Letters: Allow owners to decide.
The nonsmoking issue faces us in this fall's election. Many proponents and opponents of the proposal to restrict smoking in bars, restaurants and casinos in South Dakota have voiced their opinions, offering a variety of reasons for them, which primarily are of a health or economic nature.
The intent of the proposed law is to impose nonsmoking-area restrictions to protect nonsmokers from unwanted exposure to secondhand smoke. Providing places for these people is essential, yet the scope of the proposed law regulating where smoking can and cannot occur treats public areas and private areas as though one law for both of these kinds of places is the only solution.
It seems to me that a free-enterprise system should allow owners of private businesses to have the right to decide whether smoking is allowed in their establishments. It's their business. It's their livelihood.
I don't understand why a nonsmoking law couldn't be written to prohibit smoking in public buildings and still allow each private business owner to make that decision for herself or himself.
The law could mandate that an owner conspicuously display notices to customers of where smoking is and is not allowed.
Under this approach, owners would retain the right to allow or disallow smoking in their establishments, and customers could decide which businesses they choose to patronize.
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