How are you going to define junk food? Anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup? Anything processed? Anything with a certain number of sugar in it? Anything with chemical additives? I'm on board with that but I'm just curious what other people consider junk food. When we go out for dinner with the kids, we're not going out because I don't want to cook, we're going out because I don't want to clean. My days are long enough without having to deal with the clean up from five people eating. When we go out, we don't do pizza, and my kids aren't fed junk. They're all about real food. Smoking - it's a stinky habit, and I won't allow anyone to do it around my children if I can help it. My boys both have respiratory issues, one with severe allergies and asthma and the other with reactive airway. We don't do cigarette smoke.
I agree that by and large smokers should adhere to the general rule of life, "Don't be a dick." Go into another persons house, ask where it is ok to smoke. Don't stand in front of the entrances to buildings and smoke. Don't impair your work performance with a smoke break every half hour, and an non professional funk about you. Don't. Be. A. DICK! However when people dictate to the owner of an establishment what can go on in their own building, that just screams of being a dick to me. I HATE techno music. So naturally my first instinct is to legislate it so any bar I may want to frequent may not play it, right? What...no wait...I'm an adult. I can CHOOSE not to visit places that play techno. I find most religion implausible, and in many instances detrimental to the general populace. Let's get rid of the churches right. Or maybe just not visit places of worship, and do my best to instill a more science based world view in my children. No surely I am talking crazy right now. Personal freedom coupled with personal responsibility. I must have lost my damn mind. I have not smoked in a week today. And it would be far simpler for me if my favorite bar was non smoking. But who the fuck am I...who the fuck is anybody to tell a business owner what legal activities can happen in THEIR building? Like I, and many other denizens of this board, have stated previously, Don't be a dick.
I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to these sorts of arguments, but that said... 1) I'm pretty sure no one has ever gotten cancer from exposure to techno music or Jesus. A headache, perhaps, but not cancer. 2) We often tell owners of establishments that they can and cannot allow certain this to take place within their establishment. For example, we generally frown upon establishments that do not accept black patrons. Or indecent exposure. One can't whip out one's cock in the middle of a Fuddrucker's. I'm not arguing that smoking and racial discrimination are morally equivalent (obviously). But there are plenty of activities that are legal within the confines of one's own house that are not legal in restaurants. Also, there are laws and regulations regarding knowingly exposing people to health hazards as part of their job duties. Given that these vary by state and that we obviously let people work dangerous jobs (i.e. construction), this is a relatively minor point. But it's worth consideration.