Reefmonkey

More good news, they have completely moved out before I could file a writ. Although I am very happy about that, I am still feeling the pain. They have done some minor damages, left a major mess, steal some potted plants and took some of my stuff from the garage. They didnot mow the lawn for weeks and the pool is green. Lawyer bill is humongous plus the added cost of getting the pool up to date and the curb appeal back. It is tough having a dead beat tennant. I hope everyone learns from my mistake if you ever plan on renting.

Glad to hear that they are finally out, but hate to hear about the mess and the cost to you. It must feel so violating to have something happen like this. Are you planning to try to recoup some money? You probably won't get it, but if you gave them notice that they owed you for excessive damages, and then they didn't pay, you send it to a collection agency, who could then put it on their credit report.

Not only would it give you some satisfaction to know that for the next seven years they have a ding on their credit that will affect them every time they apply for a credit card, etc, it would also alert other potential landlords that they are problem tenants, and you'd be helping prevent someone else from suffering what you did.

I just saw this is Memorial NW (not Memorial Area, so should have been in "Great Northwest" forum, but oh well, no biggie). I went to Klein HS, had lots of friends who grew up in Memorial NW. It's a nice neighborhood. Sorry to hear that it happened to you there.

those real drinkers might be lookin like this...

My plan is for all non-smokers to only drink at places like Chotchkie's, Friday's or Chilis. Leave the real bars for the real drinkers.

I live 10 minutes by car from my office in Westchase area. Tried biking it, and my life flashed before my eyes. Houston is not a bike-friendly city. Plus, if I survived the traffic, I'd have to take a shower once I got to work right now

I agree with ssullivan, sidegate and Jax, I could definitely afford a McMansion in Katy and have an hour or more commute each way, but living in a one-story 1965 ranch house in Memorial and having work so close that I can go home for lunch gives me a much better quality of life than a large house every would.

Last year I faced the opposite dilemma - I lived inside the loop and worked in Westchase area. Sometimes a 75 minute commute on 59. Lamented moving from some of my favorite bars and restaurants etc., but to live so close to work is great. Plus, there are great ethnic restaurants out here. And SBISD schools are light-years better than HISD's Poe Elementary, which people inside the loop consider to be so good, but I found quite overrated.

The answer to my question: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5051515.html

It'll be up to patrons, bars to ban smoking

City will not beef up tactics for enforcement

Yeah, like that's going to work. One thing my sainted grandmother taught me was that it does no good to return rudeness with rudeness. I'm not going to provoke every smoker I see by saying "you're violating the smoking ban". In the past even polite requests like "I don't think you're aware your smoke is drifting into my face, would you mind moving your ashtray to the other side?" have been returned with rudeness. Smokers have never been considerate of nonsmokers' wishes in bars before, and this surely isn't going to make them so. All it will do is lead to bar fights.

One thing I have noticed - many bars that allow cigarette smoking don't allow cigar and pipe smoking. Why is that? It's like only half-admitting that you realize people find smoke irritating, but not wanting to go all the way.

Native Montrosian - getting thrown french fries at you by rambunctuous kids in the Village - are you going to BW3's? Now there is something that the city should enact an ordinance about - parents who let their little brats run around unruly at restaurants. Kidding, everyone, but poorly behaved children not kept in tow by parents is a pet peeve of mine.

Hmmm.... how about disbanding the concealed permit law for bars also then Reefermonkey ? You can carry your concealed weapon into your work or a mall, how about being able to carry your gun into a bar now since the alcohol consumption shouldn't matter right ? I mean since you want to "level the playing field."Bottomline.....Smoking and Drinking in bars have gone hand in hand since smoking and drinking were invented. If you are afraid for your lungs, then go work or play somewhere else. It would be likened to a hostile work enviroment, wouldn't you quit or transfer if you felt threatened at your work place but nobody else feels the same way ? If you didn't like where you were, why wouldn't you move on.I had a few drinks with ol' Red the other night, and I had to endure his toxic cancerstix for a couple of hours, I don't smoke nor have I ever, but, I never even thought about him smoking, it didn't bother me, because I knew I was in a friggin' BAR!... or were you smoking Red? LOL! Somebody was smoking in that joint.

I think you may have had a few drinks before posting this, judging from your post - especially the non sequiter about concealed weapons. I generally only respond to coherent posts. "Reefermonkey", how clever. I've NEVER heard that one before.

You can carry your concealed weapon into your work or a mall, how about being able to carry your gun into a bar now since the alcohol consumption shouldn't matter right ?

Really, you can? I don't know where you work or what malls you go to, but concealed handguns aren't allowed in any office building or mall I have been to.

