Smoking in pubs should not be banned

To open my argument, I would like to first point out that you have contradicted yourself with the following sentence, "public houses (pubs, bars, etc. ) are private premises. " If they were private premises they would be called private houses and not public. However, public places still do hold the right to grant refusal to the public so I believe your point still stands. In your argument, you continued and said, "They have the right to grant or refuse entry to the public and they are not government buildings so they should be free to allow the people they invite in to eat and drink and smoke and watch strippers and gamble and sing and dance and play pool or whatever, so long as they don't cause a nuisance to their neighbours, obviously. " Now I would like to point out that a place, private or public, that conducts acts of gambling or stripping will need a license to do so and will no longer be a ‘pub'. But that is hardly relevant to the argument. Now, we both agree that smoking is bad for your health. Drinking alcohol is also bad for your health and the damages to the body are almost as bad as smoking. See now, both drinking and smoking are bad for your health and can both be done from local pubs. But the difference is that smoking is not only bad for the smoker's health it is also damaging to the people around the smoker and that is why the smoking ban has been put in place. The ban is simply stating that, if you want to smoke go ahead and smoke but do it somewhere where you will not be a danger to the people around you. Now I do not see how this is a breach of public freedom when it is in fact for the protection of the large majority of the public and the smokers are simply given the small inconvenience of stepping outside for a few minutes whenever they want to smoke. And yes, I am a non-smoker and I do try to avoid smoky areas but I am also a non-drinker but I DON'T make any effort to avoid places filled with alcoholic beverages. The reason is the same as the logic for the smoking ban; I don't smoke because I don't want tobacco smoke in my body and that is my choice. When people smoke around me, I smoke second-handily regardless of my choice and that is a breach of my freedom. I don't drink because I don't want alcohol in my body, when people drink around me, I don't drink because that is my choice. I'll speak to the drinker, I'll hug the drinker and I'll dance with drinkers but I still won't get any alcohol into my system because that is my choice. So that is not a breach of my freedom of choice! I believe I already made the above point in my first argument and the fact that I am having to repeat myself to combat your second argument gives me reason to urge you to please review my first argument once again. Now, you go on to say, "my opponent is a non-smoker who objects to smokey pubs. Fine. He shouldn't go to them then, he should go and hang out at Ben & Jerry's or somewhere else where smoking is voluntarily banned. " This statement strongly implies that you feel that non-smokers should not be welcome into pubs because a pub is a place for smoking, among other things. I would like to clarify that a ‘pub is not a place you go to drink and smoke, it is a place you go to socialise, smoker or non smoker' (Quote from my first argument). It is described by the Encarta Dictionary, as a "building where drinks, especially alcoholic ones, can be bought and consumed on the premises. Pubs frequently offer food, and sometimes acoomodation. " Other dictionaries give similar descriptions as well. I guarantee that you will not be able to find any respectable dictionary that defines a pub as a place for smoking. Therefore, to return to your statement, non-smokers have every right to be in pubs as smokers, so non-smokers shouldn't have to give up that right for something as trivial as the guy in the corner wanting to smoke. The smoking ban is a reasonable solution to the problem, where the smoker still gets to smoke, and the non-smokers still get to enjoy their time in the pub. Your alternative, where non-smokers give up their right to be in pubs and trade that for Ben & Jerry's is a breach of public freedom on a large scale. You concluded stating that, "you can take the choice not to put your health at risk by not drinking, smoking, having unprotected sex with the girl you just met in the nightclub, or driving too fast or flying with Aeroflot or taking swimming lessons off Michael Barrymore or whatever but those who are prepared to live fast and die young should be allowed to. " Yes, I agree. If you would like to live dangerously, go ahead and do so. But don't do it at the expense of other innocent passers-by. If you want to have unprotected sex, go ahead but make sure it's with a willing partner. If you want to drive fast, go ahead. Participate in car racing sports; find an open space away from the public or something. Don't do it on public roads where you'll most likely do terrible damage to yourself and innocent drivers/pedestrians. You want to get wasted, go ahead just make sure you don't do anything irresponsible while under the influence of alcohol (e. g. violence, drink driving, rape etc). You want to smoke, go ahead. Just make sure you consider the people around you who have chosen not to smoke and spare them from having to inhale the second hand smoke from your cigarettes.