A Stitch in Haste

Civil disobedience erupts in Ireland in the wake of a tough national smoking ban:

The owners of Fibber Magees, a pub on Eyre Square in this nightlife-rich western city [of Galway], says its business is off by two-thirds because of the smoking ban.

This week, owners Ciaran Levanzin and Ronan Lawless plunked ashtrays on upstairs tables and taped up a sign, "You are now entering a smoking area."

By text-message and telephone, frustrated smokers and others quickly spread the news of Fibber Magees' rebellion. By Tuesday night, and for the first time in months, the pub's upstairs room was packed and thick with smoke.

Lawless insists the gambit is the only way to make money. Otherwise, he says, he will be forced to close by September.

"We're damned if we do and damned if we don't," Lawless said. "We're either going to go out of business or be put out of business."

Give the Irish government credit, though ... at least it doesn't lie through its teeth regarding its smoking ban.

Update: The defiant pub was forced to shut down.

The second-hand smoke hysteria hits the next plateau:

Robert Zangrando claims he has been assaulted by cigarette smoke.

The smoke that wafted into his condominium from the cigarettes held outside by his neighbor, Nicole Kuder, was willfully blown in his direction and invaded his home, he says, which led to his additional allegations of battery and trespass.

In a case that is attracting some national attention, Zangrando, 71, is seeking more than $50,000 in damages from Kuder, 28, who is moving. Zangrando, who said he has emphysema, said his health was damaged during the two years she lived there.
...
Secondhand smoke often leads to conflicts, and more than 420 lawsuits involving secondhand smoke have been filed in the last 25 years, according to research by Edward Sweda Jr., senior attorney for the Tobacco Control Resource Center at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.

Now clearly, if I'm arguing with you in close proximity and intentionally blow smoke in your face, then yes, that's a battery. And if I intentionally dunk my cigarette in your drink, then yes, that's trespass (well, actually it's conversion).

But this is just plain silly.

Hat tip to Overlawyered.com.

P.S. I don't smoke, and I love smoke-free environments. But I love property rights and common sense far more.

Consider this reader post at Overlawayered.com:

In the case of smoking, I am one of those who thinks someone smoking around me (in public, of course - they can do as they like as long as the smoke stays on their own property) is a form of assault.

Analogy - chlorine gas. A little more obvious, a little quicker, and therefore easier to condemn, but whatever crime someone who releases chlorine gas in a public place (or directly onto my property) is committing, a person who blows their smoke on me in a similar manner is committing.

The post then proceeds to destroy the asinine analogy.

My concern, however, is how flippantly and carelessly the reader tosses around the word "public" -- exactly which "public" area would that be?

I doubt there is anywhere left in America where every truly "public place" (i.e., government office building, courthouse, airport, military base, etc.) has not become either totally smoke-free or at least has designated smoking areas. The issue, of course, is the casual willingness to impose constraints on private places, especially bars, hotels and restaurants.

(And please don't bother with the whole "don't you know that 'pub' is short for 'public house'?" Grow up.)

You're concerned about your right to breathe smoke-free air? STAY HOME! Or go to my competitor's bar down the street (or, better yet, my bar down the street) that has responded to market forces and has gone smoke-free.

The "right to breathe smoke-free air" in a bar or restaurant is as fictional as the right to drink free beer or eat free food or veto the band's music.

As I have previously plagiarized: Without property rights, no other rights are possible.

MartiniPundit is indignant over this story:

Four employees of a health care company have been fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes.

Weyco Inc., a health benefits administrator based in Okemos, Mich., adopted a policy Jan. 1 that allows employees to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking happens after business hours or at home.

Company founder Howard Weyers has said the anti-smoking rule was designed to shield the firm from high health care costs. "I don't want to pay for the results of smoking," he said.

The rule led one employee to quit before the policy was adopted. Four others were fired when they balked at the smoking test.

MartiniPundit's view:

The anti-smoking crusade is about people wanting to tell other people what to do. ...No employer has the right to dictate what an employee does on his or her own free time. Weyco thinks this is a victory. I'd call it a defeat for personal liberties.

My response:

I respectfully dissent. I think you’re confusing two issues. It’s one thing to object to the infringement of property rights through, e.g., a smoking ban in bars (i.e., if it’s my bar, then I should be free to set whatever smoking policy I want).