What is going to be interesting in all of this is the advantage smokers will gain by being forced to congregate outside. Polls have shown a surge in "occasional smokers", those who only smoke when they drink, or other random occasions, especially among women. There are far fewer people who are offended by smoking than many think, especially amongst the younger bar crowd. These "occasional smokers", when the urge hits, will have to come outside with the rest of the smokers, meaning they will leave their non-smoking friends and acquaintances inside. This gives the smokers the decided edge in the bar dating scene, as the "occasional smoker" will stay outside for the 5 minutes or so it takes to consume the cigarette.In the past, these OCs would merely bum a smoke and a light, and disappear into the night. Now, just as the junior worker has the undivided attention of his smoking boss for 5 minutes on the sidewalk in front of the office building, the smoker may flirt with the OC uninterrupted for 5 minutes before she returns to her non-smoking friends. As women have historically been drawn to "bad boys", I may quickly come to appreciate the City's insistence on more clearly delineating the rebels from the do-gooders.

It is also important to bear in mind that different people react different ways to health hazards, and that they're probably a better judge of what they are willing and able to handle than you or any government entity.

Well, I am always going to believe that NIOSH is a better judge of how the average person is going to react to health hazards than the average person. I have seen the tragic results when people have thought they knew better than OSHA and could cut corners on safety regulations.

You are correct. Employers cannot "just run their job sites however they see fit and then pay the employees a little more." I see that as unfortunate.

Your model is how things worked before the days of OSHA. Since OSHA, industrial accidents, deaths, and illnesses have steadily decreased. I see that as VERY fortunate.

More to the point, it gets to be grounds for criminal negligence on the employer's part for lack of oversight if there's an accident.

Why have a laissez-faire attitude about running job sites and then let the courts take care of compensating for injuries/deaths, when sensible workplace health and safety standards can prevent the injuries/deaths in the first place. OSHA regs have a proven record of reducing injuries/deaths when compared to pre-OSHA days. The Dickensian idea that employers should be left to their own devices when it comes to workplace health/safety, and then should pay off victims/survivors is simply vomitous - and it doesn't work. After much suffering on the part of numerous workers, unions seek to fill the void if government won't. I think OSHA does a better job of balancing worker needs versus employer needs than any union.

Surely you can concede that it is not reasonable to expect that every conceivable risk be mitigated.

Of course not. I am only expecting that at the very least, real, easy to remedy conditions be remedied. Second-hand smoke hazard is one that is very real, and very easily remedied. It doesn't require expensive control technology, other than a simple sign that says "No Smoking."

As for those Brit smokers, I'll bet you got a great laigh at that.

Actually, I was disappointed when they gave up. They were funny guys and great company. After they left, it was just my brother, me, and a middle aged couple - both lawyers - from NYC. Very proud of living in Midtown Manhattan and looked down on a couple of Texans.

Oh, I am willing to bet we have passed each other at Rudyards, La Carafe, Davenport, LZ's, Barfly, places like that. I am just always careful to only wear clothes that can be machine-washed to those places. I am glad I'll be able to start wearing dry-clean only there. See, that's the thing. You've sat in smoke-laden bars and been surrounded by people you didn't know anything about. You assumed that all non-smokers stayed away from bars and were "boring" people, and everyone around you must be a smoker, just because we didn't say anything about it, pretended to tolerate it because social taboo was against us, complaining about it would not have gotten us anywhere in the bars. So you built this myth in your head that nonsmokers were boring people who would never go into "your" bar. This national movement is happening in cities across the US because the tide of public opinion is with us now.

For decades those of us who didn't smoke just had to silently endure as we walked through clouds of cigarette smoke in movie theatres, on airplanes, at work, etc. (When I go to Asia on business it is a reminder of how things used to be). We just had to suck up and silently endure because we had been the minority for so long, we had no chance of asking for a smoke-free environment. The will of the majority was imposed on us. It may not have been codified in city ordinances, but it was culturally institutionalized nonetheless. Now the worm has turned. It's not a matter of an increasingly authoritarian society taking away any rights, and it is overly dramatic to characterize it as such. The rights are just being redistributed according to a shift in demographics and general public attitude.

That has always happened, will always happen. It's nice when it happens in a way that is good for people. Not just the nonsmokers who don't want to breathe it in, but also for those coming up, who might otherwise pick up smoking because it's "the thing to do at bars."

Speaking of the Secret Smokers Society, who in the heck is going to enforce this ban?

Non-smoking Poindexter snitches? Do they call 911 if they see someone smoking?

We fascists have our secret police. We create a climate of fear to encourage people to turn in their neighbors before their neighbors turn them in. Trust us, we know how to handle this. It's what we do.

well, before you get too enthusiastic about it, fascists have a lousy retirement plan.

i'm just sayin'.

Actually, it's very good. We all change our names and move to farms in Argentina or Brazil.

Now, THAT's funny!

And he's back, folks! Nice to see you again, RedScare.

As a former waiter, bartender, restaurant manager, and restaurant owner, there is a very good reason that bar owners are fighting to allow their smoking customers to keep on smoking. For as long as there have been bars and smoking, smoking customers have spent more money, tipped more and complained less as a group than non-smokers. Sure, there are good tipping non-smokers, and there are whiny smokers, but ask any owner or bartender who the better customers are overall, and the answer is always the same.

