IMPOSING A POOLING EQUILIBRIUM. Illini or Huskie does not like Chicago's imposition of a smoking ban in all taverns and eateries.

I'm confused about the necessity to make things mandatory instead of voluntary. As a Virginian, I'm aware of the initiative happening up there in Alexandria to ask businesses to voluntarily ban smoking on their premises. 60 businesses voluntarily took up the ban on smoking. (I can't seem to remember where I read that, but you'll have a source for it as soon as I find one)

and what about the poor employees trapped in those smoke-filled taverns slowly marching towards a lifetime of being hooked up to an oxygen tank?

I feel the spirit of Adam Smith within me, "the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employment themselves... make up for a small pecuniary gain in some employments"

If you're a business owner who wants a clear conscious, but no loss of business from the absence of smoking customers... just pay bartenders a compensating wage differential for all of the additional second hand smoke they're inhaling...I betcha people still take those jobs.

It'll even serve as a pretty good line to use on the ladies, "my job is so dangerous that they pay me a compensating wage differential....oh yeah, everyday I go in there, knowing that I could die....but it's an easy choice to make when you know your purpose on this earth is to serve the people."

You have started well, entered apprentice. Here in DeKalb, one of the east side bars has posted a big sign, "Support Hospitality Business. Oppose Smoking Ban," complete with contact information for the mayor and common council members. DeKalb, also, would like to go the Chicago route, despite the potential inefficiency.

Here's the economic theory. Separating equilibria can more efficiently serve populations with different attitudes toward risk, provided the separation can be achieved more cheaply than a common policy can be provided. (That's the short form. One can devote a month or two of an advanced microeconomics class to the details.) We already have a number of separating equilibria in taverns: gay bars, frat bars, sports bars, jaded-old-man bars, biker bars. Most of these have the property of evolving without any special legislation. Taverns are generally obligated to serve any patron of legal drinking age who does not exhibit signs of incapacitation, but clientele are able to self-select. The dynamics of that self-selection are a bit tricky to model with more than two types of client.

In Alexandria, participating bars put up a special "smoke free" sign (try that with "gay free" or "yuppie free" or "frat free") and those that allow smoking weigh the loss of business from smokers differently.