I agree with you pencil. Although I no longer smoke, I see how much smokers today are being ridiculed and chastised. I remember when I still smoked and the "no smoking" campaign just started. At work we were told we had to smoke in the lobby of the building, then we had to move outside the building, finally we had to move out so many feet from the building because of the 2nd hand smoke possibly going into someone's office window! Give me a break! As I drive home every night, I drive by two bars within a half block of each other. It appears like all the customers are outside smoking rather than inside drinking. To me it seems like "society" has blackballed the wrong thing. I think they should look more closely at the drinking problem we have in the world and how many people die from excessive drinking, or getting killed by drunk drivers! And then how about all those abusive drinkers who beat up their wives and/or husbands or pick a fight in a bar and kill or mame someone! No, they've gone too far with this no smoking campaign as far as I'm concerned!

 Well, smokers are the ones with an unhealthy, filthy habit that affects those who don't smoke. There's a reason there are people who are non smokers, they don't want to slowly die from nicotine and why should they suffer from someone else's habit?

 I feel sorry for you, to be honest.

But if it's a restaurant and if you happen to be smoking, people with asthma would actually be in danger.

I don't see what the harm is, if you just step OUTSIDE and smoke, then it's not harming anyone inside, and you wouldn't really be pushed around.

 Restaurants fail everyday in cities without smoking laws. People go to restaurants to eat, not to smoke. Blaming smoking on business failure is a poor excuse.

Before smoking bans, I avoided restaurants that stunk like smoke. Let's face it, smokers are a shrinking small minority in our society. It is a poor business model to cater to a minority that keeps the majority of customers out of your establishment.