Whew! And here I was afraid all you were going to bring to the discussion was conjecture and unverifiable anecdotal "evidence".

All of this healthy talk is all well and good, but the fact is...at least in the bars I frequent...health nuts in bars is a recipe for boring. If I'm going to get ripped, I don't want to hear some schmuck at the next table talking about how he's going for a jog tomorrow at 7 am. Hell, I may not get home til then. The City may have every right to constitutionally outlaw smoking, but that doesn't mean that those of us that enjoy actually living life...as opposed to merely surviving as long as possible...won't see this as another in a long line of wimpy rules enacted for the wimpy class, whose motto is, "If it saves just one life...".

Yes, those of us who don't revel in inhaling the results of incomplete combustion are all tofu-eating, yoga-doing, patchouli wearing health nuts, and boring. You know, normally, reducing three quarters of Americans over 18 to a simplistic characterization is likely to be grossly inaccurate, but I think in this case you've captured us nicely.

....but that doesn't mean that those of us that enjoy actually living life...as opposed to merely surviving as long as possible.......

Yeah, I've often thought that my decision to refrain from smoking has kept me from enjoying life. I don't truly appreciate simple things, like climbing a flight of stairs, because I can do it without wheezing. It's too bad I wasted 5 days in 2001 climbing Kilimanjaro when I could have been hanging out at the bottom with the Brit smokers in my group who had to give up after the second day. And why do I waste time paddling my surfski when I could sit on my couch and smoke. All the wasted opportunities.....if only I had lit up.

I'm not too worried, though. The places I hang out in have already been planning for the day. They've assured their good customers that we'll be taken care of. That's good enough for me.

That's very ominous. I am impressed. It's like you are a member of a secret society. If I were a member maybe they'd "take care" of me, too. Is there a secret password or do I just give a phlegm-rattling cough?

Ricco67, don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you that Toggle's beliefs that kids should be served "American" foods with English names all the time so as to "assimilate" them is pretty whacky. If kids will eat baigan bharta and it can be served to them as cheaply or more cheaply than what they are serving now, I am all for it. Anything, no matter if it is American or indonesian, that is cheap, healthy, and well-received is fine by me.

On the other hand, maybe Toggle has the right idea that kids should be served "traditional American" dishes. Corn, beans and squash provided all the essential vitamins, minerals, and amino acids for Native Americans for millenia before Columbus. Do you think that's what Toggle has in mind?

You have captured my argument very well. And yes, I would agree that if they make an adequate disclaimer, that customers would have enough information to make the choice. But as sanitation is often not well understood by the proprietors of restaurants, much less consumers, as it is a multifaceted set of issues, and as the proprietors would have the capability to very easily misinform consumers, it would seem that enforcement of restaurant sanitation is probably best left to the local government or an independent contactor to that government.

Fair enough, now I know where you stand on that, and you are very consistent. It comes down to a fundamental philosophical disagreement abotu public health between you and me.But even if I were swayed to your POV on this, that anything should be allowed as long as full disclosure and understanding takes place, do we really have that right now? The tobacco industry has spent billions of dollars over the years trying to squealch evidence that smoking is harmful. Even on this thread here, there are people claiming that they have heard second-hand smoke was not as dangerous as it is made out to be. Let's say that there is a good case to be made that second-hand smoke might not be that bad, that would still mean the jury is out, we are not sure if it is bad or not, and there are people who are believing the tobacco-lobby funded studies - I would call that an imperfect understanding of the risk.

How is it not their choice to work in a smokey bar or a coal mine or a hazardous waste site? If you don't like it, find a different job. We aren't in ye olde India. There is no caste system or anything approximating an equivalent.Some jobs carry inescapable health hazards; employers must pay high enough wages to compensate new hires for nonpecuniary aspects of the job. The wages simply go up until either there are enough people to staff the hazardous jobs or until the wage level gets to a point at which the hazardous jobs are not viable...then we export an industry to the 3rd World. Again, the important factor is that employees have sufficiently good information from which to judge the price at which they would be willing to do potentially hazardous work. ...and with that in mind, any level of hazard is acceptable insofar as the employee is aware of it.

Yes, of course it is everyone's choice to work in a smoky bar, a coal mine, or a hazardous waste site. And as I have said, even though it is their choice to work there, the government still requires the employers to reduce risk as much as possible, wherever possible. Employers can't just run their job sites however they see fit and then pay the employees a little more. If a mine or a hazardous waste site can't be made safe enough, MSHA or OSHA comes in and shuts it down. If a worker comes to OSHA and complains about unsafe working conditions, OSHA doesn't say "if you think it's dangerous, go get another job." Just doesn't work that way.As far as "employers [paying] high enough wages to compensate" employees for hazardous conditions, you could not have picked a worse example for that then bar employees. Typically bar owners don't even pay their employees minimum wage, they expect tips to cover that. They certainly don't give them medical insurance to take care of any pulmonary illnesses they are at increased risk of suffering from due to second-hand smoke.

