Two Calif. cities to vote on banning smoking in apartments
Posted on October 5th, 2007 by bile Categories and Tags: Uncategorized, anti-smoking law, California, City Council, crime, freedom, liberty, nanny state, police state, politics, privacy, smoking ban, your rightsLawmakers in two California cities are casting votes this month on unprecedented legislation that would widen a growing voluntary movement by landlords and resident associations to ban smoking inside apartments and condos.
Today in Calabasas, the City Council plans to vote on expanding its anti-smoking law to bar renters from lighting up inside existing apartments. It would exempt current resident smokers until they moved but would require all new buildings with at least 15 units, including condos, to be smoke-free.
Next Tuesday, the City Council of Belmont is scheduled to cast a final vote on a similar measure that won initial approval last week. The ordinance, which applies to apartments and condos, would allow fines and evictions if neighbors complained and smokers didn’t heed warnings.
The legislative push, which has triggered death threats against council members, is a controversial part of a mostly voluntary effort to prod landlords and condo associations to adopt smoke-free policies.
Seems I forgot to post this one the other day. As expected this passed/will pass. It’s really sad how little property rights matter today. If second hand smoke was such a dangerous pollutant the true enforcement of private property and a public demand to find the effects would regulate it.
15 Responses to “Two Calif. cities to vote on banning smoking in apartments”
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October 5th, 2007 at 8:07 am
First, if it’s really so voluntary, why don’t they just do it sans law. Toss it in the rental agreement.
Secondly, after reading your link I can’t think of Clarence Thomas without thinking of “Long Dong Silver”.
Thirdly, I don’t think eminent domain is entirely without purpose. Without it we wouldn’t have the interstate system, which is one of the best accomplishments of our Federal government.
October 5th, 2007 at 8:32 am
I would have thought 20 minutes of breathing in that crisp, clean Los Angeles air would far eclipse any effects of second hand smoke.
October 5th, 2007 at 9:11 am
That comment reminds me of the time I spent a night in Oakland. Some dude got shot with a shotgun a few blocks from where I was staying. There was a sign on the hotel room door that said, “Although this is a smoking permitted room, smoking has been found in the state of California to cause cancer.” I just kept thinking a shotgun blast to the back will kill me a lot faster than smoking.
October 5th, 2007 at 10:36 am
beetlbumjl: ‘But you HAVE to drive… we can’t regulate that like smoking… no one needs or should smoke.’
bosco: I understand the point of eminent domain. It’s still not right. I’m not a supporter of government owned roads so the interstate system means little to me… but even so… the government could have just paid market price for all the land couldn’t they? Wouldn’t a few oddly shaped roads been worth the infinite cost some may have required in order to secure the idea of property rights? It’s obvious that the original intents for eminent domain means little now. The fascist state will happily take private land with little or no compensation to hand over to a buddy who’s planning on putting up a mall or apartment. It’s gotten so bad that states have started writing detailed descriptions of what a legit land grab is.
October 5th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Government owned roads are the veins and arteries of interstate commerce. This is exactly why we have a federal government.
The government typically pays market price or above for the land. Basically they say, “We need this land to build a road, we think it is worth this…”, the owner says, “Well I think it is worth this…” it goes to the judicial system and a median price is picked.
The long term value of direct, properly constructed roads is immeasurable. As is the value of property rights.
That is true, but that doesn’t mean we should remove eminent domain. We should reform it.
October 5th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Did we not have interstate and international commerce before federal roads? Did we not have private toll roads before government ones? Would/did the market not figure out ways to transport goods if the need was there?
As far as I’ve read the government doesn’t give fair market prices. They make an offer and then threaten if it’s not taken. I’ve read dozens of stories with that theme… like the one in the post. If they did in fact play by market rules there would be absolutely no need for eminent domain.
You can’t place a dollar sign on property rights. You can on road construction. You can let the market figure out the best way to transport people and things. The affront to property rights with regard to eminent domain and pollution control and the like are not even in the same ballpark for comparison.
“We should reform it.” Good luck with that. I’ll continue fighting the morality of it and you can nitpick about implementation. Like the people who say socialism works if you have the right people in power. Well show me that’s possible and maintainable and you’ll have something i’d consider taking serious. Or arguing the troop levels instead of whether they should be there in the first place. History shows that the state creeps toward tyranny as the power attracts tyrants, thefts and cheats. Decentralization is the natural way to buffer and secure against it. The ultimate decentralization is personal responsibility, complete self governance and a respect of freedom and private property.
