Seattle’s Smaller Stranger Watch

Seattle Weekly: actually supports the right of Washington citizens to practice pleasurable activities that contain some risk of personal harm within the confines of private property.

The Stranger: supports this right for gays and lesbians but not for certain classes of drug addicts.

Oooh, Dan, you must be so proud of yourself.

Oh, Dawdy. Off the meds?

We support every smoker's right to smoke in his own home, apartment, on sidewalks, in the streets, in their own cars. We don't think people should be able to force other people to smoke in bars and clubs.

And I think it's telling that folks like Dave Segal—people who actually go out to bars and clubs, unlike Mr. Dawdy and the rest of the old hippies at the Weekly—support the smoking ban.

People have a right to engage in activities that carry a risk of personal harm. They don't have a right to demand that everyone in an enclosed public place—a bar, a club, an office—assume those risks. Businesses may be "private property," Phil, but they're open to the public and as such have to follow all sorts of public health regulations—from, you know, keeping the raw chicken in the fridge to making sure the exits are clearly lit.

And what does any of this have to do with gays and lesbians, Mr. Dawdy? The smoking ban applies to gay bars and clubs too. Gee, obsess much? Too bad the cancer sticks in your apartment are the only things getting sucked on.

Guess what, Dan? "We" too don't think people should be able to force other people to "smoke" in bars and clubs.

But you know what? No one was ever forced to do so.

Do you get it yet? We're adults, Dan, and we take chances, and make choices, based upon our adult decisions.

We're not babies, Danny, and you're not our nanny.

No one forced you or anyone else to patronize a smoking establishment.

By your deliberate and consistent ignorance, you have forced your own irrational and entirely unfounded fears and hysteria about "secondhand smoke" upon a minority of people who were just minding their own business, posing absolutely NO THREAT to you or any other unwilling participant.

You refuse, again and again, to address this salient point: NO ONE EVER FORCED ANY ADULT TO BREATHE SECONDHAND SMOKE AGAINST THEIR WILL IN CLUBS AND BARS.

No, indeed, it is only ignornant suburbanite nannies (like you, Mr. Savage) who are forcing their own hysterical morality and "health fears" on the rest of us.

I'm pretty fed up with how deliberately ignorant you continue to play to be in the face of overwhelming reason. I'm beginning to think you are actually insincere. This is just pure mendacity, to continue to peddle the same lame argument again and again, only to have it demolished again and again.

Please tell me this, Dan: who ever forced you into a smoking bar for a drink?

I'll wait patiently for your response.

A response, I hasten to add, that will NOT be forthcoming, because no one ever forced you to "smoke" now, did they Dan?

Trinity has a point. No one forced me to work at a call center where the smoking employees persisted in smoking in front of the only non-emergency door in or out (despite the explicit prohibition by the employer that owns the private property). I chose to not give up the good wage that helped me get out of debt and back to school.

And no one forced me to move in to a substance-free dorm at Evergreen, where smoking students like to sit on the bench in front of the only stairwell up to my room and puff away. I chose to move in to affordable housing that facilitates my education by its proximity to campus resources, and I choose not to suffer the consequences of breaking my housing contract.

So really, it’s my fault that I’ve exposed myself to smokers who are exercising their civil liberty to disregard the needs and choices of the non-smokers around them. Trinity has helped me see that I have only myself to blame.

Thank you, Lostboy, for being rational.

But what is it that you blame yourself for?

For being a hapless victim of social circumstance?

For not standing up to the flagrant abuse of the law by your co-workers?

Or do you blame yourself for failing to address the fact that bars and clubs are designed for the express purpose of adult entertainment and have no direct relation to the unfortunately dreary narrative of your work and school histories?

Wow--if this smaller Weekly watch keeps going the way its going, you're gonna need a new advertising campaign:

Wrap More Fish With a Stranger!

-or-

The Stranger: 8.695% more than what you paid for the Weekly!

Wow. The smokers congregated in front of the only door of your workplace. And recovering addicts liked to smoke on a bench in front of the only stairwell up to your room.

Gosh. That meant you occasionally had to pass by or through those stinkers.

I'm sorry, Lostboy. That must have been really tough.

Oh burn after eleventy crazy posts Trinity actually makes a pretty good point.

