“it’s a heck of a lot more dangerous out on the street in Baltimore City than smoking.”

Joy Martin
Owner: Club Charles

Interesting argument from Joy Martin against a smoking ban for bars in Baltimore. Do the health benefits for bar workers justify the health risk to patrons and employees by forcing them to smoke on the street? Philadelphia, New York and Washington arguably do not face the same dangers as Baltimoreans do when standing on the street. I follow probably about 20 to 30 strict rules to insure my own safety walking the streets of Baltimore at night, the most important of these rules is to NOT STAND IN ONE PLACE for an extended period of time. Partially out of luck and partially from the following of these rules that I’ve created for myself, I have never been successfully mugged, assaulted, stabbed, shot or otherwise maimed over the course of the past ten years - walking home late at night approximately 300 nights a year through at risk neighborhoods (*knock on wood*). Of those I know with similar schedules, I am a member of very small minority.

My assessment of Joy Martin’s statement: perfectly valid and worthy of a response from those in support of a smoking ban. Would you be willing to stand alone for seven minutes in front of the Club Charles/Mollys/The Randavous/Dionysus/Dougherty’s/Butt’s and Betty’s/The Mount Royal Tavern/The Stable/Grand Central/Leon’s/The Drinkery/a thousand bars in neighborhoods I’m less familiar with at 1 O’Clock in the morning after you have had a few drinks and are less alert to your surroundings? I know I wouldn't. If not, is it justified to send nicotine addicts out into the street to do the same thing?

Until Baltimore is able to reduce its violent crime rate to something similar to what they are facing in New York, my ears are going to be somewhat deaf to the benefits of the smoking ban there - because there, frankly, is not here.

[via Baltimore Crime]