The reasons why not.

In virtually every industry in America, the market is praised for its uncanny ability to give the people what they want. Public broadcasting and healthcare – often regarded as public goods – are almost entirely privatized here in the name of the free market.

As such, I am slightly suspicious when any government wants to make exceptions to this rule. If there does indeed exist such a large market for smoke-free environments, then why do so few exist in the city? According to the free-market principle, if there is enough demand for smoke-free environments, someone will cater to that demand. The fact that this must be forcibly imposed on the public as an act of governance suggests that other interests are at play. If the government is so concerned with public safety, perhaps a better focus would be on improving the often wretched conditions public housing residents are forced to live in, rather than policing the leisure time of citizens.

Ultimately, one must distinguish between a right and a privilege. Going out for dinner or a drink is a privilege; it is a social act, not one of biological necessity, and therefore individuals have freely chosen to put themselves in that environment. The right to determine the smoking policy lies with the owner, for whom the establishment is not public, but rather a piece of private property. If she or he chooses to permit smoking, then individuals who are bothered by this decision can opt to take their business elsewhere. Considering the fact that children lack such a choice regarding where they can live, I find it particularly interesting that the home is one of the few environments where people are given license to smoke. Instituting a smoking ban in places of business and justifying it in the name of public safety is evidence of at least skewed priorities if not blatant favoritism as to whose public safety is valued in society.

Especially in the context of a bar or cafe, cigarette smoke is simply a given. Instituting a smoking ban in Chicago would transform the bar and café scene significantly. It's a bar, not a healthcare facility, and any attempt to make one like the other is obviously confusing the two clearly different functions these institutions serve. A bar is one of the few arenas where potential liver failure and lung cancer are rendered irrelevant and, ironically, life is celebrated with bodily abuse. A smoking ban would also destroy one of the many things that currently makes our city so great: New Yorkers got screwed on it ages ago and we haven't yet!

The reasons why.

Smoking, including second-hand smoke, is harmful to your health . Banning public smoking would eliminate smoke in public places, which in turn would be beneficial to your health. Yawn.

Armed with an arsenal of statistics, politicians and anti-smoking advocates have beaten this argument into the public in order to justify public smoking bans. While this argument might seem logical to those in favor of the ban, others are reasonably looking for more justification than the circular argument that banning public smoking will significantly decrease public smoking.

History has repeatedly shown that the government can criminalize something – a good (drugs), service ( abortion ) or practice (sodomy) – but it certainly cannot eliminate it. Once it has been banned by the government, groups on the margins of society will inevitably form to meet the needs of the newly disenfranchised. So for those who feel that a public smoking ban is an infringement on one's personal liberties and will lead to a more conformist law and order society, allow me to take you back to the Golden Age of Chicago, a time when your very own city erupted in lawlessness and stood as the capital of gangster chic. Enter the 1920s and with it the infamous Prohibition Era.

Did the banning of alcohol stop our ancestors from drinking? Hell no. They developed an entire underground economy to facilitate the continued production, sale and consumption of liquor. And with this, Chicago became a cultural mecca. A smoking ban in Chicago might be just the thing we need to shake things up today.

In what could become the second Chicago Prohibition Era, the new social outcasts who so selfishly want to enjoy both a drink and a cigarette in a public context will be forced underground to a modern version of the speakeasy. Chicago will once again be like the roaring 20s, except with less fancy clothing (probably), less machine guns (hopefully) and worse music (definitely).

The government may enact a smoking ban in our city, but we need not necessarily make ourselves subject to it. We can embrace the smoking ban as a rallying point. So bring it on, Daley. Let's get this city roaring again and return Chicago to its former glory days.