Yes, some jobs have inescapable harzards. At a hazardous waste site, there is no way to make the hazardous waste safer before I get there. That was my job. But other hazards are escapable. I can suspend nearby welding/grinding operations if I am dealing with a flammable substance. I can lock out/tag out machinery that could make the job more dangerous, even if it costs my client more money. Those are not inescapable hazards, they are escapable hazards.Second-hand smoke is not an inescapable hazard of being a bar employee, it is an escapable one, even if it will cost the bar some money. The fact that it is an escapable hazard will be proven September 1.

We all know the smokers are the real drinkers. The rest are just pansy-arse posers and a waste of space as far as bar owners are concerned.The bar owners need the real drinkers to stay in business.

Well, if that's true (though again, it has been disproven in reality nationwide), then starting September 1st, the bar owners are going to have to get creative about attracting us more casual drinkers to come in and drink more. If they can't come up with a way to do that, they're lousy businessmen.

I still think the bars will lose a lot of business.

Especially since the alergic poindexters who avoided bars due to smoke don't even go out in the first place. It's not like they will suddenly show up.

They'll continue to stay home on weekends reading WebMD.com

So where will the smokers be on Friday and Saturday nights now? What will they stay home reading?

Despite proof to the contrary (http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/1/13, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...amp;sec=health), it appears MidtownCoog and even bar owners are still afraid that the smoking ban is going to harm business for bars. So I have been thinking long and hard about this, and the thought that popped into my head is "who cares?"

Now I know how flippant and callous that sounds on the face of it, but bear with me. A lot of people have been talking about "choice" here - the anti-smokers have been saying "smokers choose to smoke" while pro-smokers have been saying "snon-smokers can choose not to go to smoky bars", etc. Those points all make good sense when you are talking about a pre-ban environment, but in 19 days, all those points will be irrelevent. The ban will be in place, smoking will not be allowed in bars anymore. The only choice that will be important then will be the choice that smokers, at less than 25% of the population, will make: "do I stay home to smoke, or do I go to the bar and hold off smoking until later?"

The majority of the population and the majority of bar goers, like me, are non-smokers, who have been silently enduring the smoke for as long as we have been 21, we have been showing our loyalty to bar owners by choosing to go to bars despite the smoke. But the bar owners seem disproportionately concerned about losing the business of their most flakey and disloyal customers - those who are going to choose smoking over patronizing them. Sounds a little pathetic to me.

It's not like the bar will be the only place that smokers can't smoke - smokers are required to abstain for hours at a time every day. They abstain at work. You can't smoke on an airplane - do smokers choose to stay home instead of taking vacations? So smokers can delay smoking for at least a few hours at a time, and regularly do. Here is another time they will be asked to make a choice, the cigarettes, or the drinks and socialization. My instinct, as well as a significant amount of data, tell me that the majority of smokers will choose to keep the Camel Lights unlit for a few hours so they can have a few drinks, see their friends, get out of the house for a few hours. As for those who choose to stay home so they can smoke, that's their choice, and it's a sad one, if you think about it. When your need to intake a chemical for its recreational effects becomes so strong that it trumps your desire to have interaction with friends and family, that's the classic definition of a hardcore addiction.

So for the people who make that choice, why do we wring our hands?

Red didn't call you a fascist; he just said that bars will be full of them.

Ah, must have been just a coincidence that the fascists will drink red wine, which I said was my drink. Plausible deniability, I love it!

I am going to move a few smoking ban related posts from the lawn parking ordinance over here where they belong.

Anyway, the story so far.........

Interesting. This, coming from the same poster who just applauded restricting the rights of business owners to allow smoking in their bars in another thread.

Sounds to me like you are all for trampling property rights when the trampling is done to something you do not like, and all FOR protecting property rights when it lets you do whatever YOU want. This kind of picking and choosing of property rights protections suggests either a weak understanding of property rights, or a rather ambivalent appreciation of them.

I must have really offended your smoking sensibility for you to be stalking me like this. I'm flattered.

There is nothing inconsistent at all between my positions on the smoking ban and the lawn parking issue. In the lawn parking issue, I said that protection of public health is a perfectly legitimate reason to pass a city ordinance. The smoking ban is a public health issue. Second-hand smoke is a hazard to the patrons and to the bar employees. The employees have a right to a healthy workplace. Asthmatics have a right to go into the bar have a right to have their bronchi not constrict and suffocate them.

A place of business has responsibilities to provide safe public access that a private homeowner does not. You don't have to let black people come into your home if you don't want to. A bar can't put up a sign that says "whites only". You are not required to meet sanitation standards in your kitchen, even when your friends come over for dinner. A bar or restaurant is required to. When they open their doors to the public for business, they have a responsibility to provide fair and full access to all, and to provide a safe and healthy environment.

The inconsistency may have to do with how you define a 'public space'. In my view, a public space is one that is owned by the government, and that is all.

