More insanity coming to the Garden State
2-22-05: According to this past weekend’s Star-Ledger, a major NJ newspaper, the state health czar – who recently held the chairmanship of a anti-smoking group, New Jersey Breathes – is poised to lobby for a ban on smoking in bars and eateries similar to that had in New York.
Said the official: “I think we are behind the curve”, because NJ is “surrounded” by states that have already implemented smoking bans.
In addition to restaurants and bars, the proposed ban would make smoking forbidden in parking garages and other areas. The absurdity here, of course, is that parking garages are open, or in other words, outside. Making it illegal to smoke in a parking garage is like making it illegal to smoke whilst walking down the street.
Hearings and lobbying on the new anti-smoking crusade is expected to begin soon.
That state health officials would also hold membership in lobbying organizations that seek to influence government policy is a gratuitous conflict of interest, which is only confirmed by the official in question acting out the anti-smoking group’s agenda from within his government office.
That officials would seek to have hearings on whether or not to take the path of NY, and other “smoking ban” states, is absurd. New Jersey does not stand to lose by remaining a free-to-smoke state; it stands to gain. Surrounded by states which have chosen to pursue the puritanical policies of the “health nazis” , the Garden State remains the one state in the region where people in a bar or diner can smoke if they want.
Make no mistake, in most places in NJ – as more or less everywhere now – you can’t smoke. You can’t smoke in movie theatres, in class, in stores, inside train stations. Nearly all restaurants are “smoke-free” here. The few places you can choose to smoke, any longer, are places that have a predominantly smoking clientele: Bars and diners, mostly. To ban from these establishments the vast majority of persons who frequent them, is absurd. There is no shortage of smoke free eateries. However, the vast majority of people who go to the diner or the bar want the choice to smoke, or not, left up to them.
Already many NJ diners have gone non-smoking. In response, many smoking customers have picked up and gone to other diners. Many of these people were, prior to the changes, long-time customers. The Nautilus diner in Madison, NJ and the New Providence Diner in New Providence, NJ are just two that have gone non-smoking., and sent heir smoking customers go away.
If ALL diners [or bars] go non-smoking by government decree, what is likely to happen is that A- smoking customers will just stop coming, or B- smoking customers will come, but spend much less time and therefore much less money, in said establishments. Already this happens in NY. People who used to spend an evening gathering at a bar with friends now stay for only a short while, and half of that time is spent outside smoking.
Whatever health arguments are put forth by the smoking ban proponents are irrelevant. The concern here is ethical; what right does the government have to tell businesses to kick out their most frequent customers?
If NJ joins the ranks of those states with “smoking bans” it will be a sad day indeed. However, it seems difficult to imagine what will stop the ban from being implemented. Much has been said of health concerns. Nothing has been said of the just purpose and limits of government – and the fact that this ban reaches outside the bounds of legitimate governance.
Yet, if the state of New Jersey is not concerned about the potential economic impact on businesses, and is unmoved by the illegitimacy of a ban, or the absurdity of relegating the Garden State’s own identity to that of a NY policy clone, perhaps it should consider this: Smokers who are still forced to fork over huge amounts in special taxes, from which others are immune, will be increasingly resentful of the fact that they are paying increasingly high prices for cigarettes which they are not allowed to smoke! And, when this is considered, many of them will decide they cannot afford it, or will seek to purchase their cigarettes elsewhere, such as online. States have recently begun to try and stop this; New York sent threatening letters demanding thousands of dollars in taxes from citizens who purchased cigarettes over the internet. But by and large New York’s bullying tactics are a tempest in a teapot; the fact is that the internet is a powerful engine of economic freedom. As New York is learning, citizens who are slighted and robbed will take their business elsewhere. NY may yet succeed in badgering some of these individuals into forking over takes they shouldn’t have to pay for internet or other distance purchases. But even if that is the case, it will hardly be a victory to New York. Such action taken against every single smoker is an expensive way to collect taxes. It is much less costly to lower the tax and watch internet purchases – as well as unrelated smuggling – decrease.
New Jersey officials have obviously not learned from NY’s experience. After raising their cigarette taxes to absurd levels, NY officials “lost” massive sums of revenue. Then, rather than repeal the tax hike, NY began recruiting “a network of informants” to spy on citizens who purchased cigarettes out of state. Now, New York officials are trying once again to stop the hemorrhaging of cash-flow by threatening to go after individuals who bought cigarettes online, demanding that some of them cough up as much as $5,000 in only a few days. This tactic is itself alarming; it is possible because NY officials got a list of names during the process of filing a law suit to try and force internet smokeshops to illegally collect New York taxes from their customers. The government got access to the list as part of the law suit; it could not, however, have been intended that the list be put to its current use, with the government of NY going after the individuals directly.
And all of this is a result of restrictive policy and taxation. Things would be so much simpler for the government – in NJ and NY – if it refrained from telling people what was good for them, and focused instead on what is within its proper functions. All things being equal, the simplest solution to a problem is usually best. The simplest solution to the problem of “lost” revenue is not to hire informants, nor to target each individual for taxes the state is not legally entitled to collect. The simplest solution is to remove the disincentive for buying cigarettes in New York, namely, rolling back the tax hikes and restrictions.
To which, one should add as axiomatic: If the citizenry cannot afford to pay a tax, the government cannot afford to levy it.
Let’s hope the government of New Jersey is paying attention.
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