At the behest of a 19-year-old who said "second-hand smoke gives her a headache and she was tired of having to move in public parks to avoid it", Calabasas CA has banned smoking from many outdoor areas.

Economist John Chilton (blog here) excellently points out one possible effect: the poor smokers in Calabasas, banned from smoking indoors and now outdoors, smoke in their cars, and then reek all day of cigarette smoke, causing even more distress to sensitive 19-year-olds.

The fun folks in the Fark forum have interesting things to say, too:

Good lord california. This is what it takes to get a law passed?

The ordinance was inspired by Margo Arnold, a 19-year-old college student. She told the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin that second-hand smoke gives her a headache.

This chick is giving me a headache. I propose banning her.

. . . .

Calabasas. Figures.

/californian

. . . .

Not a smoker, but the whole anti-smoking thing is going too far when they start banning it OUTDOORS where there is plenty of space for everyone to move around and lots of air to blow the smoke away. Just another disturbing sign of the declines of freedom and intelligence in this once-great country.

/ME almost wishes I had been born about 20 years earlier

And from an economist-in-spirit, replying to someone who demanded a complete ban on smoking in bars:

. . . instead of wishing someone would pass a law to deprive bar patrons of something they want to do, and that the owner of the private property lets them do, why don't you take out a loan and make a non-smoking bar. If the demand for such an establishment is as great as the Farkers here say it is, then you're sitting on a goldmine. If a non-smoking bar doesn't sound feasible, that's probably because the majority of the customers either smoke or don't mind the smoke very much. In that case, STFU

TAGS: farkonomics