| # | Comments for City Council |
|---|---|
| 101 | The free market provides for all reasonable opinions & preferences. If the market for smoke free establishments grow, so will the number of establishment. This is a blatant removal of basic rights of small business owners & the customer they serve. Already I am aware of at least three long time downtown columbia establishments that have had to close their doors due to this decision by oligarchy. This harms Columbia & small business owners who should have the right to make this decision based on their desires & the desires of their patrons. Remove this economically damaging ban now, before more Columbia businesses pay the price of this ban that alienates a large portion of Columbia citizens. |
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| 104 | While I am not a smoker, I feel this is a violation of our personal rights. Private property is just that - Private property Bars and Restraunts are the personal property of the owners and reserve the right to allow smoking or not. To allow this ban is in violation of the U.S. Constitution. |
| 105 | |
| 106 | Although I live so close to the city limit sign, I can see it thru my kitchen window, I am unable to participate in the say of the city. Since the ban passed, I do all of my eating/drinking outside the city limits. I also buy all of my cigs and gas outside the city limits. The owners of the bars should decide what to do inside their business. I can understand no smoking in an eating establishment, but a place that serves only alcohol and where most of the employees and patrons also smoke, is ridiculous. There would be plenty of nonsmoking places available to patrons and employees if it was left up to the business owners. Then everyone could choose what to do with the legal product of cigarettes. If you really want to ban smoking, why are cigarettes still for sale inside the city limits? I don't understand that at all. Springfield Missouri has smoking ban that makes sense. Too bad our town doesn't make sense. I am a Registered Nurse here in Columbia, I hate to see the civil liberties of our people trumped upon. Put it to a vote. |
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| 110 | A good reason. If smokers have to go outside to smoke they will be breaking away from their groups that they would not normally stray from. It is outside a bar where you can find anything you want. Unsupervised drunk people will have bad results. It is outside the bar you can find drugs, after party's, fights and women. People will begin talking to girls they are afraid to approach in the bar with no reason, but outside they can make small talk and they can or will hook up, Get in a fight with their boyfriends, or the guy who cant take no for an answer will get a no. The best place to get the hook up on drugs is outside a bar. People know this about unsupervised drunks so they hire a bouncer but then that's who is usually selling, there is no better career choice for a dealer. The bouncer also is not required to do anything about a fight outside the bar other than inform them the police have been called and get others back in the bar. Which in the bar the bouncer is the reason most decline to fight. Teens will find out this is the place to go to get what they want and who's to send them away, the bouncer? Not till after a sale. Not to mention drunks are a bad judge of age when lonely. There is always a party, the bar is where you go to celebrate anything, and as the saying goes the more the merrier. People will drink and begin to invite people to these after parties that they would not have talked to if they had not met while outside the bar, including the teens before they are sent away, the possibilities are endless, but for certain parties will be bigger, there will be more drunks on the road and they will be out later, and we will see an increase in public disturbances. People that don't know each other wondering how the other was invited into their home will be out fighting on there lawns. Not to mention the people who just don't want to go to a nonsmoking bar, so they drive cities away to go to a smoking bar then have to DWI their way back home. So we are looking at an increase in drugs, fights, public disturbances, driving under the influence, kidnappings, pregnancies STD and statutory among others, so that a few people don't have to put up with second hand smoke. I have seen all of this first hand in a city where the ban has already passed. |
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| 113 | Officers gave my girlfriend a ticket by just walking in The Blue Fugue with out a Health Inspector. She had a cigar sitting on the table not even lit. What's the justice in that. I think our officers could have been stopping some of the crime that was going on during that night. There were serveral assualts and someone got shot at a gas station that evening. Instead of getting quota they need to stop the real problems in our town. I don't think they have the free time to walk in bars and hand out tickets. That's a great way to spend our tax dollars and cut crime. |
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| 116 | Nice site banking [URL=http://tygybko.1gb.in/index.html]banking[/URL] |
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| 119 | I am in Wisconsin, and I do smoke! I feel strongly against a smoking ban anywhere! It is against our constitional rights, and you are breaking the laws of history, does that mean we can sue you for unjust enrichment? Or against our rights being violated? What about Alcohol?? Many drunks are allowed to drive a car, kill thousands of people, and yet, they get a small punishment! Why is that??? As the drunk driver on the snowmobile here in northern Wisconsin who killed the newscaster from Illinois, who only got 3 years probation for killing an innocent person!! That is UNJUST! Many business have and will continue to close up and lose money over a smoking ban! I seldom go to a place where there is no smoking, I myself stay away! I drove semi for over 20 years, and never have I seen such ill public officals wasting time and money on such a stupid program to push business towards bankruptcy! Here is a great idea for all, and Salt Lake City has been doing it for years! I go to their truck stop, pay $1 a year, and I can sit in the restraurant, enclosed in glass, and smoke my lungs away! While non-smokers sit outside the enclosed glass! Now, that owner was thinking of all of his customers, smart move, and he has never lost any business! Fair business practices are the key to success and fairness! If all the businesses did this, there would be no need to ban any smoking, and all people should be happy! I can see paying a $1 a year to enjoy my relaxation! It sure is better than taking drugs or driving drunk in hopes of killing someone, dont you think? This ban will be a first of many to come, if it is allowed, and then we will be a communist country!! Maybe we should all make our own country, a true freedom country, as the United States is NOT free anymore! With jerks, cheaters, liars, stealers, and uncaring public officals running our life, what is left to enjoy??? |
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