CTV News Ottawa

Reener
They needed a study to determine this? Honestly, let's get an AG report on funding for University studies, this is bloody ridiculous. All to support special interest groups and lobbyists. The waste of our tax dollars is mind-boggling.

Mark in Ottawa
August 25, 2005 "A new study shows Ottawa bars and restaurants have high levels of second-hand smoke, which could be hurting your health."
August 25, 2010 "A new study shows Ottawa patios have high levels of second-hand smoke, which could be hurting your health."
August 25, 2015 "A new study shows Ottawa has high levels of second-hand smoke, which could be hurting your health."
August 25, 2010 "A new study shows Canada has high levels of second-hand smoke, which could be hurting your health."
Oh for goodness sakes...just ban smoking all together. Smokinis bad for you and everyone else...

Alex
Enough Allready!

victor
and pray tell, what is wrong with that? Yah don't like it, sit somewhere else

Kanata Ken
It is beyond me why smoking is not banned on patios and all public areas...including sports fields, parks and sidewalks.

It is not your right to poison me. I would respect others enough not to walk down the street spraying pesticides in their face...this is no different.

If you are stupid enough to smoke in your own home, and you live alone, go for it....that's just Darwinism.

danya
even an idiot would know that by now,we don't need new research to tell us that second hand smoking is bad for our health.

Rose
This is ridiculous. What about perfume and chemical product. Everytime I go into a store that has a lots of perfume I feel sick. How come they never talk about chemical products and perfume?

Elias Nasrallah
HOLY CRAP! What CRAP! People, you are outside. The fresh air blows away the smoke. Unless you are directly in front of a smoker, you will NOT be harmed. Here is another Bull study so they could continue the social engineering of our country. IF YOU DON'T LIKE SMOKING, GO AWAY! Enough is enough. This is paving the way to more government interferance......

Jay
The levels are high just outside Transport Canada on Sparks too!!!

inOttawa
Here we go again. Smoking isn't going to be banned until the government weans itself off the amazing tax revenue generated. Period.

The Lobbyists tell us that smoke related illnesses are "The" burden on the healthcare system, but it's bullocks - obesity is. Yes, smoking is bad, but "Smokers" are not the pariahs. The pariahs are the Lobbyists who have become just as disdainful as the Tobacco Company lobbyists in their claw for job justification and using FEAR (which is stressful by the way - bad for your heart) to control the way we think about our own choices and how we view others.

Common sense indicates that being exposed to second hand smoke on a patio for an evening is "not" going to kill you or make you sick. And now workers in such places have the option to work indoors if they don't want to take the shift on the "smoke filled patio". Yup, there are people with underlying health issues: asthma, allergies, but there are worse things out there for them than second hand smoke on a patio so I wonder why they would even choose to sit outdoors when at a restaurant?

Yes - there are intelligent, logical arguments on all sides, including the smoker who hasn't been able to quit. I think what I'm really trying to point out is how I'm getting pretty sick of Lobbyists making us the "Legislate for the Lowest Common Denominator" society that we are becoming. It sucks.

Keith in Kanata
No one is pushing the non smokers outside. Thats why we are there! we all know smoking is bad for us.

Some of us need help in quitting. I don't see alot of support there! They classify the patch and the like as tobacco products! Lets whack the HST on that =( It's almost cheaper to smoke!

Non Smokers, we gave you the inside luxury. Back off! And enough with this useless spending of our TAX dollars.

Cheryl in Ottawa
Good, its about time, I can hardly wait.

Graham
If you want to stay in a pristine environment and not be bothered by smog, pollution, drunks, cigarette smoke, loud noise etc then stay in your homes in Barhaven or wherever. Let the rest of us enjoy our fun on the patios, drinking and yes some even smoking, outside, God forbid. Why don't they just ban everything fun, dangerous, and unhealthy? NOBODY is going to get lung cancer from sitting on a patio a couple times a week.

Boy In The Bubble
A hidden device? LOL That is hilarious! Sounds like something out of a James Bond movie, but perfectly fitting for such an outrageous observation.

