It’s Getting Tougher For Smokers To Find Places To Smoke

Another blow to smokers with the announcement yesterday by the Buffalo Sabres that smoking will not be allowed anywhere on the grounds of First Niagara Center during games and events.  The arrangement allowing smokers to step outside between periods will be discontinued.  I’m just afraid it’ll lead to more violations
especially in stairwells and bathrooms.  There’s plenty of that going on now.  I’m sure we’ll see even more.

I’ve never liked being subjected to smoke of any kind.  Beyond the fact I don’t drink, cigarette smoke is the single biggest reason you hardly ever would see me in a bar.  I hated being seated at a restaurant and the
smoking section dividing line was the next table over.  Somehow the smoke always seemed to drift across the dividing line.

It wasn’t all that long ago that smoking was allowed almost everywhere – airplanes, busses, movie theatres, shopping centers, grocery stores, even high schools.  When I went to school there was a smoking lounge for students open to those 18 or older.  Students who had parental permission were also allowed in the smoking lounge.  Can you believe that?  It was evidence that school authorities couldn’t stop smoking in student bathrooms, so they just gave up and allowed kids to smoke.

I remember TV commercials with doctors endorsing certain brands of cigarettes.  There are photos of doctors smoking while examining children.  Boy have things changed.

The first evidence of a link between smoking and lung cancer appeared in a 1954 Readers’ Digest article.  Ten years later the Surgeon General released the first report confirming there was a link between smoking and health.

Health warnings first appeared on cigarette packs in 1965.

Cigarette advertising on TV and radio was banned in 1971.

First it was cigars and pipes, then eventually all smoking on U-S domestic flights was banned in 1998.

Smoking in New York state restaurants, bars and workplaces was banned in 2003.

There have been suggestions smoking should be banned while driving and in homes with children.

Will cigarettes ever be banned altogether?  Never.  The taxes they bring in is far too valuable.