October 5th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
You’re gearing up to send us back to the stone ages of the Lincoln Highway. The industrial giants that allow your market to function would not exist without the infrastructure assembled by the federal government.
The stories of people getting reamed by the government strike a chord with the American public. That is what they want to read. The truth of the matter is fair market value or greater is usually paid for the land. Sometimes people get above fair market value without even going to arbitration because the government wants to settle things quickly.
You can’t place a dollar sign on the value of facilitating commerce. You seem to think the market magically springs up from nothing. It needs an environment to flourish.
Like me. Competition is a compromise. It’s a stable form of government for people too lazy or fearful to implement something better.
Do you seriously believe that humankind accomplishes more by systematically fighting with each other than working together?
October 5th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
I don’t think competition necessarily means fighting. Couldn’t several private groups, be it corporations or citizens, pull their resources together in order to build a road? Once there are established roads, competition would take effect to drive prices down / quality up.
October 5th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
The market works not because of industrial giants… it works because that’s the natural order. Demand will cause the environment to be created. Demand is what makes the world go round. I don’t care if the stone ages occurred from my ideas. Your view of the world and comfort level is not the obligation of the rest of the world. If people needed roads they’d be created or something to replace their functionality in the particular case. Private toll roads existed before government ones. If the rate of wealth creation is slowed by voluntary versus forced methods so be it. At least I’m not justifying the use of violence to get what I’d like. The marketplace is not a fight. It’s a bazaar. People voluntarily enter and leave. They are working together, supply and demand. You want a burger more than the $5 bill and McD’s wants the $5 bill more than the burger. Everyone wins. Corporations as they exist now are government entities given unnatural rights by the government enforced through force. People’s problem with our fascist state is completely caused by the government system. Your ‘working together’ idea is completely bogus. Forcing people to ‘work together’ has almost zero motivational force. The market and demand creates incentive. And that incentive is what keeps people in line. In a true free market people who got out of line would actually be punished instead of the current government subsidized bailouts and slap on the wrists.
October 6th, 2007 at 9:52 am
beetlebumjl: If you are to assume companies are smart enough to get together so they have enough capital to undertake building a national private road, wouldn’t they also be smart enough to get together to control the price of their goods? If companies cooperate or if they don’t cooperate there are still valid scenarios for unfettered capitalism to fail.
bile: Capitalism is competition. Competition at it’s most primitive level is a fight. In your “bazaar”, you are actively taking resources from your competitor to hoard them yourself. It may work if you just took what you need, but that is not human nature. Consumerism is the new religion, borne of a national worship of capitalist dogma. While this may work in the short term while you amass a ton of debt, it is far from an ideal solution.
Regarding authoritarianism as my method of control: Yes you may be told to do things at gun point. Government is tyranny. A constitutionally limited, minimalist government with an anarcho capitalist economy is simply wage slavery. Instead of being controlled by the government you are going to be controlled by business people. Ultimately I believe people are best controlled by unbiased education leading to a common goal. Personally I don’t like the idea of violence. I can most certainly guarantee you that people of my persuasion would be less ruthless than a Rothschild, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, or Astor.
October 6th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
bosco - I was only stating that competition doesn’t preclude cooperation. Question for bile - do you feel the government should regulate price collusion?
October 7th, 2007 at 12:20 am
beetlbumjl: No. Just as the idea of a monopoly is invalid in a free market so too are business collusions. Ultimately, just as you are under no obligation to provide a company with money in exchange for their product or service… they are under no obligation to provide you a product or service at the price you desire. The market will be bear what it can. Besides… how could the government regulate something which is generally secretive?