However, freedom of employment is at least as important. I have (or should have) the right to hire whomever I want, under whatever pre-conditions I choose. You, meanwhile, have the right to tell me to go to hell (and work for someone else). By the same token, if a potential (non-smoking) employee has no objection to being tested, then who are you to say he and I can’t freely enter into such an employment contract?

However, I'll grant you this — the story says this policy is new. That's troublesome. It would probably be best, philosophically and perhaps legally, to grandfather current employees.

You don't shore up one libertarian principle by ripping down another. This is not a government act, so cries of "defeat of personal liberties," while nice to see, are misplaced in this context.

By the way, MartiniPundit is a great blog that should definitely be on everyone's blogroll.

UPDATE #1: Hit & Run chimes in on my side.

UPDATE #2: The New York Times is, two weeks later, revisiting the issue. Crescat chimes in, as does Pejmanesque.

For Discussion #1: Here's a related story — does the same analysis apply? Why or why not?

For Discussion #2: For the blawgers — do those pesky first-year Contracts class concepts of estoppel, waiver and detrimental reliance protect the current workers? Why or why not?

Related Posts:
On Guns, Parking Lots and the Misrepresentation of "Rights"
Put Out That Cigarette Cell Phone!

New York City is claiming that its anti-property-rights smoking ban has not affected the bar industry:

The first-time study by the state Department of Taxation ... shows that while tavern business in the city dipped the first six months after the smoking ban went into effect in March 2003, it has been rebounding steadily since.
...
"Certainly there was a short-term impact in the middle of 2003, but clearly since then business hasn't suffered," said state Tax and Finance spokesman Thomas Bergin. "As a matter of fact, business has improved."
...
According to the state study, sales-tax revenue collected from bars dropped 5.9 percent and 7.8 percent during the first two quarters following the implementation of the city ban — the largest declines experienced since business dropped 17 percent right after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

But since September 2003, bar business has begun climbing again, whereas statewide, it has dropped or remained relatively flat since the state smoking ban went into effect July 2003.
...
State tax officials contend that the numbers are evidence that, despite dire predictions by bar owners and pro-smoking forces, the ban has not decimated the city's bustling night-life industry.

Two hasty stitches:

--Sales tax revenues are of course not the only issue. The infringement of basic property rights and economic freedom must count for something. If there was such a great demand for smoke-free bars before the ban, then don’t you think bar owners, driven by greed the profit motive, would have discovered it and catered to it?

--Sales tax revenues are, essentially, a worthless metric for gauging the impact of the smoking ban. The only valid metric is how many bars shut down as a result. Even if you assume that the “demand for bars” is perfectly inelastic, if the smoking ban shut down even a single bar (and it did), then customers are worse off, since they have fewer options, bars become more crowded, etc. (And let's not forget the actual bar owners driven out of business by the ban. Just because Mayor Bloomberg doesn't see them or care about them doesn't mean we can't.)

And speaking of supply: If there are fewer bars, then those bars remaining might well be able to raise prices. Higher prices mean, voila, higher sales tax revenues.

Oh, and the sales tax rate increased after the smoking ban was enacted. Higher sales tax rates mean, voila, higher sales tax revenues.

This tax propaganda study might not be as duplicitous as when Mayor Bloomberg included fast food chains to claim that “restaurants” had not suffered from the smoking ban, but it’s certainly not as demonstrative as the bureaucrats and local hack politicians want us to believe.

What’s the term I’m looking for?

Oh yeah: “smoke” and mirrors.

Related Posts:
Big Ashtray is Watching You — So What?

On Guns, Parking Lots and the Misrepresentation of "Rights"

Libertarians are always highly suspicious of zoning laws, land use restrictions, landmark preservation rules and other infringements of basic property rights (not to mention eminent domain of course).

Usually the rationalizations of property restrictions involve some appeal to externalities, either positive (e.g., keep an area clear for green space) or negative (e.g., who wants to live next to a pig farm?).

But the externalities used to have at least some basis in reality. Something cognizable and hopefully measurable (and exempt from politics), so that, hopefully and at the very least, some objective criteria could be used to make something resembling intelligent policy decisions.


No more:

Chicago's bars and liquor stores should have to prove they aren't hurting the neighborhood if residents say otherwise and want to shut them down, Mayor Richard Daley said Tuesday in announcing plans for a new ordinance.
...
Under the measure, 51 percent of voters living within 500 feet of a liquor establishment could sign petitions saying it's having a negative impact on the neighborhood. At a hearing of the Mayor's License Commission, the owner of a bar or liquor store would have to prove otherwise. Currently, the burden of proof is on the residents who complained.

