Los Angeles is considering making it even tougher to smoke legally in the city:
Lighting up on the outdoor patios of cafes and coffee shops may soon be a thing of the past in Los Angeles. The city’s arts and parks committee took a first step Wednesday toward a new ban on smoking on restaurant patios or within 10 feet of any outdoor establishment that serves food or beverages.
Bars with outdoor areas and other over-18 venues would be exempt.
I think the arguments presented on behalf of these kind of restrictions are often kind of confused and misguided. But what does make sense is the simple observation that the more you act to make smoking inconvenient and stigmatized, the more it (a) encourages smokers to quit, (b) encourages non-smokers to restrict their cigarette consumption, and (c) discourages new people from taking up smoking. I’m not sure I have a systematic theory of when paternalistic regulations to promote public health are good and when they go too far, but I think that’s a basically cogent rationale for policy.
Part (b) in particular I think tends to get underestimated. I quit smoking when DC stopped letting people smoke in bars. Many friends of mine didn’t quit. But it’s still striking that they smoke much less now that they need to step outside to light up than they used to when we would all sit around a table chain-smoking.
Previous in TP Yglesias
By clicking and submitting a comment I acknowledge the ThinkProgress Privacy Policy and agree to the ThinkProgress Terms of Use. I understand that my comments are also being governed by Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policies as applicable, which can be found here.