A bar or restaurant is a space that customers choose to patronize, employees choose to work in, and owners exercise their right to decide how to run their establishment...all stakeholders knowing, of course that there may be consequences to it being a smoking or no-smoking establishment. In the same sense, an unrestricted unzoned neighborhood is one in which residents choose to live and owners choose to buy. If the next buyer into the neighborhood following me raises goats that stink up the place and make a mess, which could be considered a matter of public health, then I get to decide whether I want to leave or stay and endure the stink. ...or I might just join in. That's my up to me. If nearly all of the neighbors hate the idea and want to form or update deed restrictions, well once again, I knew the rules going in and am subject to the consequences of my decisions.

No, still no inconsistency. Any time someone opens their private property to the public for the purposes of making money, they are held to higher standards. They must meet sanitation standards, safety standards, OSHA regulations, ADA requirements for having wheelchair ramps, etc. Providing an environment where employees and patrons are not exposed to harmful and irritating smoke is a logical extension of this. You and Red Scare never address my argument about bars and restaurants having to abide by health code and safety regulations that a private resident does not have to abide by on his property, and that is where your argument fails.

But this is ridiculous, Red Scare dragged the smoking ban debate into this thread in some malicious attempt to discredit me because he's bitter that I support the smoking ban. I have proven that my stances on these two issues are not incompatible, and you guys have not been able to counter the argument that a place of business is required to follow health codes that a private residence is not. It is time for the two of you to stop making off-topic posts. The topic of this thread is lawn parking ordinance, not smoking ban.

What is lawful and what makes sense are often at odds.

I can be convinced to back efforts to enfoce kitchen cleanliness, where the customer has imperfect information. But whether smoking is allowed or not should be immediately apparent such that they can choose whether or not they want to patronize or be employed by an establishment.

You have proven nothing.

So to address TheNiche's last argument, what TheNiche is saying (and correct me if I got this wrong, TheNiche), is that if you go into a restaurant that has a dirty kitchen, you are not going to see that the kitchen is dirty, so you don't have enough information to choose not to eat there, therefore the city should make sure the restaurant keeps its kitchen clean. On the other hand, if you go into a restaurant or bar where you can see smokers smoking, or even know they allow smokers, you are aware of this, so you can make the decision not to eat or drink there. Likewise, potential employees can choose not to work there if they don't want to be around smoke.

Okay. Well then, abiding by that principle, would it be okay for a restaurant to be exempted from city health code requiring employees to wash their hands, exempted from keeping perishable foods at proper temperatures, as long as they put a big sign on their door that says "Our kitchen is unsanitary. Eat here at your own risk"? Then the patrons have "perfect information", so would this be okay?

Now let's talk about the argument that employees can choose whether or not to work at bars that allow smoking. People can choose whether or not to work in a coal mine, right? That doesn't stop the Mine Safety and Health Administration from requiring mine companies to meet safety requirements. Mine owners can't just say "mining is dangerous, you know that, so you don't have to work here if you don't want to, but we aren't going to install proper ventillation, because that will cut into our bottom line." I have my 40 Hour HAZWOPER card. I have worked some pretty dangerous hazardous waste sites, and I knew the dangers going in. That does not mean that my company or clients didn't have to reduce my risk by eliminating as many hazards as they could. They were required to do so by law. A city ordinance banning smoking in bars, which are a workplace for bartenders, backs, and waitstaff, is an easy way to eliminate a very easy to eliminate hazard to working in a bar. I have disproven the "their choice to work in a bar" argument more than once in this thread, and no one has even attempted to refute my argument, but people keep making the argument. I would love to see someone bring in a new slant to directly refute me.

I am not so old as to not remember Klein ISD food in the 80s and 90s, and so I empathize with Vicman's wishes. While I applaud his idea of using the school cafeteria to promote international understanding, I don't think it will work in practice. School cafeterias have a hard time making familiar food edible. Giving them something exotic is a great way to ensure that kids will grow to hate Salvadorian or Vietnamese food. It is a noble gesture, but the cafeteria is not the place for it. I am a little disturbed to learn that schools are outsourcing to fast food joints like Taco Bell, even if it is only a couple of times a month. The first thing that school cafeterias need to focus on is making the food healthier, lower in saturated fats. Then work on taste. Salvadorian and Vietnamese students have plenty of opportunity to eat their own food (and get a better version of it) outside of school, and other kids have plenty of opportunities to try it outside of school as well. Again, let's focus on making school lunches healthier, cost-effective, and tastier, not creating a model UN in the cafeteria.

Side note - I don't want to get in the middle of the argument "assimilation", as I don't believe that making immigrant students eat chicken nuggets instead of pupusas is going to make them any more "assimilated", and trying to use the cafeteria to do so is a scary thought, but since ricco67 challenged toggle3 to name foods that are American in origin, I gathered that ricco doesn't believe there are any, so I thought I'd C&P my thoughts on original American food that I had posted on another forum:

I kind of disagree with you on American food, though. I believe there is plenty of true American food. Hamburgers for instance. Yeah, German, name, like you point out, but it isn't really based on any German food. The german hamburger is whole pork on a roll, so the american hamburger was just named after something similar, not actually derived from it.

