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| quote: | Originally posted by eROs.au
Someone who owns a restaurant (which is private property) isn't allowed to allow smoking. |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
No, it also applies to private establishments like restaurants.
One might think that "private / public" would be an easy distinction to maintain, but for a long time courts have waffled on what exactly constitutes a "public" place. In one American case, some guys set up a booth at a mall to promote their political ideology. The mall owners ejected them, but then the guys who set up the booth sued and won on First Amendment (freedom of speech) grounds, in spite of the fact that the mall was private property.
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I see where you're coming from, but I can't say I agree with you.
Smoking is not exactly risk free, and the French government probably has to pay thousands of euros every year because of smokers. So, in that case, smoking (either actively of passively) is not much different from, let's say, drive without wearing a seatbelt. In both cases, the person involved is not only risking their own life but can also affect those around them (in a rather negative way).
"Sure", you might say, "but wouldn't that limit the authority restaurant owners have over their own business?". Well, first of all, they're not as free as you'd expect them to. They have to conform to many rules, and this is just one of them. Also, in this case, if you gave restaurant owners the choice of allowing smoking (or not), most restaurants would choose not to forbid it because they'd lose clients if they did otherwise, and the law would soon turn out to be inefective.
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