En el estado americano de Illinois, donde los bares tienen prohibido permitir fumar, un local ignora la normativa y recauda donaciones de sus clientes fumadores para pagar las multas.
Owner Pat Carroll said his customers -- smokers and nonsmokers alike -- contribute to a "smoking fund" canister that often sits on the bar, to subsidize the fines he's incurred for flouting the law.
Carroll said he's been ticketed twice and paid at least $680. He fears that if he forbids smoking, his cigar-and-cigarette crowd would switch to bars that permit smoking just a few blocks away in Indiana.
"So guess what, everybody can smoke in here," he said, fingering a lit cigarette balanced on an ashtray. "I'm not losing my customers."
Lynne Kiesling en Knowledge Problem destaca lo que ya he dicho en otras ocasiones: la legislación anti-tabaco tiene vocación claramente paternalista, no está destinada a prevenir solo externalidades negativas sobre los fumadores pasivos.
If a group of people voluntarily choose to patronize and work at a particular establishment, with full awareness of the health effects of smoking, they are “bad apples” because they find the law unnecessarily onerous and believe that their voluntary choice to patronize a smoking bar does not harm anyone who has not made that conscious choice. Lorenz’s statement that the smoking ban is “in the best interest of everyone” applies a uniform public health standard but ignores differences in preferences and willingness to bear risk among people in the population.
(HT: Capella)
