the witch hunt against tobacco, hearing whiny tools bitch about how smoking gives them allergies, and crying liberals bitching about smoking.
If I go to Foster's I do so knowing I will smell like the smoky bar when i leave. If i dont want to smell like that then i don't go; whats so HARD about this.

Hell we could even require places designated as "bars" more than "restaurants" to require a "WARNING: THIS ESTABLISHMENT ALLOWS SMOKING WHICH IS KNOWN BY THE SURGEON GENERAL TO CAUSE CANCER EVEN FROM 2nd HAND SMOKE"
if it could make the whiny anti-smoking crowd have one less thing to bitch about so they aren't "caught" off guard by walking into a smoky bar

[Edited on May 15, 2009 at 5:09 PM. Reason : s]

5/15/2009 5:07:42 PM

I agree HUR, but apparently the majority of the state house and senate don't

5/15/2009 5:09:17 PM

He needs to sue under Article I, Section I of the State Constitution and establish that this law denies him the fruits of his labor.

5/15/2009 5:31:33 PM

When these businesses obtained their business licenses and their ABC Commission Permits, there was no law regarding smoking. In my opinion, by passing this law, the state is in breach of contract with the business owners, and the owners have the right to be grandfathered above the law.

The only way to stop government from invading personal liberties, is to vote them out.

5/15/2009 6:12:17 PM

I understand the outrage at all the smoking bans, but I have to go ahead and declare this a lost battle for the libertarians.

The push for smoking ban legislation here, and other places, was partially fueled by what they probably perceived as a success in places like NYC. And empirically, it probably does seem so. If you were a non-smoker patron of bars in a place where smoking bans were implemented, the quality of the bars probably seemed to improve. Now, a fraction of business owners and almost all smokers will tell a different story, but let's face the fact that they're the minority. And when you consider smoking rates in America are under 20% for adults (though i'm sure higher for bar customers), how many people really experienced a detrimental effect (the smokers) versus a positive effect (the 2nd hand smokers) due to the ban?

The focus on freedom is mostly directed towards business owners, but you have to take into account the liberties of all parties involved. That is the freedom to smoke, the freedom to enjoy a smoke-free environment, and the freedom to provide either in a business. The previous state of society was that 80% of people didn't smoke and the majority of those would have preferred a smoke-free bar environment, yet the free market failed to provide this. I'd say something like 98% of bars around here are not smoke-free. That doesn't make sense.

I would like to take the libertarian free market standpoint, but I don't find it tenable. I have no example of a place that allowed businesses to choose smoking/smoke-free and had a boom in smoke-free places (we'll say 30% for my criteria), which should be the 'efficient market' solution. It simply won't happen in the perfect free market world because no one wants to be that bar that bans smoking when few other places in town are doing it. The reality is that it is easier to light up a cigarette than it is to tell someone to put it out, and that skews the behavior of the market and changes the personal and business freedom argument. Bars have complained about being forced to enforce smoking bans for this reason. It costs more money and alienates customers to tell a them to not do something, but it's worse when all other bars allow it.

If half of the bars in town were non-smoking, then I think it's likely you would have a marginal benefit by going non-smoking. After all, the vast majority of people are non-smokers. But with almost all bars being smoking, there is a strong negative detriment. That is a market stalemate and the government needed to do something to change the culture and fix that. The government does have to stand up for the people who don't feel comfortable standing up for themselves. Bar patrons should have asked owners to ban smoking b/c they didn't like it. But they didn't, b/c it's the status quo and it's hard to question it.

Now, I'm not defending smoking ban legislation. Going from almost everywhere allowing smoking to 0% allowing smoking is just plain stupid and as inefficient as what we already had, if not more. But that doesn't change that fact that the status quo isn't okay either.

If I ran the world, I'd pass legislation that let all bars with some kind of smoking thing in their name have smoking. Like "Mike's Smoking Bar", or "The Cancer Box". And if it's that important to your clientele, then you can just change your name. No one can complain about not knowing what they're getting into, and allowing smoking is proactive.