Well, I have my own study that shows sitting out on a patio in any given city means breathing in tons of toxic vehicle emissions and enduring progressive hearing damage from all the noise pollution. A little whiff of tobacco smoke is the least of my worries!

Sara
This study has no value to it what so ever. You are on a patio that have back to back traffic driving right by you. There is also indusrty polution in the air and god knows what all else. There is no proof the high levels of chemicals being read are even from the cigerettes in the first place. All these studies have one huge consistency in them that should not be overlooked. That is thewords "Could" "May" "possibly" and so forth and so on. Quit blaming smoking and weight and diabetes and the elderly for high health care costs when it is the CMA that is directly responsible for the high costs. What you won't say or do to maintain your ridiculously high salaries - That is the real killer of world health.

pat
I think we should ban drinking - it will probably hurt your health too - and that has already been proven!

Mr. D.
Enough with the self-righteous social fascism; smokers have rights, too.
The air we breathe if full of pollutants from plenty of sources, not just cigarettes.
Would it be practical to ask everyone to stop driving cars?
We are all breathing poison, like it or not.

alice
dont what poeple smoke take smoke out shift stop complaine

Chris
NO KIDDING !!!!

any idiot could figure this out.........

Bob
What nonsense. Why is there no description of the study's methodology. The average mid-level traffic in downtown Waterloo has more particulate matter than inside a smoky bar.

70% of the second-handed studies show no significant relative risk for any disease, including the big WHO study.

Shame on the Ottawa Council on Smoking (what you worried about funding)and the University of Waterloo. More healthism junk science for the masses. The media just regurgitates the nonsense.

Jerry Steinberg
No, I don't like being poisoned or leaving a restaurant patio stinking like a smoker, so YOU sit somewhere else if you choose to poison yourself by sucking tobacco smoke.

Your "right to smoke" ends where my nose begins.

Janice in Ottawa
Bravo to the Ottawa Council on Smoking and Health for conducting this study! With proof like this, when is City Council finally going to ban smoking on restaurant and bar patios? They've become the de facto smoking areas of the hospitality industry. This isn't fair either to non-smokers who want to eat or have a drink outside without harming their health or to business owners who don't have patios to cater to smokers. It is high time that City Council updated the 2001 bylaw to further protect our health from secondhand smoke AND level the playing field for restaurant and bar owners!

Katherine
More fuss is made over smoking than alcohol abuse and illegal drugs. Well actually it is more acceptable to shoot up drugs and better yet you can call and get free needles delivered to your door or go to one of the "safe sites" to shoot up. Unbelievable! People who smoke don't kill for their fix and don't forget they pay hefty taxes for the habit. Where will the government get that money from once they all quit smoking?

Bubba says require prescriptions for tobacco
I don't know why our government doesn't just ban smoking. We know 100% for sure that it causes cancer.

I guess I do know the answer to my own question. Our government is hooked on the taxes they get from smokers. They are also hooked on the donations from the tobacco lobby into party coffers.

Frankly, I'd rather pot be legalized, than tobacco, and I'm not very supportive of that either, but at least it makes people happy.

So let's make tobacco a prescription drug, limits the contents like any other drug, and test is to see if it's safe, like any other drug. Make it salable only in pharmacies, with a prescription.

Let's also make it so you have to be at least 30 to get a prescription, and have that age rise one year per calendar year. That way our young people cannot take up smoking, and within 50 years, no one will be smoking tobacco.

What kind of message does the government send out when they allow tobacco products to be sold legally, and the government gets huge revenues from it, while telling everyone it kills. Talk about mixed messages!

Bubba says scented products is your problem
@Rose: There is a study that was done professionally and it came out a few months ago, that showed that only 10% of the people who claimed to have an allergy to scented products, or chemicals actually had real allergies. It also showed that the percentage of people in our population who actually had allergies to scented products or chemicals was 0.4% or 4 people per thousand of our population. Do you really expect 996 people to not use these products just to satisfy 4 people.?

