Used to be if you didn't like hanging around cigarette smoke, then you just wouldn't go to smokey bars. People have been smoking in drinking establishments pretty much since they've come to be, so it was almost like a 'with one comes the other' sort of thing.
If you had a problem with that, you either didn't go to bars a lot, or you tried to find non-smoking ones, which hardly every existed and thrived, because the amount of people who want to smoke in bars outnumbers those who don't.
I can understand the smoking ban in stores, and restaurants, and bowling alleys, and even dance clubs. These are places that people go for other reasons and could reasonably not want to have to deal with cigarette smoke.
But as far as I ever knew, even growing up, is that bars were for drinking and smoking. If you didn't want to deal with one or the other, then you probably aren't part of the bar crowd.
Now the government has extended the ban so that the minority is getting their way, and people wonder why this is stepping on a bunch of smokers' toes? When they've been used to going to bars and smoking for years?
Personally, I don't care that much. I'll go outside to smoke, or just wait if it's ridiculously cold or raining. But to me, it still seems like laying down at a rock concert and then complaining about the noise.