bosco: Capitalism is about economic freedom. Part of freedom is competition. Competition is created from demand and diversity. Demand drives innovation. You seem to fail to understand freedom, private property and economics. Resources are only useful in creating wealth (wealth = something which has great and lasting demand). With a business you can only consume resources which you have ownership of. That ownership precludes it being considered hoarding. If you sit on your resources so be it. They are yours. If you are in competition to obtain those resources you will not simply sit on them as it gains you nothing but more of said resource and it is not realistic to think one can survive on this single or collection of resources so it must be traded. Even so… there is no obligation to trade with anyone. Consumerism is the result of innovation. From freeing man from the daily slog of life. We no longer need to spend our days finding food. We instead need other things to occupy our time. You seem to fail to grasp that our economy is in no way free nor has it really ever been. We live in a fascist state. The government and the entities they create (corporations) work hand in hand to overpower the people. The Rothschilds, Carnegies, Vanderbilts and Astor were all helped by the government. The debt people so readily have access to and take on is the result of artificially low interest rates and systems created because of government regulation and corruption of the market. The fascist state has created a system where they need you to be in debt so more money exists so they can increase their coffers. They create and encourage the system. However, people buy into it anyway. It’s their choice. No one forces them to be in debt. You chose to be in debt. I’ve chosen not to be. They practically force me to invest because they create inflation to steal my wealth but I could still go and purchase hard assets. Instead of reading Marx you should read Rothbard, Mises, Austrian economics, the history of central banks and the Federal Reserve. How the government has involved itself in things you don’t realize or haven’t been told, throughout history and today. You say ‘far from an ideal solution’… solution to what?
Government becomes tyrannical… it doesn’t necessarily start that way. Wage slave? How’s that? People choose to have a particular job. Do you understand the situation called slavery? Slaves are not free. A worker in an anarcho-capitalistic society offers a service. They voluntarily enter into a contract to provide that service. They are not being controlled by anything but their own desires. There exists no obligation besides what is contracted.
People aren’t to be controlled. They aren’t your toys. They aren’t your minds to corrupt. Humanity doesn’t have an end goal… there is no common goal to fulfill. Your tyrannical government is the only one which can create that ‘goal’ and then put guns to people’s backs to make them work toward it. There is no such thing as unbiased education and you are completely delusional if you think any government would provide anything relatively neutral. In fact that sentence is completely illogical. How could you possibly provide unbiased education and have a common goal given the huge diversity of people and their ideas?
‘Personally I don’t like the idea of violence.’ but you have no problem using it so that people will do what you think is good for them and implement your idea of how humanity should be. Like many people around the world… your morals have a major flaw. You think it wrong for one person to use violence against another but it’s OK to do it through a proxy called government. Somehow beetlbumjl, bosco and bile in a room where beetlbumjl and bosco vote to take bile’s money by force isn’t legit but it’s alright when the numbers of persons increase.
I can most certainly guarantee that your government, just like all governments have, will encroach on people’s lives more and more till what you build looks somewhat like Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, Hitler, Che, Jong-il, etc. built. And last time I checked no business had killed huge numbers of it’s own customers…. but governments sure have.
October 7th, 2007 at 10:57 am
I don’t see this reaching a conclusion any time soon. I see valid points on both sides. Rather than make a rebuttal and then change the direction of the conversation, I’m going to leave it at this and divert the conversation. I don’t want my actions to be perceived as a cheap attempt to get the last word in. I will however take you up on some of your reading suggestions and give you these: Veblen, Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis. Be forewarned the last two are authors of fiction so you may have trouble reading them.
Question for you: What is your opinion (ie. no research required unless you want to) on why movie theaters continue to sell expensive tickets and refreshments when the public is very verbal about their dislike for this practice?
I couldn’t get this question out of my head last night as I was watching “Into the Wild”, a pretty good movie by the way.
October 7th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Simple. The market will bear it. Some may complain but as long as they or others still purchase those products and services in quantities which satisfy the business than there is no problem. If you sell 100 widgets at $1 or 50 widgets at $2 the gross cash gain is the same. In fact you probably do better with the 50 x $2 as your overhead is probably reduced. The iPhone costs far less to develop, manufacture, ship and advertise than they sell for. So what? If they lower the price they may sell more but they will have greater overhead. No one forces people to purchase movie tickets at $12 a pop or $4 Cokes. They chose to and as long as it continues and the company doesn’t believe they can make real gains from lowering prices they won’t. Look at sports games. People complain all the time but they still will spend $75 for a ticket and $7 a beer during the game. The teams generally have no problem filling the stands enough to make them happy. You also need to realize that just because you make things cheaper doesn’t mean the demand will raise. If you can only ever fill 60% of the seats at a game why would you lower the prices? You raise them until you maximize profit. If you ignore overhead (which you probably can at a sports game) then you raise the price till fill percentages start dropping.
October 7th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Just watched “Why We Fight”. Government can be quite a dangerous tool, it’s sad.