A negative impact would be defined as hurting property values; increasing noise, litter or congestion; or leading to repeated arrests in the area.

If the commission rules against a business, it would close and could reopen only with a court order. Under current law, a bar or liquor store may stay open until all appeals are exhausted.
...
Daley also plans to introduce a second ordinance that says serving food must be the primary activity of a restaurant, and alcohol can be only a complement. It is aimed at preventing liquor establishments from masquerading as restaurants, Daley said.

"If they're not in the business to sell food, they're not a restaurant, simple as that," Daley said.

Gee, and I used to think that it was as simple as "it's your property, use it as you see fit." Silly me.

Now of course this is not criminal law, so pesky little concepts such as "innocent until proven guilty" don't apply. On the other hand, property interests are (supposedly) still protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, so one wonders whether such an ordinance withstands scrutiny. Is "51% of the neighbors don't like you" a legitimate government interest in depriving you of your livelihood?

I think not.

Oh and don't forget: even if you don't have uppity neighbors, your bar may still face a crippling smoking ban.

Cheers.

Do laws banning smoking in public places include actors performing on stage?

Lo Monaco was smoking, in line with the script, while playing the main character on Sunday in [Arthur] Miller's "A View from the Bridge" at a theatre in the northeastern [Italian] city of Mestre, when a woman from the audience shouted "Put out that cigarette".

After a 15-minute suspension, the performance resumed with a modified script and a non-smoking protagonist.

Of course, the fact that one uptight woman gets to ruin a performance for an entire audience is barely an afterthought.

And I wonder what Arthur Miller would have thought of his play being "de-cigaretted."

And if anybody is ever able to make a mini-series of Atlas Shrugged, do you think the protagonists will be able to smoke the famous dollar-sign cigarettes on screen?

In any case, what are the options here? Rewrite the laws to expressly exempt "artistic smoking" from bans? Rewrite them to expressly include it? Post warnings, comparable to adult-language disclosures — "Please be advised that this performance includes the use of tobacco products..."?

Or do we just remind ourselves that this is simply Europeans being Europeans and go our merry way?

A coalition of 32 hack state attorneys general are demanding that all new DVDs containing scenes with characters smoking include an anti-smoking public service announcement:

Kori Bernards, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America, said studios will consider the request individually.

"There's no collective decision at this point," she said, pointing out that MPAA ratings already indicate whether a movie depicts underage smoking.

Researchers at Dartmouth Medical School concluded that exposure to smoking in movies is a "primary risk factor" in determining whether kids will take up the habit.

The study, released Nov. 7, looked at 6,522 adolescents and found that 38 of every 100 who tried smoking did so because of their exposure to smoking in movies. The more on-screen smoking that kids see, the more likely they are to light up, the study found, regardless of where they live or whether their parents or peers smoke.

That last sentence does not mean that seeing actors smoke is more impactive on children than seeing their parents smoke, only that — all else equal — a small minority of adolescents who tried smoking (not who smoke, but who have tried smoking) did so because they saw it in a movie. That hardly equates to Hollywood being a proximate cause of rampant underage tobacco use.

Yet all of Hollywood is now to be blamed for all of teen smoking and must as a result be conscripted into the War on Cigarettes?

This is the "Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling" equivalent of chain smoking. A pointless and absurd demand by grandstanding activist politicians simply for the sake of "doing something." And can class action litigation against movie studios be far behind for having put out "harmful" movies and DVDs that contain smoking scenes without adequate warning labels?

The single biggest cause of underage smoking is parental smoking. So where are the calls for making it per se child abuse to smoke in front of a child?

If you're going to fight a War on Youth Smoking, then fine — fight it. But don't waste time on symbolic gestures that accomplish nothing except to villify an industry engaging in a harmless and totally legal business.

More thoughts at To The People.

UPDATE: Arkanssouri has a related story that may be even more ludicrous.

Chicago's local hack politicians have voted to erode property rights by banning smoking in all public places.

Sorta kinda:

Chicago, aiming to follow the lead of other major U.S. cities, passed a law on Wednesday to ban smoking in most buildings and public spaces except for bars, where smokers can puff away until mid-2008.