\my 2 cents

5/15/2009 6:51:43 PM

HOOKAH BARS PWNT. STAY HOME.

I support the ban though I don't agree with government stepping in and telling people how to live their lives. But oh well, I will let it slide.

5/15/2009 6:56:00 PM

we know about 20% of the population smokes and about 80% of the population doesn't smoke...however..what percentage of people who go to drink at bars smoke? i'd be willing to bet it was more than 20%

lots of people who are worried about their health enough to not smoke also don't bother to go out to bars and poison their livers with alcohol in the first place

granted they want to be able to go out to eat food though, and i have zero problem with banning it in restaurants that happen to have bars, but i think bars that happen to serve food should be handled differently

i know of a restaurant/bar in charlotte that doesn't allow smoking until after 10pm...most people who are there after 10pm arent simply eating dinner, they're at the bar drinking...if you can manage to eat your dinner before 10pm you wont be subjected to smoking, should you choose to go to this place

Quote :

"no one wants to be that bar that bans smoking when few other places in town are doing it"

this doesn't make any sense to me at all...everyone says if business sales are hurt, its only short term...and if 80% of the population doesnt smoke, why not cater to that majority by voluntarily banning or limiting smoking? in fact, plenty of bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, etc, HAVE tried to be 'that bar'...some places have tried banning smoking on sundays and seeing how that worked, and most of them, since most of the population doesn't smoke, have been successful...but the places that don't want to opt for it are now (or in 6 months will be) forced to ban a legal substance from their business

when i'm eating, I don't enjoy smelling smoke, but i just think there is a difference in going out someplace to get a meal, versus going someplace to drink, and i think the smoking laws should be different for each situation


[Edited on May 15, 2009 at 7:29 PM. Reason : i also know people who only smoke when they drink, whether or not thats relevant]

also seems a little odd, in the bar setting, that while you're partaking in activities limited to people age 21 or over, you're banned from ingesting a different drug that you could legally purchase and use 3 years before you could legally purchase and consume alcohol...maybe they should swap the age limits for buying tobacco and alcohol to be consistent

5/15/2009 7:18:36 PM

The Restaurants and Bars in D.C. were worried when they banned smoking but it has't had an effect at all at least for them.

5/15/2009 8:04:04 PM

Quote :

"maybe they should swap the age limits for buying tobacco and alcohol to be consistent"

This legislation has my endorsement.

[Edited on May 15, 2009 at 8:35 PM. Reason : ^ that doesn't mean some one's rights weren't infringed upon]

5/15/2009 8:33:22 PM

it is my RIGHT to get a job at a hooka bar and not have to inhale second hand smoke.

5/15/2009 9:42:43 PM

I used to go to hookah bars quite frequently, but haven't in a while because -- like booze bars -- they cost too much more than just doing it at home.

And I'm not much of a libertarian and my disdain for that crowd is well-documented in this forum, but on this I have to agree with them. Business should have the choice. If people that claimed to care about smoke acted on that claim much at all, then many more businesses would be nonsmoking only. The majority of people don't smoke. They have the market influence to push things in their favor in most places. Legislation is not needed. Their selective patronage of nonsmoking establishments is.

But no, I suppose it's far better to shut down establishments that exist expressly and solely for the purpose of smoking.

[Edited on May 15, 2009 at 10:37 PM. Reason : forgot an "m," probably more]

5/15/2009 10:36:51 PM

Quote :

"I agree HUR, but apparently the majority of the state house and senate don't"

I really did not expect this out of NC a state whose economy relies on tobacco.