And it is okay for a country's cuisine to borrow from others, and still be that country's authentic cuisine. Could there be anything more southern Italian than pasta with red sauce? Except pasta originated in China, and tomatoes came from Peru.

America has lots of different styles of authentic American cuisine:

Soul food - fried chicken, collard greens, corn bread, grits, etc.

Barbecue, in all its different regional styles - St. Louis, Kentucky, Carolina, heck, Texas alone has four different styles.

Chicken-fried steak. Again, depending on where in Texas you are, you will get different styles, some derived from German schnitzels, some not.

Chili (chile con carne)

Tex-Mex. A lot of people don't realize that Tex-Mex, the food of the people on both sides of the Rio Grande, is an ages old cuisine very distinct from true Mexican. It shares somethings in common with Mexican food, and that's okay. Are pommes frites French or Belgian? Is baclava greek or turkish?

I could go on, and there are midwestern and Yankee styles that I don't even know about. It is also okay to have regional styles, but no one defining food. Look at China? Szechuan is very different from Hunan.

Sorry about the rant, but it's something I happen to have a passion for - American food. I think it is sad that a lot of Americans have an inferiority complex about American culture, especially when talking to foreigners. We sometimes feel that we have no "real" culture compared to them, especially when it comes to food, when we have a very diverse culture, and very diverse food. I think it is the same kind of attitude that causes many Americans (like Gwynyth Paltrow http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...6&ito=1490) to suck up to Europeans by trying to distance themselves from their fellow Americans. I'm not saying you were doing that, I'm just sayin "take heart!" America definitely has many authentic, diverse, and tasty culinary traditions, and next time a foreigner asks you about American food, you can think of what I said and not be nonplussed, and proudly tell him what we've got.

Let's move this back on topic, please.

Thank you, editor.

While I support this ordinance because it protects our water and sewer lines from being broken by the weight of cars, which would contaminate water and cause outages for those down-pipe of the breakage, I do think that a side-effect will be more cars on the streets. I used to live on Vasser at Woodhead in the Rice/museum area, and street parking had become a major problem. Most of these small, old residential streets had one narrow lane going each way, and people were street-parking on both sides of the streets, all the way down, so you pretty much had to drive smack in the middle of the street, and if someone was coming the opposite direction, one person had to pull over to wait for the other to pass. This problem is partly caused by the number of people owning two long SUVs in a house meant to have space for one sedan, all the small bungalows torn down to build oversized "mansions" with no lot and no offset on the street, and by all the single-family residences that were torn down to make room for 4 townhomes. We had such a townhome complex built in a single-family lot right next to our 1940 house, and the townhomes were build practically right up to the sidewalk, so that I had no visibility backing out of my driveway, and the big truck always parked right on the curb up to the edge of my driveway made matters worse. It was a real safety problem for me and for pedestrians walking on the sidewalk. So street parking has become a real problem, and this lawn parking ban will make that worse, so if the city is going to enforce it, they also need to stop granting building permits to build these giant mansions and multi-family townhomes on single-family lots that are too small to house them and provide space for driveways.

The inconsistency may have to do with how you define a 'public space'. In my view, a public space is one that is owned by the government, and that is all.

A bar or restaurant is a space that customers choose to patronize, employees choose to work in, and owners exercise their right to decide how to run their establishment...all stakeholders knowing, of course that there may be consequences to it being a smoking or no-smoking establishment. In the same sense, an unrestricted unzoned neighborhood is one in which residents choose to live and owners choose to buy. If the next buyer into the neighborhood following me raises goats that stink up the place and make a mess, which could be considered a matter of public health, then I get to decide whether I want to leave or stay and endure the stink. ...or I might just join in. That's my up to me. If nearly all of the neighbors hate the idea and want to form or update deed restrictions, well once again, I knew the rules going in and am subject to the consequences of my decisions.

No, still no inconsistency. Any time someone opens their private property to the public for the purposes of making money, they are held to higher standards. They must meet sanitation standards, safety standards, OSHA regulations, ADA requirements for having wheelchair ramps, etc. Providing an environment where employees and patrons are not exposed to harmful and irritating smoke is a logical extension of this. You and Red Scare never address my argument about bars and restaurants having to abide by health code and safety regulations that a private resident does not have to abide by on his property, and that is where your argument fails.

But this is ridiculous, Red Scare dragged the smoking ban debate into this thread in some malicious attempt to discredit me because he's bitter that I support the smoking ban. I have proven that my stances on these two issues are not incompatible, and you guys have not been able to counter the argument that a place of business is required to follow health codes that a private residence is not. It is time for the two of you to stop making off-topic posts. The topic of this thread is lawn parking ordinance, not smoking ban.