Sure, Trinity, nobody ever forced me into a bar. I had a choice not to go into smoking bars if I didn't want to subject myself to second hand smoke. Of course, since there were virtually NO nonsmoking bars in Seattle (okay, maybe there were one or two non-smoking bars compared to I don't know how many thousand smoking bars), my real choice was to subject myself the the cancer risk of your second hand smoke or stay home. Thanks.

And this is not to take in to consideration the employees at all those bars & restaurants. I can already hear you saying that they don't have to work there. It's their choice. But I'm guessing not too many of those waitresses have software engineering degrees. For a majority of those employees, that is probably one of the best jobs they can get. With tips, it pays way better than McDonnald's or Walmart. For people without a good education or resume, it is a good job. But fuck them, right? They can take a pay cut and work at Walmart if they don't want your second hand smoke. If they can come up with the bus money.

I'm not your nanny, and I don't give a rat's ass if you smoke or not. I fully support your right to smoke in private. I don't support your claim to a right to subject nonsmoking customers and employees to your cancerous second hand smoke. Smoke all you want. Just keep it to yourself.

And no one forced me to put myself through school waiting tables—the only job that made me enough money and left me enough time to actually go to school.

Sorry, smokers. You're losing this one—and, hey, no one is forcing you to stay in Seattle, where you're so cruely oppressed. You're free to move to New York City or San Francisco or—oh, nevermind.

Whoops, I was too subtle again.

My post was meant to illustrate the hypocrisy of screeds like Trinity's that rage about how "deliberately ignorant" non-smokers disregard "overwhelming reason" by forcing their onerous non-smoking ways on poor, inoffensive, non-threatening smokers who only want to be left alone to smoke in private where they aren't hurting or bothering anybody.

As for not addressing bars and clubs, I of course had no argument because the employees there chose to not give up their bird-in-the-hand income to get away from the smoke, and the non-smoking customers all chose to not cut themselves off from the social and music scenes only available at social venues just to avoid the smoke.

But SDA and Dan both said it better.

As for "Seattle's Smaller Weekly Watch," here's what this regular post is about: The Weekly wrote up their then-impending sale to New Times, they described "The Stranger" as Seattle's "smaller weekly newspaper." Wasn't true then, isn't true now.

As for what folks do with either paper—wrap fish, line birdcage, wipe ass—that's out of our hands.

Don't know where you get your figures. At the time of the vote last fall, over 75 percent of Washington clubs and restaurants were nonsmoking. A minority still allowed smoking.

I don't support your claim to a right to subject nonsmoking customers and employees to your cancerous second hand smoke.

Umm -- don't believe that was the point.

The point was that no one was forced to be subjected to smoking. You twisted it around again.

It's pretty simple. If I'm allergic to honey, I'm not going to work in a honey processing plant. If I have a problem with tobacco smoke, I'm going to avoid smoking establishments. Pretty straightforward.

I don't buy into the victim argument -- adults are adults and can work wherever they please. There were plenty more nonsmoking places than smoking places in Washington already.

Most of the poor people I know smoke. It's mostly a bluecollar thing. So using the "poor women can't find a place to work" argument doesn't really fly because most women of blue colalr backgrounds smoke anyways.

jack, that is blatent classist SHIT.

It's true -- most smokers are from lower income brackets. That's the stats.

Yay, the Strange is the Cheesecake Factory of weekly papers. Bigger portions, not very tasty, and you just wind up throwing away the doggy bag.

WHAT THE HELL! This was slog was a weekly watch. How did it become an issue about smoking? Jesus, you smokers need to relax.

have all of these angry people forgotten that the stranger's editorial board came out against I-901?

Yes, Josh, but our endorsement did endorse smoking bans in general. Not just this one in particular—because of the idiotic, hated, ridiculous 25 Foot Rule.

Vatslav: Feel free not to pick up the paper. No one has to eat at the Cheesecake Factory/read the Stranger.

xo
Dan

The smoking ban, a debate as heated in Seattle as the abortion debate is in the South. Even a fervent participant such as myself wants to stay out of the one that's suddenly erupted here.

I do read both papers. The Weekly does feel a bit light in my hands, and the Stranger does feel heavier. Hmm. As for the writing, the Stranger's thought provoking and the Weekly's just kinda there.

Savage,
YOU MUST STOP apologizing for our Edit Board's decision to come out against 901.
We voted, and we came out against it. Afterwards, you tried for a coup, and you lost again. The Stranger came out against the smoking ban. The Stranger came out against the smoking ban. The Stranger came out against the smoking ban. Oh, and the Viet Cong won. They won. They won. They won.