The other day a poll did the rounds on Facebook asking whether smoking should be banned in cafés and bars. Most people voted “About time”, and that saddens me a lot. Let me try to explain why in a few words.
Modern society claims to be built on a few basic concepts, and one of them is the inviolability of private property.
Unfortunately, many people in the post-Soviet space, including those who consider themselves progressive and fighting against “the regime”, don’t fully understand what this protection of property actually means.
A bar or a café is the private property of its owner. So if we claim to champion its protection, we have to accept the owner’s right to set his own rules within his own property. And the only necessary and sufficient limit here is that it does no harm to others and forces nothing on them.
Dear friends! Is anyone forcing you to go to smoky bars? No! Smoking harms more than just the smoker? Maybe, but, I repeat, is anyone making you go to smoky bars and passively harm your own health?
Many cafés have non-smoking rooms. Suppose a café is split into two halves, but one of them is always empty. What conclusion will the owner come to?
Go to non-smoking places and reward them with your money: that way you’ll express your civic position far more effectively.
But if you demand that the state make café and bar owners ban smoking, you hand your property over to the state to do with as it pleases. And then don’t be surprised when comrades in uniform (from the “Maski Show” comedy troupe, as post-Soviet slang calls masked raids) come to your home or office without any grounds at all and take whatever they like. You allowed them to do it yourselves! Only you allowed them to do it to your neighbor, and it will come back to you too.