| # | Name | Comments |
|---|
| 1 | Donna M St Felix | Free Enterprise, Free Choice and Signs are a WONDERFUL invention. Let it survive! |
| 2 | Anonymous | The smoking ban has just about ruined the live music business. Organizations lobbying for these bans publicly deny the obvious economic damages that occur to these type of businesses after bans are forced on the owners of these private businesses.
They have no concern for the loss of income musicians and club owners have suffered. Professional musicians have become hobbyists and bars are closing left and right....yet we continually hear nothing but denial of these things happening from the smokefree lobbying organizations. |
| 3 | Anonymous | |
| 4 | Sally Hindley | Bans of any kind destroy our freedom of choice. |
| 5 | Paul Bedwell | |
| 6 | Lila Charlton | |
| 7 | Linda Hubbard | Smoking or no smoking should be left up to the private property business owner. Their rights are being violated. Only the owner has the right to decide if smoking is or is not permitted on their property. |
| 8 | Anonymous | I think the smoking ban takes away my rights. I should be permitted to make my own decisions. I am of age. Way to many bans are coming. |
| 9 | Nancy Roell | My grandfathers tavern, establised in 1938, is dying a slow death. We need help!!! |
| 10 | Sheri Dornhecker | |
| 11 | Anonymous | |
| 12 | Jim Blogg | I look forward to the day when EX Surgeon General Richard Carmona and his advisory board, which consist of some of the most well known frauds in the anti-smoking movement, are locked up in prison with the rest of the criminals. |
| 13 | James P. Doege | |
| 14 | Michele Pearson | |
| 15 | Edna R Martin | |
| 16 | Anonymous | Why does history always have to repeat itself? Can't governments ever learn from past mistakes. Hitler banned smoking in Public in Nazi Germany in the 1930's, and what happened there? |
| 17 | Jason Myers | On October 19th, 1781, General Cornwallis surrendered to a tobacco farmer, General George Washington, in Yorktown, Virginia, marking the end of the Revolutionary War. The United States had won her freedom.
On January 7th, 2008, Governor Timothy M. Kaine, serving under a flag which depicts the slaying of a tyrant with the slogan, "Sic Semper Tyrannis," decided that freedom does not belong in Virginia.
With callous disregard for the 5th, 9th, and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, Governor Kaine announced his plan to introduce a bill to the Virginia General Assembly to ban tobacco smoking in all restaurants and bars in the State of Virginia.
The 5th and 14th Amendments cover many rights, not the least of which are the rights to life, liberty and property. The 5th Amendment is clear in that private property can not be taken for public use without just compensation. The banning of smoking within restaurants and bars does just that. By making the claim that it is for the rights of the public, then the public use clause is invoked as the justification. The property itself is not taken, but the value of the property is. By banning smoking in these establishments, revenue for the owner goes down dramatically. This fact can not be disputed.
Will Governor Kaine provide the just compensation as the 5th Amendment of the Constitution demands? Will Governor Kaine provide subsidies for bar and restaurant owners?
The debate on smoking bans is not one about health, it is one about freedom, liberty, and the right to personal property ownership. It is also about the right for like minded individuals to peaceably assemble indoors to share common interests and activities. There are many choices of bars and restaurants in Virginia, both smoking and non-smoking. There is a place where everyone can be catered to. It is unfair to discriminate against one group of individuals based on the consumption of a legal product with a negative social stigma attached to it and leave them out in the cold when the owner of the property is not asking for this.
Yorktown, Virginia is where Freedom began. Is Richmond, Virginia where Freedom will end?
Help stop this ban and others!
http://web.mac.com/jason.m.myers |
| 18 | Brian Foster | "All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
Thomas Jefferson |
| 19 | J. Cole | |
| 20 | Rebecca Rogers | |
| 21 | Randall Travis | After 40 or 50 years of fighting discrimination,There apperes to be a new "group " being being tageted.......Smokers ! |
| 22 | virgil kleinhelter | It's time to stop the lies about Second Hand Smoke |
| 23 | Anonymous | When like minded individuals lose the right to gather indoors with others who are like minded on private property, the right to freedom of association has become meaningless. |
| 24 | Anonymous | Smoking bans are amongst the most outrageous abuses of power ever perpetrated upon the American people. |
| 25 | Joseph R. Wise | Rights are being taken away. Businesses are closing at a alarming rate. Stop it now before it's too late. |
| 26 | Anonymous | |
| 27 | Michelle Bleau | |
| 28 | Anonymous | |
| 29 | Rita J. Gilliam | Stop the smoking ban |
| 30 | Gary Nolan | I don't care about "smokers rights" or "Non-smokers rights." I care about property owners rights. Laws banning smoking take those rights away. Compounding this outrage is the use of junk science, big government and corporate greed to destroy the foundation our country was born upon;private property rights. |
| 31 | Diane Douglas | I am against the smoking bans and the constant propaganda re second hand smoke that is not based on valid scientific studies. I think this should be addressed by Congress. |
| 32 | Terry Wagner | |
| 33 | Anita Sue Klass | |
| 34 | Sara Henry | I want my rights back - whether or not I smoke is not an issue, but my right to do so if I choose is! |
| 35 | Dean Rogers | |
| 36 | Michael J. Hooper | I wholeheartedly agree that we need to take our rights as US citizens back! This BAN needs some serious thought, and you, the EMPLOYEES of the people must comply in our request for ammendment to this issue! |
| 37 | Jeffrey Rogers | |
| 38 | Anonymous | |
| 39 | Anonymous | It is not right that our constitutional private property rights can be trampled on by "popular vote". |
| 40 | Ron Jeffries | I think BAR should be smoking or non smoking left up to the owner. If you don't like the smoking don't go in . |
| 41 | Michael Watson | |
| 42 | Nancy Aiken | I have begun to feel like I am living in Nazi Germany. |
| 43 | Leslie Bandera | |
| 44 | Victor Bandera | |
| 45 | Anonymous | Just look at all the ban states. and the business it killed!!! Look here www.smokersclubinc.com the smokers rights newsletter. For all the truth and facts!!!! |
| 46 | Robert Gehrmann | Separate fact from fiction. Fictitious claims of anti smoker studies are not supported with scientific conclusion. Freedom should never be threatened by special interest groups propaganda. |
| 47 | Bob Boehner | |
| 48 | Vera Mayfield | I believe that it is not the governments or anyone else's right to tell people that they cannot smoke in their own homes, nor in designated smoke areas outside the home. What a person does in his own home to him/her own self is his/her own business. You are violating the citizens rights to pass this ban, or any other similar ban. In restaurants smokers should be seated in the back of the restaurant where non-smokers would not have to pass through the "designated "smoke area, but they still should be allowed to smoke in that designated area. the government in this country is supposed to "to the people, for the people, and BY the people. Our country was based and built on the concepts of personal freedom. Before taking away any of our rights why now let the PEOPLE vote on it. That's the way it should be. The Government is way overstepping its line of authority when they start taking away any of the rights of the American people. |
| 49 | Sue Jeffers | |
| 50 | Joe Fay | |