I have recently traveled outside my Southern boundaries and small town confinements to what my grandfather lovingly calls the North.
I have visited Washington, D.C. many times in my life, and I love everything about the city. I love the cabs, the buildings, the bums, the Metro and the accents. Most will argue that D.C. isn’t really considered the North because it is nestled in Northern Virginia, the leading state of the old confederacy. But D.C. is more Northern than Southern by any stretch of the imagination.
It was in this political city that I realized I abhorred one particular thing about the North … you can’t smoke anywhere.
I realize smoking is bad for your health, but this isn’t about my health, or we would have to consider my weight, stress levels and overall lifestyle. No, this is about freedom of choice, and freedom of choice involves being able to smoke if I choose no matter what the consequences to my own self.
So, in D.C. I wandered into a jazz bar in Georgetown that I had visited numerous times before. I expected what anyone would from a small jazz bar – smoky air and a laid back atmosphere where I could wash away the day with my favorite beer and listen to the sax player blow the blues into the air.
But as I entered, there were two groups outside the door. One was the line to get in, and the other was a group of people huddled together under an overhang as it slowly began to sprinkle. These were the smokers puffing as fast as they could so they could re-enter the club.
As I got closer to the door, I realized a sign that read “This is a non-smoking establishment,” had replaced the one I remember previously being there that read “We I.D. No one under 21 allowed.”
I dealt with it as I thought to myself, “Well I don’t really need to smoke, and if I do, I will just brave the elements.”
The next day, I went to the Nissan pavilion for an Aerosmith concert. I was so excited because out of the thousands of bands and concerts I had seen, I had never seen Aerosmith. I had seats right up front.
As the security guard turned me around like a rotisserie chicken checking my pockets for god-knows-what, I saw the same sign from the jazz club hanging on the gate. It read “This is a non-smoking pavilion.”
I thought to myself, “This is ridiculous. This place is outdoors.” Of course, no one cared except the smokers who made their way from their seats past the gate to get their fill of tobacco.
It was only when I returned home from the trip did I understand how bad this non-smoking establishment thing had become.
I was chatting with a friend who had recently returned from California where she was visiting relatives. When I told her about the jazz bar and the pavilion, she began to tell me that in California you couldn’t smoke in any establishment either.
The conversation started a major discussion as I learned from others who had overheard us that South Carolina and New York had also followed suit.
The gentleman then gave me a small table tent from a bar in Buffalo, N.Y., that read on one side “leave my drink alone” and on the other “gone to smoke.”
What I find so interesting about the whole idea is that it isn’t federal or state government buildings where these changes are being made. It has begun to hit bars and restaurants.
I agree that someone should not smoke in government buildings or offices, but only because it is necessary at one point in everyone’s life to enter a federal building to pay taxes, mail a letter or whatever the case may be.
It makes sense that not everyone chooses to hang out in the courthouse so therefore it would cause restlessness in the other patrons in line if I were to stand behind them puffing away like a chimney.
But I don’t think it is fair that I can’t even smoke in a place I choose to visit like a resturant or a quaint little jazz bar.
In the past, this problem has been remedied by creating smoking sections.
Normally the smokers would be on one side of the establishment while the nonsmokers were on the other.
It has worked pretty well so far. Non-smokers don’t complain the smoke is bothering them, and smokers can enjoy their after dinner cigarette or a puff or two with their afternoon cocktail.
But it gets better.
I work in a restaurant, and normally, we smoke whenever we have a few minutes to spare or we are on break.
Last month, we were told that employees were no longer allowed to smoke anywhere on the restaurant’s property. Keep in mind they said nothing about abolishing the smoking section in the store and just the employees were subject to this new rule.
I was outraged.
It just wasn’t right that I had to walk across the street to smoke.
After a long hard Friday night, I was fed up. After the rush, I walked across the street to have my dose of nicotine when I realized I had about a thousand bucks on me in a parking lot across the street from where I worked way after dark.
It had not only become inconvenient but dangerous.
I finished my smoke and stormed back to work. I walked right up to the manager and said “What are you gonna do when one of us is raped out there? Do you realize how much cash most of us carry? I hope you realize next Friday you are just gonna be out of luck when I walk outside to take my 15 minute break that the state of Tennessee guarantees me just so I can smoke.”
All she said was, ‘I don’t make the rules.”
This whole thing has gotten way out of hand.
Even here at ETSU, the smokers have only one area where they can smoke indoors, and it is in the Culp University Center in the designated area beside Quizno’s.
The buildings here are covered in signs that declare “Because we care about your health, all ETSU buildings and entrances are tobacco free.”
Mass e-mails were sent out last semester to remind students and others that we couldn’t even be near the doorway with a cigarette in our hand.
How far is this going to go?
I am not harming anyone but myself when I inhale nicotine. I am respectful, and I would never blow smoke in someone’s face. I am so respectful that even around a group I ask to make sure it doesn’t bother anyone before I light up.
I am just outraged that I have to brave the elements in most situations just to smoke a measely little cigarette.
What is it to you that I am a smoker? What business is it of yours what I ingest or inhale?
People seem to have forgotten that the biggest cash crop of the American colonies was tobacco. People made their living off tobacco, and they still do today.
Even though we know how harmful it is to your health, it is still legal to smoke tobacco. Cigarettes are still sold in stores as long as you are of age to purchase them.
What is wrong with the world when you can get a prescription for marijuana to get high but must stand in the rain, sleet, sun, hail and snow just to smoke one little cigarrette?
All I am asking is that the jazz bars stay smoke and the outdoor pavilions lighten up and let us light up under the sun, or they just give us an area that is at least covered so when it does rain, we don’t get pnuemonia from trying to smoke.
I know there is some common ground we all can reach that will make the smokers and the non- smokers happy.
Of course when we reach that common ground, it will probably be a nonsmoking property anyway.

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