Proposal of Smoking Ban Stirs a Sense of Tolerance

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: September 15, 2009

We’ve come such a long way that in New York City, even many smokers feel guilty about smoking these days — if a walk through City Hall Park on Tuesday was any indication.

But what of the city health commissioner’s proposal on Monday to ban smoking in public parks? In a city where people — tall, short, fat, thin, rich, poor, pregnant, stinky, perfumed — have turned peaceful coexistence in crowded quarters like subways and sidewalks into an art, there was a widespread feeling that public parks should also be a place of tolerance.

Banning smoking in bars, restaurants and workplaces is one thing, people said, but banning cigarettes in parks and on beaches might be going just a step too far — except near children — on the road to a nanny state.

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Nanny State Extends Smoking Bans to Private Homes

Ten years ago, California became the first state to ban smoking in bars. Since then, numerous states and thousands of cities have passed similar laws. And now, as a new Reason.tv video shows, smoking bans have stretched into private homes.

The city of Belmont, California, has outlawed smoking in all apartments, condominiums and other multi-unit houses that share walls, ceilings or floors. What’s next? To ensure a smoke-free environment, some cities are banning outdoor grilling and barbequing.

“You may like it when politicians ban something you hate, but sooner or later they will go after something you like,” Reason.tv editor Nick Gillespie says. “Smoking bans in bars and restaurants set the stage for a proliferation of bans that have now reached into our homes.”

The Reason.tv video shows life is imitating an old Denis Leary stand-up routine, in which the comedian asks, “What’s the law now? You can only smoke in your apartment, under a blanket with all the lights out?” Nope, even that’s now illegal in Belmont.

“I actually like smoking bans—I just don’t like it when the government does the banning,” says Gillespie. “Thousands of apartment owners, hotels and other businesses have voluntarily said no to smoking in their establishments, because their customers prefer a smoke-free environment. Others allow smoking because their customers want a choice. In a free, tolerant society, nobody needs politicians to tell them what to do.”

Full Video Online

The Reason.tv video, Just Can’t Quit, is online at Just Can’t Quit

'Nanny laws' chip away at freedom

BY ADAM B. SUMMERS, Guest Columnist
LA Daily News

THERE is a domestic emergency, of sorts, in California these days. Unlike the popular television shows, however, the nanny is the problem, not the solution. No, California's problem is much worse than a misbehaving toddler; it is the overzealous politician (and those nosy neighbors who support them). Some might call these audacious au pairs petty tyrants, but they are tyrants nonetheless.

Having failed to resolve such serious problems of the day as the state's structural budget deficit, crumbling infrastructure, declining public education, and public-pension funding crises, impetuous politicians have taken it upon themselves to decide for us what kind of light bulbs we should buy, what kind of food we should eat, and even that ever-present grocery store conundrum: paper or plastic?

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Are we Live Free or Die, or the Nanny State?

By Dan Tuohy
news@seacoastonline.com
April 15, 2007 6:00 AM

Stung by recent legislative losses, some Republicans are grousing about the Live Free Or Die state becoming the Nanny State. But when it comes to social compacts and public safety changes, both sides of the debates are invoking New Hampshire's notorious motto.

The controversies reflect a changing New Hampshire, at least politically, though the arguments being delivered with conviction and compassion are not necessarily Democratic nor Republican.
HOUSE BILL 802, SEAT BELTS

The latest outcry comes as the House of Representatives passed bills to require adults to wear seat belts, increase the minimum hourly wage, crack down on trans fat, and outlaw smoking in restaurants and bars.

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Big Brother now more like a nanny

Laws are targeting everything from grease to cell phones

Monday, March 26, 2007

By MICHAEL HILL

of The Associated Press
You're not eating that! Put the phone down! Pull those earbuds out! And put down that bat; you'll hurt someone!

Lawmakers around the country are passing or proposing laws to regulate the grease your doughnuts are fried in, the calls you make from the road, what you listen to when you cross the street, even the bat your kid hits a baseball with.

The ideas are offered with the best intentions - usually to minimize a newly recognized danger or to encourage healthy behavior. Lawmakers worry, for example, that text-messaging while driving can be deadly and that foods fried in trans fats promote heart disease.

Critics counter that regulating french fries and Blackberries infringes on personal liberties. "Nanny government" some critics call it, and they point to a playpen full of behavior-related bills before city councils and state legislatures.

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The Nanny State

Politicians are especially busy these days passing laws which ban fatty donuts, talking on your phone while driving and other activities which the government has no business dabbling in.

You’re not eating that! Put the phone down! Pull those earbuds out! And put down that bat; you’ll hurt someone!

Lawmakers around the country are passing or proposing laws to regulate the grease your doughnuts are fried in, the calls you make from the road, what you listen to when you cross the street, even the bat your kid hits a baseball with.

The ideas are offered with the best intentions — usually to minimize a newly recognized danger or to encourage healthy behavior. Lawmakers worry, for example, that text-messaging while driving can be deadly, and that foods fried in trans fats promote heart disease.

Critics counter that regulating french fries and Blackberries infringes on personal liberties. “Nanny government” some critics call it, and they point to a playpen full of behavior-related bills before city councils and state legislatures.

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Who's Your Nanny?

As meddling scolds, Democrats and Republicans are equal offenders.

Jacob Sullum | February 28, 2007
Reason Magazine

Several California newspapers recently carried a story about "nanny government" measures in the state legislature that "irk Republicans," including bills that would forbid smoking on state beaches, ban trans fats in restaurant food, and require calorie counts on menu boards. "If somebody wants to go ahead and choose to do something that may not always be in their best interest," said one of those irked Republicans, state Sen. George Runner, "hey, this is America, you get to choose those things."

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Anti-smoking bill oversteps state's bounds

BY SAUK VALLEY NEWSPAPERS
WHAT WE THINK

Next time state Rep. Mike Boland goes to the supermarket, we wish he would stick to buying groceries and chatting with the checkout clerk.

Boland, an East Moline Democrat, got an idea for a new law while walking across the parking lot at the grocery store. We don't happen to think it would be a good law. Rather, if enacted, it would become one more example of the Legislature overstepping its bounds.

The bill to which we refer came about this way.

While trudging across the parking lot on a winter's day, Boland's mind was distracted from the frigid temps by the occupants of a nearby car.

As he described it, "I saw an adult smoking in a car. It was a cold day and the windows were rolled up. When I looked back a second time, I saw these two little heads in that cloud of smoke. I thought, 'That's really terrible, these kids are ingesting all that smoke.'"

Other shoppers probably would have shaken their heads and walked on. Not Boland. When you're a lawmaker and you see something you don't like, it's only natural to think about making a law to stop it.

That's exactly what Boland is trying to do.

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San Francisco Is Nanny State U.S.A.

Cinnamon Stillwell

Those who favor smaller government will likely be familiar with the term "nanny state." A nanny state is defined as "a government which tries to give too much advice or make too many laws about how people should live, especially about eating, smoking or drinking alcohol." Perhaps not coincidentally, nanny states and blue states tend to go hand in hand.

Indeed, if you're searching for the epitome of the ultimate nanny state, look no farther than San Francisco. With plenty of time on their hands and an exaggerated sense of self-importance, the 11 members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors are obsessed with looking for new laws to pass and ordinances to introduce and gaining control over every aspect of citizens' lives. Although the City is famously libertine in its approach to certain behaviors, anything that fits into its "progressive" paradigm is fair game.

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