Congratulations Smokeless Joe

[DavidsonOverlander]

Congratulations to Smokeless Joe (Sergei Sawchyn) who has been awarded the first Heather Crowe Award by the Ontario Minister of Health Promotion, Jim Watson. The award is named for an Ottawa bartender who is dying from years of second-hand smoke.

Sergei was far ahead of the times when he opened Smokeless Joe's in Toronto in 1996 as the first smokeless bar in the city.

You can read about it here: http://www.torontosun.com/News/Colum...8/1399134.html

[Jim Jarzabek]

Now that, is customer service!
Going against the grain to do what is in your customers' best interest is not always appreciated......

[Janet H]

Three cheers! As a performing musician, I have had my fill of smokey venues. We now avoid them like the plague. Smoking is a personal choice - I choose not to smoke, my own .... or anyone elses.

Washington State just passed the toughest second hand smoke law in the US and the appeals are already being filed. Should be interesting....

[DavidsonOverlander]

Here's a link to the official press release:

http://www.mhp.gov.on.ca/english/news/2006/011706.asp

[cooperhawk]

Minnesota is getting real radical as well. We don't smoke but we do get tired of seeing the ad about the waitress in Thunder Bay who is dieing of lung cancer. She is in remission and doing well and we all know it, so the whole thing is a lie.
Did you also know that the CDC came out with a report that if you are obese you are more apt to die of heart failure than if you smoke. Isn't that good news for those folks who quit and gained weight.

I don't care what they do, but I would a least like to hear true things.

[3Ms75Argosy]

Here in Seattle, we banned smoking from all public buildings - including bars! You have no idea how nice it is to visit a bar and not go home smelling like an ashtray.

Smoke damage is real - even if you are in "remission" it doesn't mean your lungs are better. Your ablity to transfer CO2 to O2 is forever damaged. Even if the damage is stopped, having no lung capacity is still having no lung capacity. That's the truth.

Good going Joe!
Marc

[myboyburt]

Most (if not all) of the towns and cities in Massachusetts have gone non-smoking in public buildings. We moved to New Hampshire a year and a half ago and this is not the case here in the Granite State. It's the only thing I miss about living in MA, being able to go out to a local pub, sit at the bar and not end up being engulfed by second hand smoke.

[Minnie's Mate]

Originally Posted by 3Ms75Argosy

Here in Seattle, we banned smoking from all public buildings - including bars! You have no idea how nice it is to visit a bar and not go home smelling like an ashtray.

In last year's General Assembly, Georgia's Legislature gave all of us non-smokers a very nice gift and made it illegal to smoke within 50 feet, I believe, of the entrance to any publically occupied building. This includes restaurants, etc. The only exceptions are buildings that adult only such as drinking only bars (no minors allowed, non-pub style), strip clubs, etc.

I am sooo glad of this. I can't tell you how often I have been to popular restaurants and been seated with my wife and small children at a table directly next to the smoking tables or given the choice to wait another 45 minutes to an hour to be seated further away from the smoking section. This just wouldn't work with hungry pre-schoolers, nor would going to another restaurant to start the waiting game over only to be at the end of an even longer line where we may have to wait more than an hour to be seated. In our community there are only a finite number of family friendly restaurants where my wife can eat with her delicate digestive system.

Since that law went into affect last July we haven't had any problems with second hand smoke or having to eat in a rush to get away from it.

[DavidsonOverlander]

Originally Posted by cooperhawk

Did you also know that the CDC came out with a report that if you are obese you are more apt to die of heart failure than if you smoke.

What about cancer?

At least there is no danger to others from "second-hand fat".

[SmokelessJoe]

Cooperhawk:

If you’d really “like to hear true things” (or read them), you can easily go to this page belonging to the American Cancer Society


http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/ped_10.asp


Similar facts will be found at sites belonging to

The American Medical Association
The United States Surgeon General’s Office
The Mayo Clinic
The Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute
pretty well any website of any American Hospital
pretty much every State Government website
and countless, countless others

The facts are that Smoking is killing your fellow Americans. About a half a million fellow citizens every year.

I note that you are likely a Veteran of a Foreign War. This is more Americans than your country has ever lost on foreign soil.

You fought in those foreign wars to protect the RIGHT of your fellow citizens to live in a DEMOCRATIC society were you ELECT leaders to LEGISLATE for the common good.

Every American should have the right to breath clean air in any public space - which includes bars, restaurants, hotels and the like.

That’s why laws are changing everywhere across your great land.

Your saying that Heather Crowe’s story is “a lie” is an undignified slander.

Heather is sadly dying of her condition. That’s why the Ontario Government named the Award after her; so that she would know that her speaking out on this subject was honored in the time she has left.

Most of the people here are intelligent, thoughtful people and they know the difference between real facts and bizarre theories.

Here’s two more thoughts for you:

- there is no permanent remission from lung cancer
- your Airstream will sell for more if you don’t allow anyone to smoke in it.

Sergei

[Minnie's Mate]

Originally Posted by DavidsonOverlander

What about cancer?

At least there is no danger to others from "second-hand fat".

Thank goodness. At least I don't have the guilt of my extra girth being more dangerous to the kids at the next table than they are to me...unless you count the example I am giving them.