We’ve been harassed, disrespected and had our rights taken away. The economy is supposed to grow, but the government tells us how and when and forces restaurant owners to choose between their customers, smokers or nonsmokers. Some Maine restaurants depend on the regulars in the winter and a majority are smokers. What happens to those businesses? What happened to the government wanting to increase business in Maine? Now that the bans have been placed revenue for liquor and tobacco has dropped.

The government is as much to blame as the tobacco companies. They used the teen-agers to enact a bill that would tell them they had to be a certain age to smoke which is the parents’ choice and responsibility, not the government’s. The kids have done it anyway.

We smokers have been pounded on long enough. Give us respect, not disrespect. Maddy Cole Bucksport