Smoking ban hurting local businesses

To the editor:

I decided to do some basic research on the issue of the smoking ban and its effect on bars, taverns and restaurants in the Las Vegas Valley. Through many interviews I found out that once the law and smoking ban went into action, some restaurants reported they lost more than 50 percent of their business.

At one location of a large restaurant chain, the waiters and waitresses said they lost as much as $400 a week.

I really want to believe that if many of the people who voted for this vague, unconstitutional Question 5 actually knew that such things would happen, they would not have passed the measure.

I voted against Question 5 because I don't like the fact that government is restricting the rights and liberties of all of us more and more each and every day.

The business owner should have the freedom and inalienable right to say whom he lets into his establishment, whom he wishes to serve and whom he chooses not to serve.

These business owners have a large investment in the communities they serve. They should have discretion as to whether they want to offer smoking, smoking sections or total non-smoking.

The free market will then adjust because the customers themselves will have a clear choice as to whether they want to patronize any particular business. You can bet that if the marketplace proves that a total smoke-free establishment is a money maker, business owners would convert to that arrangement in a heartbeat. They would not have to be ordered to by the state or politicians.

Remember: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's the American way. There is room for all restaurants, bars, taverns and grills in this state -- and they should be able to offer the option of either non-smoking, smoking or a combination.

Bradley kuhns

LAS VEGAS

Too much

To the editor:

Regarding the story in the Wednesday Review-Journal about paving a parking lot for the iconic Las Vegas sign on the Strip: I'm all for it ("Strip safety versus sightseeing: County finds middle ground").

But could someone please explain to me how the heck it will cost $400,000 to $500,000 to pave a spot for 14 cars and a couple buses and limos? Considering the quality of a home that can be built for the same amount, I just can't imagine how this price is justifiable. They should be able to build a visitor's center there too for that much money.

I guarantee you that if it was a private enterprise building the parking lot, it would be done for considerably less.

ART CHEVALIER

LAS VEGAS

God we trust?

To the editor:

Arguing about theology in a letters-to-the-editor section has got to be an exercise in futility, but gems such as the one presented to us by Gary Strabala in his June 19 reply to Grant Couch's letter defending atheists, do sometimes pop up.

Mr. Strabala blithely exposes the very basis for Western religion, which is the idea that humans are evil and will do only evil unless threatened by an ultimate spirit being. The doctrine of Original Sin is the bedrock of Judeo-Christianity. That's it: We are bad and God is good.

One could look at this as being the true expression of Original Sin in that religionists have "eaten the apple" -- the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Thus they have divided the universe into those two opposites, with themselves unfortunately on the wrong side, and their purpose in life becomes trying to get on the good side of the "one" who planted the tree in order to avoid punishment, while simultaneously lording it over those who do not share their view.

This is the ultimate in "utopian power struggles."

Mr. Strabala tries to use the modern history of totalitarianism, with its access to weapons of mass destruction and enormous body count, to bolster his argument in favor of theism. But he ignores the history of the world over thousands of years in which people of differing theological beliefs killed each other in large quantities.

Just read the Bible if you want to hear of whole cities and populations being wiped out by our monotheistic forebears.

Who knows the countless numbers of humans who perished during church-sanctioned slavery for hundreds of years or how many "savages" died in the conquest of the Western hemisphere for God and king, queen or emperor?

Lastly, how could Mr. Strabala ignore the most glaring fact of the early 21st century: that civilization is presently being accosted by people with fervent theological beliefs and extreme faith in the value of death for their cause?

Bob Hannah

HENDERSON