Statewide Smoking Ban Proposed in Texas House

No smoking in any public facility within the state of Texas? Believe it or not a proposal has been introduced the Texas legislature that may do just that and has one author deeply displeased with the Republican Party. Shawn M. Griffiths expresses his opinion in his January 27th posting of “The North Texas Conservative.” In efforts to put down this proposal, Griffiths has chosen to bring into question the integrity of the GOP by elaborating on the party’s position to help free market and support capitalism or lack thereof. His argument is simply that if business owners wish to, they and not the government should have the right to decide whether or not smoking is allowed. He goes on the further claim that restaurants and bars would suffer a decline in business should the bill be passed.
I am not a smoker myself and would like nothing more than to have public facilities ban smoking. It would be nice to go to any bar of choice and not have to worry about my health or even the sure convenience of not smelling like an ashtray upon leaving. Having said that, I would have to agree with the author; not necessarily on the basis of free market, but to his point that it should not be up to the government to control where a person is entitled to smoke. There can be many argument s if this would negatively affect businesses and I see this becoming an issue in a bigger picture. Sure I don’t like to go to places that currently allow smoking, but I ultimately have the choice to make a decision to not go there. Because I enjoy that freedom, I should not have the right to prevent someone else from choosing to do so.
There are currently 27 cities that have passed this ordinance an despite some criticisms, Texan’s can take comfort knowing that they have the convenience of traveling shortly outside of city limits to once again enjoy indoor public smoking.