Quote :

"The focus on freedom is mostly directed towards business owners, but you have to take into account the liberties of all parties involved. That is the freedom to smoke, the freedom to enjoy a smoke-free environment, and the freedom to provide either in a business. The previous state of society was that 80% of people didn't smoke and the majority of those would have preferred a smoke-free bar environment,"

If you don't like the smoke than DON'T GO; you patron the bar knowing people there smoke. We are not talking about someone smoking
next to your seat at the Carolina Hurricanes game, the table next to you preventing you from enjoying dinner at Applebee's,
or some punk college lighting up at the movie theatre as you watch Star Trek the new movie.

If businesses who primarily function at "BARS" where most of their business is from patrons drinking from 9pm to 2 am were smart
many would start adapting to the statistic you quoted that <20% of american adults smoke.....

This fails to account that a higher proportion of those who go to the bar till 2 am on a Thursday night typically have a high rate of smoking.

Quote :

"HOOKAH BARS PWNT."

don't be a douche; how can you compare a hookah bar to Johnny McFrat lighting up a pack of cigarettes during a night at teh bar
.

Quote :

" i know of a restaurant/bar in charlotte that doesn't allow smoking until after 10pm"

That 'd be perfect

5/16/2009 12:17:37 PM

Quote :

"I would like to take the libertarian free market standpoint, but I don't find it tenable. I have no example of a place that allowed businesses to choose smoking/smoke-free and had a boom in smoke-free places (we'll say 30% for my criteria), which should be the 'efficient market' solution. It simply won't happen in the perfect free market world because no one wants to be that bar that bans smoking when few other places in town are doing it. The reality is that it is easier to light up a cigarette than it is to tell someone to put it out, and that skews the behavior of the market and changes the personal and business freedom argument. Bars have complained about being forced to enforce smoking bans for this reason. It costs more money and alienates customers to tell a them to not do something, but it's worse when all other bars allow it."

Why couldn't we at least say, license out some smoking establishments with permits, though? It's not the perfect solution by any means, but say, auctioning off a certain number of "smoking permits", scaled to the relative number of establishments (or even simply a fixed quantity) would be one way to at least achieve some reasonable level of compromise. Hell, even make them post something publicly, like you say, to the effect of, "This is a smoking establishment."

It's not my preferred solution, as I think this should be left up to the business owner. But if the alternative if crappy universal bans that completely usurp any notion of separate markets, this seems like a reasonable compromise. In this case, if you don't like smoke, you don't have to go to a place that allows it - and the number that do still gets capped.

[Edited on May 16, 2009 at 2:43 PM. Reason : .]

5/16/2009 2:43:08 PM

damn Shaggy, learn how to fucking spell.

5/16/2009 3:08:04 PM

I just don't understand what the issue is about if i open a 'Vice' Private business that functions as bar (place where people go to poison their livers not eat) as its primary business model why the gov't forces me to ban use of a legal product i.e cigarettes.

5/16/2009 4:12:19 PM

Quote :

"Why couldn't we at least say, license out some smoking establishments with permits, though? It's not the perfect solution by any means, but say, auctioning off a certain number of "smoking permits", scaled to the relative number of establishments (or even simply a fixed quantity) would be one way to at least achieve some reasonable level of compromise. Hell, even make them post something publicly, like you say, to the effect of, "This is a smoking establishment.""

That is, by all means, a valid solution. There are several logical consequences of doing this, and holding a permit will probably require installing better ventilation systems, and possibly outright de-incentives like fees. Again, I think you can defend the argument that these actions are within the mandate of government. Even if you create separate markets, the labor market (bartenders, waters and waitresses) will not respond with the market appropriate solution.

I find it doubtful that smoking places will be paying workers a higher wage to compensate for the added health detriment. As such, government will probably find some way to de-incentiveize the action and will see themselves justified in doing so.

There's no good way to do it, Dr. Chaos's solution or what I proposed would get half-way to making bars smoke-free, but the bottom line is that a compromise of some sort would be best at this point.

I like to support the libertarian cause, but I can't agree with HUR's attitude on the issue. You can't ignore the fact that people act irrationally when it comes to subtle health effects, among with many other things. And you can't assume that people will just stand up and ask for something when they want it. People simply don't operate this way, but they must in order for the market, and the world, to fix itself.

