I am writing about the smoking ban in Ames. I have read several letters and articles in the Daily that are critical of the Ames business’ lawsuits to end the smoking ban.

As winter approaches this issue will take on more importance. The issue at stake is not if you can or cannot smoke in your favorite restaurant, but who should be the one who decides.

The smoking ban removes that choice from both the businesses and the people of Ames.

Who decided the smoking policy before the smoking ban? That is an easy question to answer.

Ames businesses made the choice based on different factors – the owners preference, the customer’s preference, and the type of restaurant it was.

Now the decision is only made by the city of Ames. This makes no sense as businesses have been working for years to develop the atmosphere their customer base expects. Now the rules have changed for the worse.

The bars that serve food must close their kitchens early so that the people in a bar can smoke. No food in a bar is a prescription for bad news because everyone knows that people will get drunk faster on an empty stomach. That means drunker people walking the streets of Campustown. That also means the bars lose out on the revenue from sales of food.

This also removes customer choice. What about the customers who do not like smoke? That is a fair question, but lets ask what about the customers who like to smoke?

That is why most restaurants have a smoking and a non-smoking section. The smokers sit in the smoking section and people who are bothered by smoke sit in the non-smoking section. Easy solution. If the smoke drifts from the smoking section to the non-smoking section, then there are other options.

Before the smoking ban, many Ames restaurants were smoke free. Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell and other restaurants were all smoke free.

People bothered by smoke would be happy there. The customer chose whether or not to enter a restaurant that allowed smoking.

I am surprised at how many freedoms the Ames businesses have put up with so far. The smoking ban is just the beginning.

What are you going to do when you walk into Hickory Park to order a steak and find that the city of Ames has banned meat in restaurants? The smell of burning flesh of animals might offend the vegetarians.

What are you going to do when you order an ice cream and are denied because the city of Ames decided to ban fattening foods in restaurants? Fattening foods can cause just as many health problems as cigarettes.

The lawsuit is the right idea here.

And recently the lawsuit has received financial backing from Philip Morris, a tobacco company.

And what is the city of Ames doing now? They are wasting your tax dollars fighting a lawsuit based on the illegal ordinance that the city of Ames imposed upon this community. My advice to the city of Ames is to repeal the smoking ban and avoid the cost of the lawsuit.

As for me, I will be sitting in the non-smoking section of my favorite restaurant eating meat and fattening foods while that is still legal here in Ames.

Remember this paraphrase of a famous quote: “When they started persecuting the smokers, I said nothing because I do not smoke. When they started persecuting minorities, I said nothing, because I am not a minority. When they came for me, there was no one left to stop them.”

Benjamin Rittgers

Senior

Computer Science