There's an article in today's New York Times that talks about Landry's.

The response from Landry's was that it's working on an internal review of stock options that could cause it to revise its financial statements "going back more than a decade." The article says Landry's made $44.8 million in 2005. It apparently owes another $97 million to Wachovia, but Wachovia is being nicer about it than U.S. Bank.

Anyone want to buy a used shark tank?

Oh, don't get my hopes up.

I don't think that a driveway needs to be paved. Hell, there are lots of million dollar houses in Memorial without paved driveways.

"Paved" is defined broadly by the proposed ordinance:

"may be paved with concrete, asphalt, pavers, shale, gravel, crushed rock or other material, constructed to a minimum thickness of not

less than four inches so as to lessen or prevent the seepage of any fuel, oil, or other chemical substance contacting such surface from

penetrating to the soil below the area."

The million dollar houses in Memorial you see without concrete driveways probably have gravel or crushed rock driveways.

Yes, listen to what I am saying. No one forces you to enter the bar. Just as your argument in the lawn parking thread pointed out that a buyer in a deed restricted community knows the rules going in, you know the bar owner's rules going in. A true supporter of property rights would not trumpet the government's restriction of the owner's right to conduct business as he pleases. I am not "pro-smoker". I am pro business owner. I do not complain when I enter a non-smoking bar, such as Kobain. I merely smoke on the patio if that is the owner's rule. Conversely, you demand that the government force the bar owner to bend to your wishes. Big difference.

So, to answer MidtownCoog's question, yes, the bars will now be full of asthmatics, allergics...and fascists...who drink red wine.

So now I am a fascist. Well, that's not so bad. Fascists are pretty snazzy dressers, and boy can they march.

Yes, I demand that a bar owner provide a healthy environment that is not full of airborne carcinogens. I also demand that his employees wash their hands after using the restroom. I demand that restaurant owners keep meat, eggs, and dairy at proper temperatures. Maybe a bar owner's way of conducting business as he pleases involves spitting in the glasses to clean them, but I doubt arguments about his "rights" will cut any ice with the city health inspector. I don't think arguments of "if they don't want to get diarrhea, they can choose not to come here" will get him out of a citation. I guess the health inspector is a fascist, too. Maybe he'll save a seat for me at the next meeting.

No business owner has a right to conduct business "as he pleases". As soon as he opens the business to the public, he has a responsibility to provide a safe, healthy environment for anyone over 21 who wants to patronize him.

So now the bars will be full of asthmatics and people who are allergic to smoke?

Who wants to hang with those lame freaks? I bet they are also alergice to peantus.

Well look at it this way, instead of carrying around a lighter to offer a light to a girl you want to pick up, you can carry around an inhaler of Albuterol and an epi-pen.

Interesting. This, coming from the same poster who just applauded restricting the rights of business owners to allow smoking in their bars in another thread.

Sounds to me like you are all for trampling property rights when the trampling is done to something you do not like, and all FOR protecting property rights when it lets you do whatever YOU want. This kind of picking and choosing of property rights protections suggests either a weak understanding of property rights, or a rather ambivalent appreciation of them.

I must have really offended your smoking sensibility for you to be stalking me like this. I'm flattered.

There is nothing inconsistent at all between my positions on the smoking ban and the lawn parking issue. In the lawn parking issue, I said that protection of public health is a perfectly legitimate reason to pass a city ordinance. The smoking ban is a public health issue. Second-hand smoke is a hazard to the patrons and to the bar employees. The employees have a right to a healthy workplace. Asthmatics have a right to go into the bar have a right to have their bronchi not constrict and suffocate them.

A place of business has responsibilities to provide safe public access that a private homeowner does not. You don't have to let black people come into your home if you don't want to. A bar can't put up a sign that says "whites only". You are not required to meet sanitation standards in your kitchen, even when your friends come over for dinner. A bar or restaurant is required to. When they open their doors to the public for business, they have a responsibility to provide fair and full access to all, and to provide a safe and healthy environment.

I love it when non-smokers explain to me why I smoke, why I go to bars, and what I will do once smoking is outlawed in bars. Frankly, my concern is not so much that I will not be able to light up when I drink, but that, with smoking outlawed, the bars will now become overcrowded with pompous non-smokers who know everything, and whose rights supercede everyone else's. That kind of crowd makes me smoke MORE, not less.

No worries, though. I'll let you have your smoke-free bar, so that you can guzzle your vodka and red bull in a "healthy" environment.

I guess your nicotine addiction is making you a little paranoid and irritable, because otherwise I can't figure out why you take such umbrage with what I said. Like I said, people go to bars for a variety of reasons. By no means was my list of some reasons people go to bars meant to be exhaustive. The point is, in other cities, bar owners claimed they would lose business with a smoking ban. That was disproven when those cities' bans went into effect. Now in Houston cigar-bar owners are saying the ban is going to make cigarette smokers flock to their bars and screw up their tobacco/alcohol sales ratios. I'm saying the first dire prediction proved untrue, and logic says the second one will be untrue as well. And if you think of it, it was not me, but the cigar-bar owners who were explaining to you what you will do once smoking is outlawed in bars. Don't worry, I won't expect an apology from you.

