The smoking-ban movement has certainly gained momentum in Indiana:
In the last 13 months, partial or comprehensive bans on smoking have been approved in Jeffersonville and 14 other Indiana communities.
Most people seem to have accepted the primary argument for such bans, which is that secondhand smoke kills. (I could make an argument the other way, but public sentiment has so overwhelmed science that it would be pointless.) The primary debate these days, which is played out in one way another in all the ban debates, is how much control people should have over their own businesses and how to manage the idea of choice for both smokers and non-smokers.
However one feels about the bans, this is the kind of issue that should play out the way it has been in Indiana, community by community rather than by state edict. A lot of communities are passing bans right now, but no-smoking laws have also failed in a lot of communities. And not all the laws are the same. Fort Wayne restaurants, for example, can allow smoking if there is a completely enclosed section for it. But Indianapolis restaurants (including even bars, which are exempt here) have to choose whether to serve only adults or all people. Those who serve only adults can allow smoking; those who don't can't.
And many of the measures, whether they pass or fail, come down to a one-vote margin. That means any coming measure could go either way. It also means that voters, if they don't like the way it goes, have an identifiable target to go after if they want to change things back or get something changed, as the case may be. It's democracy in all its messy glory.