Until the City Council action, Chicago was the largest U.S. city that had not tackled the second-hand smoke issue. Lawmakers approved a compromise that gave taverns as well as bars attached to restaurants until July 1, 2008, to comply with the no-smoking ban.

Because of course, second-hand smoke in bars is perfectly safe today. It only becomes a health hazard in 2008, and it is therefore perfectly logical not to ban it until then.

More:

One of the few confessed cigarette smokers on Chicago City Council said he supported the ordinance but questioned the wisdom of sending smokers out into Chicago's dreaded winter cold and keeping them 15 feet away from building entrances to partake.

"It's 20 degrees below zero (F) (-29C) and people are standing outside smoking," Alderman William Beavers quipped. "Are you going to kill us with pneumonia?"

How's the saying go? "Feed a cold, freeze a smoker..."

The "it's too cold outside" argument was tried in New York City, in retort to assertions that San Francisco's smoking ban had proven to be "no big deal." But our philosopher-king mayor, Michael Bloomberg, wouldn't listen. After all, who needs facts and common sense when you have the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling? Or should I say the "Politics of the Freezing Fuzzy Feeling"?

It's quite simple really. There is no such thing as "smokers' rights." There is no such thing as "non-smokers' rights." There are only property rights. And local hack politicians eager to quash them.

The city of Calabasas, California, has banned outdoor smoking:

"The California Air Resources Board, which is the agency which regulates air quality in California, has adopted a regulation to treat secondhand smoke as a toxic pollutant of the air, like the kinds of things that come out of petroleum smoke stacks and out of the tailpipes of cars,” said Michael Colantuono, Calabasas city attorney.

Which invites the question: Why doesn't Calabasas ban cars and their "toxic pollutant" tailpipes?

More:

The city said it would relax the ban at times when non-smokers aren’t present in a public area.

Huh? How would that work?

Still more:

Business owners will be responsible for ensuring that all employees and patrons comply with the new law.

Of course, businesses will also be responsible for not doing business in Calabasas, California if they decide that it's not worth it anymore (or, if they must do business there, then they will be responsible for passing on the cost of compliance to others in the form of higher prices, lower wages or lower profits).

A local government certainly has the authority to ban smoking inside its own buildings, as well as in parks and playgrounds and other public property. But I think sidewalks are a stretch, and outdoor businesses are way over the line — he who pays the property taxes should call the tune.

Still, the celebration of all rights other than property rights is the trend these days, so expect more hack politicians across the country to follow Calabasas' lead.

It's tempting for capitalist-libertarians to cite the recent announcement by Marriott International that all its U.S. and Canadian hotels will go completely smoke-free as a demonstration of the viability of private markets to allocate, and re-allocate, resources based on consumer preferences as they evolve over time (i.e., that demand creates its own supply) and that government mandates in private markets, such as smoking bans, are unnecessary.

But I wonder if there isn't another factor at work here.

If one state (e.g., California) mandates higher emission standards for automobiles, then which is more likely: that auto makers will produce two different kinds of cars or that they will simply mass-produce the more compliant vehicle? The presence of economies of scale strongly encourages the former.

So too, perhaps, with Marriott:

Currently more than 90 percent of Marriott guest rooms are already non-smoking and smoking is prohibited in many public spaces due to local laws.

Maybe the company's management simply tired of worrying about complying with a mish-mosh of local laws, the violation of any one of which could lead to both fines and negative publicity (who wants an army of Eliot Spitzer acolytes pursuing them over smoking ban violations?). Perhaps it was simply more prudent to ban all smoking everywhere and be done with it.

The real test of the evolution of the markets for smoke-free environments will be, not hotels, but casinos -- which, incidentally, enjoy almost universal and almost absolute exemptions to smoking bans, thanks of course to the Politics of Pull.

So let's start a pool: How long until we see a major casino in a major market go completely smoke-free? I'm guessing it will be at least another ten years.

And let's not forget that none of this economic analysis changes the inarguable impropriety of smoking bans as property rights violations.

For Discussion: Marriott International does not actually own its branded hotels -- it is, for the most part, an operator and franchiser only. Does this change the analysis? If so, how?

Here's another one of those stories where I think I might have blogged it before, but just can't remember:

Scotland snuffed out Winston Churchill's famous cigar at the Edinburgh Fringe arts festival on Monday.