Listen to what you are saying, though: "....non-smokers....whose rights supercede everyone else's." You're saying we think our rights should come before your rights. Who is really pushing their rights over everyone else's, though? The pro-smokers say "if non-smokers don't like our smoke, they can choose not to go to bars." It's just as easy to turn the argument around, and say that you smokers right now are putting your rights above everyone else's. You may think you have a right to smoke, but we have a right not to breathe in smoke that irritates our lungs, our eyes, and stinks up our clothes and hair. Which right seems more reasonable? You choose to smoke, we choose to drink. You can choose not to smoke and still drink and socialize, but if we choose not to inhale your smoke, then we can't drink and socialize. On the math alone, you lose.

And for asthmatics and people who are allergic to smoke, it isn't a matter of choice. They simply cannot be around smokers. So you are saying your "right" to smoke while you drink and socialize is more important than their right to drink and socialize, so much so that your right prohibits them from exercising theirs?. Again, it is obvious that it is the smokers who are trying to foist their "rights" on everyone else, not vice versa.

Actually, I am not a fan of either red bull or vodka. I'm a red wine drinker, which is healthy. But thanks for letting me have my bar smoke-free . Oh, you reminded me of another good line from the aforementioned Simpson episode "excuse me, I ordered a Zima, not EMPHY-sema." That was a good episode. They don't write them like that anymore.

That's funny, because my neighborhood, which was founded in the late 50s (old for Houston) has gotten several new deed restrictions passed in the last 3 years, so I guess it can be that simple.

It's that simple if the existing deed restrictions have workable provisions for adding and changing them. But many neighborhoods have more poorly written ones, so without those provisions it is far from simple.

And it shouldn't necessarily be simple.

You are talking about controling what someone does with their own property, on their own property. I am talking about traditional property rights, here, something that Texas supposedly values. It should NOT be simple to capriciously pass a deed restriction to forbid someone from doing something that you find objectionable. I'm not saying it should never be allowed, I think there should be enough hurdles to doing it that it isn't easy, that a group of people should have to do the legwork, convince enough people, get the ball rolling to get it passed.

There are plenty of things in my neighborhood that I think are tacky, ill-considered. I don't like the late 60s - early 70s "Spanish" style houses, that look nothing like real traditional spanish or mission-style architecture, and are really dated looking. Someone a few streets down from me has fake banana trees in planters along his front walkway. I think it looks absurbly tacky to have artificial plants in your front yard. Should I be able to just simply get a few neighbors together, petition the homeowner's association, and a few days later, anyone with a late 60s - early 70s "Spanish" style house has to reface it? Or the guy with the artificial banana trees has to remove them? And if they refuse, the HOA can fine them, and ultimately put a lien on their house?

City ordinances that dictate what can and cannot be done to or on private property, thus infringing on private property rights, need to meet certain burdens. They need to meet one or more of the following considerations:

1. Public safety

2. Public health

3. Preventing nuisances - loud noises, noxious orders, impeding the flow of traffic.

4. Protecting public infrastructure like protecting utilities from damage.

The first two are pretty straight-forward. Now on preventing nuisances, this can't be just "well it looks ugly or tacky." When I lived intown I saw a lot of really tacky newer houses built in older neighborhoods. To my taste, galvalnized corrugated metal is not attractive, but there are a lot of townhome builders who think it looks cool. I saw a lot of tacky colors houses were painted - downright garrish. I could claim living next to either of those houses depresses the value of my property (this is directed not just at you, rps324, but gwilson and others who are talking about protecting property values). But a governmental organization has no business passing laws that decide what is in good taste and what is not, and restricting people's property rights in the process.

Like I said before, number 4, keeping water and sewer lines from being broken by the weight of cars is a legitimate reason to pass this ordinance. Matters of what "looks good" are not. That is not the business of a municipal government.

It is the business of an HOA. An HOA is a private organization, does not have the same obligation to protect property rights as a municipal government. People can choose whether or not to live in a deed restricted community, but once they choose to live in that community, they are privately and contractually obligated to live by the standards of that community, above and beyond what a municipal government is within its rights to control. Even so, the procedures for getting a new deed restriction passed should require jumping enough hurdles that it prevents a few members who get into a position of power in the HOA from arbitrarily ramming their aesthetic sensibilities on the rest of the community. Requiring that the residents not park on their lawns is a very reasonable deed restriction to pass. But other proposed deed restrictions may not be so reasonable - someone may think Christmas lights are tacky, even when put up in december and removed in january. In the name of fairness, you need to apply the same burden of proof that both proposed restrictions are in the best interests and desires of the neighborhood as a whole. That requires making the procedure for passing them difficult, ie not simple.