While I am sympathetic to your condition, the brutal fact is that if the 4 people have a problem, and 996 don't, then it's easier for the 4 people to do what they need to do, and stop expecting the other 996 to accomodate them. Sorry, but that's what you are dealing with.

As far as smoking goes, like I said in my other message, I think we should make tobacco products prescription, and only sell to people over 30 this year. No prescription, no smokes.

donna
I wonder if they conducted this study on patios in a forest away from traffic?

Does the pollution from cars have any impact on the results?

Really, if they dont want people to smoke, then just make it illegal already (of course then there would be no tax revenue to pay for the free crack pipes they hand out)

Gabriel in Ottawa
I prefered it when people smoked inside of bars and restaurants -- that "time" when I could walk down the street and not have to walk through clouds of smoke. A well thought out plan - Make everybody breathe in the smoke rather than just the people who choose to work in or be a customer in these establishments.

Adam
If I recall correctly, the main reason why bars and restaurants built patios was to cater to smokers after the indoor smoking ban, an expense that can cost tens of thousands of dollars! It drives me nuts how a bunch of nanny state socialists, who don't even go to bars, think that it is their right to impose their will upon the rest of us and infringe on property rights. The EPA study that was the original basis for the trend to ban indoor smoking claims that upwards of 54,000 Americans die yearly to SHS, yet the highly respected Cato Institute explained that the EPA came up with that number by claiming that any person who died of any disease and was exposed to SHS at work or at home was counted as a fatality due to SHS. When compared to other studies that controlled for non-smokers exposed long term to SHS and non-smokers who weren't exposed to SHS, the difference in fatality rates were statistically negligible!

Andre
It's about time that smoking ANYWHERE in public be banned AND INFORCED. We all know that the idiots who still smoke need to be told when to change their diapers so let's do it then!

Louis
Restaurants and bars lost a lot of bussiness when the no smoking ban came into affect, Now there still loosing bussiness because people are smoking on the patio. If i see an ashtry on the patio tables i go somewhere else. The smell alone is discusting, If you can't wait 30 minutes for a cigarrette well too bad.

DC
We just got back from Lake Placid NY...and much to our delight...smoking, as well as cell phone use...is banned on ALL patios. What a concept...imagine, not having to re-inhale smoke that has already been in somebody else's lungs...not only disgusting, but very annoying...if you want to kill yourself with the internal "slow burn" you shouldn't be able to impose it on everyone else who's got a clue about personal health...ban it outright from bars, restaurants AND patios!!

Sadie
am a non-smoker and really dont like smoke wafting in my face especially while eating - but on an outside patio - there should be enough air for everyone ! if ANY government authority steps in to regulate this - we might as well live in a bubble - we might as well give up any rights to decision making, choice, freedom - - plus it must be a slow news day if that is all you can come up with..

S in Ottawa
I Agree with Rose. I am a former smoker and live with a smoker. and all these people complaining about their lungs.. BOO HOO.. go out side take a deep breath of all the car exaust.. perfumes hand sanitizers.. plastic in our Pee.. is there nothing we won't complain about.. the Government knowly allows all this to happen so get them not us...

jay
All perfumes etc should be banned.

Dennis R
Well here we go again trying to getBig Brother to interveen and remove more human rights from us (and thats from a used to be smoker) to force one to not pursue those things they whish to is an infraction under the charter of rights.

If you don't like a person smoking on a patio then don't go out there, eat inside or at the very least see which way the wind is blowing and sit up wind from them and as far as possible away from them, if that dose not suite you the go elswere.

It is the owners right to sell boze if he wants to, it is his right to sell the types of food he wants to and it is his right to allow smoking in his resturrant if he wants to, he will be the one to make money or lose it not yours.

This is like Mod Barlow going into a poro flik and the comming out and wanting it baned, it was her choice to go so shut up and carry on but don't try to force your will/ideas on those who don't want or need your crap.

It;s called Live and Let Live!