The rational way to handle smoking laws is to allow private owners to decide these things on their own. If a bar wants to allow smoking, fine. Post it on the door, and there you go. If waitresses don't like it, they don't have to work there. If a bar wants to be a no-smoking zone, that's fine, too.

I don't like cigarettes, and go out of my way to avoid them. In Nevada, where the government isn't quite as psycho as California's, people smoke. I requested and got no-smoking rooms in hotels. I looked for and found no-smoking restaurants. I avoided casinos, where everyone seemed to be smoking. There may have been no-smoking casinos--I didn't really look or care.

I have seen proposals that would make smoking illegal in one's own home, apparently for "the children."

If you really want to see a "nanny state," wait until everyone's health care is a "public expense."