Now, would a compromise solution that imposes a penalty (a simple fine or a burden of action) on bars that allow smoking infringe on business owners rights? You could argue that. But let's be honest, it doesn't compare to what we're already doing. I'm sure roads, libraries, and health inspectors infringe on someone's rights. I'm sure just about everything a government does infringes on someone's rights in some way. Our focus needs to be on reasonable expectations.

5/16/2009 4:30:28 PM

Quote :

"Now, would a compromise solution that imposes a penalty (a simple fine or a burden of action) on bars that allow smoking infringe on business owners rights? You could argue that. But let's be honest, it doesn't compare to what we're already doing. I'm sure roads, libraries, and health inspectors infringe on someone's rights. I'm sure just about everything a government does infringes on someone's rights in some way. Our focus needs to be on reasonable expectations."

And in achievable compromises. Half a loaf is far better than none. Despite the fact that I'm not about to concede the property rights argument, I feel like at least a regulated, permit solution - again, make it by auction even, such that the right to permit smoking goes to the establishments that have the highest value for it - is a far less intrusive solution than a blanket mandate.

Unfortunately, I doubt smoking ban advocates have any interest in such a compromise - the very nature of their logic is to simply use majoritarian steamrolling, and to hell with anyone who opposes them.

5/16/2009 4:37:09 PM

Great solutions but its too late for that. The bill has been passed and if the governor hasn't already signed off on it, she will soon. The only thing they can do now is make back-door amendments on other (and most likely non-related) bills such as exempting hookah establishments or permit regulation or something else of the sort.

5/17/2009 7:44:01 AM

Quote :

"You can't ignore the fact that people act irrationally when it comes to subtle health effects, among with many other things. And you can't assume that people will just stand up and ask for something when they want it. People simply don't operate this way, but they must in order for the market, and the world, to fix itself."

Provided that the people are informed and make their decision, however irrational to you, I see no reason why the government needs to step in and protect people from themselves. In the end, if you have been provided the information to make a rational decision and still choose to make an irrational one, that is no one's business but your own.

5/17/2009 11:04:21 AM

What about the ban on smoking within 30 ft of university buildings. Liberals probably hope smokers stand in teh street and get nailed by the wolf line bus. "Sensitive" students no longer have to worry about their Manginas swiveling up at the slightest hint of cigarette smoke whose concentration probably pale in comparison to other toxic pollutants they inhale on the street.

5/17/2009 5:56:45 PM

i didnt read anything, but the law should allow damn hookah bars. use some common sense. you are not going to work or go to a hookah bar if you hate smoke. And staff who hate smoke have plenty of other places to work

5/17/2009 6:25:46 PM

I bet most of the people who voted on this bill have no idea what hookah is.

5/18/2009 10:13:24 PM

Quote :

"i didnt read anything, but the law should allow damn hookah bars. use some common sense. you are not going to work or go to a hookah bar if you hate smoke. And staff who hate smoke have plenty of other places to work"

While my guess is they'll find a way to prevent closing hookah bars in future legislation, your logic as to why creates too gray an area. If you say "You are not going to work or go to x if you hate smoke," you have to apply that logic everywhere.

5/19/2009 7:39:28 AM

Gov. Perdue is expected to sign the bill today.

[Edited on May 19, 2009 at 8:53 AM. Reason : verbage]

5/19/2009 8:52:45 AM

here's another hookah thread for you guys to "hash" out your arguments

6/2/2009 11:45:24 AM

^ LOL! *Cough*

6/2/2009 11:47:36 AM

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/296302/70176?m=9dc74a6e

6/11/2009 3:10:23 PM

I might of forgotten this, but doesn't smoking kill?

6/16/2009 1:15:13 AM

Hooksaw exposed?

6/16/2009 1:18:40 AM