Actor Mel Smith, playing the wartime leader in a new play, decided not to defy Scotland's tough new anti-smoking laws after officials had threatened to close down the theatre if he lit up.

In March, a sweeping new ban came into force in Scotland in a bid to change a lifestyle of heavy drinking and smoking.

As I noted in an altogether different context in my last post, this is not sound policy but a mania, as if one cigar by one actor is going to give everyone in the audience cancer or accelerate global warming.

And, of course, if Scotland worried a wee bit more about property rights and a wee bit less about who's rights trump whose (a question that, since it is badly framed, can only be badly answered), then perhaps that would "clear the air" a bit regarding such controversies.

Exit stage leftist.

---

Found it!

If there is one issue that tends to unite most libertarians in opposition to most non-libertarians, it is the question of smoking bans on private property.

The non-libertarians quibble amongst themselves in an unending (and unendable) debate between purported "smokers' rights" and "non-smokers' rights."

The libertarians, meanwhile, sit outside (above?) it all and insist that the very debate is flawed and that the only rights that matter are property rights. A bar owner ought to be able to decide for herself, based either on market conditions or her own personal preferences, whether to allow smoking, and potential patrons are free to frequent or avoid the bar based on the innkeeper's decision.

Libertarians have, of course, pretty much lost that battle. Mostly we have lost it to the fiction of "non-smokers' rights;" perhaps on a few occasions we have lost it to the fiction of "smokers' rights." But we have lost the battle regardless. In the current mania of majoritarianism, rights are not really rights; and everything, absolutely everything, is up for a majority vote, either by legislatures or electorates. (Gays are, obviously and tragically, quite familiar with this phenomenon.)

And of course, libertarians are all too familiar with the corollary problem of the majoritarian slippery slope: first you ban this (e.g., smoking), then you ban that (e.g., foie gras). First you regulate this (e.g., wages), then you regulate that (e.g., Wal-Mart). And all the while freedom of contract, freedom of choice and freedom to use your property as you see fit are summarily discarded.

Okay, that was a big wind-up for what's actually a softball pitch:

A Brooklyn mom is threatening to stage a "nurse-in" outside Toys R Us after workers at the flagship Times Square store allegedly hassled her when she breast-fed her baby there.

Chelsi Meyerson, 29, of Ditmas Park is livid that store workers swooped down on her when she started breast-feeding her 7-month-old son, Mason, during a family trip there on Monday. She contends they ordered her to go to a basement room and threatened to call security — a charge the store denies.
...
The New York Civil Liberties Union yesterday dashed off a letter to Toys R Us executives demanding an apology and "appropriate compensation" for Meyerson.

Wait a minute — who's demanding compensation from whom here? Whose property rights have been negated by the whim of the majority without any compensation? Who's forcing bystanders to witness something that many probably do not want to witness?

As background, New York State is one of 37 that have, somehow, found (i.e., invented) some bizarre form of "breast-feeders rights" that, somehow, trump property rights. And those are just the absolutist states — those that extend this bizarre "right" to any and all public and private locations; other states offer a lesser "protection" of one form or another.

But if you believe in the propriety of smoking bans — if you believe that property rights are not rights at all but a beneficence that is graciously, and fleetingly, bestowed, and revoked, by the government — then you cannot challenge the propriety of state-imposed mandatory accommodation for breast-feeders.

Right to breast-feed? Maybe. Right not to have to see an exposed breast? Maybe.

But property rights? Never, no way, no how.

One more thing: the mother in question is, according to one account, herself a daughter of a breast-feeding activist. As the old saying reminds us: If you go out looking for trouble, you'll usually find it.

(Via Gothamist.)

"This is not your island. This is our island. And the only reason you're living on it is because we let you live on it."
--Lost, Season 2

As I noted during my Prague vacation, more than one attraction I visited prohibited the use of any cameras or camcorders, even without flash or lights. Bummer.

Now consider this picture, taken at a fair in Fresno, California:


I don't know much about copyright law, but I do know that you can't "copyright an area."

Boing Boing makes the following observation:

One of the side-effects of the entertainment industry's war on copying is that it's created a kind of folk-mythology about copyright being a kind of magic word you can invoke to put a fence around anything that you want to police.

I think there's truth in that -- see, e.g., the bottom of this website. But I also think that this sign reflects another problem with modern law: the fact that property rights now mean much less than they used to, and that contracts mean even less.

My property, my rules. Why do we make it more difficult than that? You want to come into my home? Take off your shoes. You want to eat in my restaurant? No smoking. You want to see a show in my theater? No children under five allowed. You want to visit my fair in Fresno? No cameras.

Why try to invoke some "copyright" gobbledygook? Maybe because they have to.

Much of it traces back to the smoking bans: The right to run my property as I saw fit was turned on its head and became your "right" to enter my property and dictate to others -- and to me -- how we could behave on my property. Sheer madness -- and getting worse with each new crop of hack politicians.

So too with contracts. Don't like the terms of a contract you entered into? Sue, or lobby, to void it. Claim "unconscionability" or "fraud" or "predation" or "invasion of privacy." Whichever you choose, you might very well win -- contracts are increasingly viewed as suggestions, or bargaining positions, more than as voluntarily binding agreements. The right to set terms to a contract are all but completely eroded. Someone offers a local fair in exchange for a fee -- and an agreement not to take unauthorized pictures. Accept or decline, partake or abstain. But don't cry "unfair," and don't leave the proprietor with little choice but to appeal in desperation to copyright law. This is an affront to anyone's sensibilities -- how?

So who has a right to be surprised when people look to preserve what ought to be their obvious rights via less-than-obvious back-door remedies such as an (untenable) attempt to "copyright an area"? The only reason we see such bizarre approaches is because the reasonable, sensible approaches of straightforward property rights and freedom of contract are increasingly declared null and void.

When it's done on stage:

[A] Denver District judge refused Monday to exempt Colorado's theater companies from the statewide smoking ban.
...
"It sounds to me like we could be back here for a constitutional argument," said retired Colorado Shakespeare artistic director Richard Devin, who testified in the case brought by the Curious, Paragon and Theatre 13 companies.

[Judge Michael A.] Martinez ruled the act of smoking, even in performance, "is not inherently an expressive behavior," and therefore does not qualify for free-speech protections under the U.S. constitution.

The plaintiffs had argued that any action performed on a stage — from a gesture to body language to smoking — communicates a meaningful artistic expression that must be protected.

This is not the first time that this fact pattern has arisen, but it is the first time such inanity has surfaced in the U.S., and therefore butted into the First Amendment.

Recall the basic First Amendment test: Generally speaking, a restriction on freedom of expression must be: (a) narrowly tailored to (b) a compelling government interest, and (c) leave open ample alternative channels of communication. See, e.g., U.S. v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171 (1983) (Congress cannot summarily ban the display of all flags or banners around the Supreme Court building).

"No smoking nowhere never" hardly meets that test. It is not narrowly tailored; censorship of art is never a compelling government interest; and failing to exempt sporadic smoking on stage during a performance is certainly not the least restrictive alternative.

Note also that actors rarely smoke tobacco cigarettes during a performance (they use herbal or tea cigarettes), just as they don't really drink alcoholic beverages (would it be permissible to prohibit high schoolers from drinking mock booze in a high school play?).

If the government operated a public performance hall (which would be bad enough), then it might be able to impose viewpoint-neutral restrictions on the use of that hall. That's a more complicated question. But it bears repeating that if the far more reasonable rule were followed — i.e., that private property owners should be allowed to decide for themselves based on market forces whether to allow smoking — then we wouldn't have to worry about turning the First Amendment into collateral damage in the War on Tobacco at all.

(Via Reason's Brickbats.)

One of most frustrating aspects of trying to present a libertarian argument in the property rights context is having to remind people of the very nature of property rights.

The classic example is the utterly illegitimate packaging of the "smoking in bars" debate as one of "smokers rights" versus "non-smokers rights." Both sets of rights are of course a fiction. The only true rights in this context are the rights of bar owners to operate their private property as they see fit.

And what's really depressing is that sometimes even the bar owners just don't get it:

Most pub managers and landlords in England and Wales want the smoking ban to stay in place, a survey has suggested.
...
Nearly three quarters (73%) would not want the legislation to be reversed.

Of course, the pesky detail that, were the smoking ban repealed, a bar owner (sorry — a pub owner) could still ban smoking on his private property is entirely overlooked. Behold how successful central planner wannabes have distorted the true nature of the issue.

Meanwhile, the worst hit of the U.K.'s new ban is still pending, as the first winter in which smokers have to brave the elements to smoke outside the inn is rapidly approaching (cf., this post). Stay tuned.