To grill or not to grill

I really don't want to get involved in this debate for fear of seeming too one sided but...

The grilling debate has been going on for years in the City of Glendale. Residents who live in the areas neighboring some of the major banquet halls have some valid concerns. But, for a second, I'd like to play devil's advocate, particularly in regards to the issue of outdoor grilling (I feel like its been a one-sided debate so far).

Those who live directly behind or next to a banquet hall complain of the smoke produced by the constant grilling. I can understand that not everyone loves the smell of kebab as much as us Armos do but... cities always have "desirable" and "undesirable" places to live for that exact reason. Ideally, no one would have to live next to the banquet hall, near the factory, or next to Glendale High School (with the horrible traffic and parking issues). But you can't very well isolate all schools, businesses, factories, shopping centers, etc. Someone lives there. Property values are lower for a reason. I know its sounds horrible for me to say but its a reality.

My family used to live next to a Del Taco. As you can imagine, it wasn't prime property. There were safety concerns, noise concerns, and all the other stuff that people complain about with late night businesses. Can you imagine if my parents started a battle with Del Taco claiming, "this is our home and we're not moving - you need to move not us!" That is essentially the argument that many residents living close to businesses they don't like are making. Once the business is there and established, it has as much of a right to be there as you. (Of course, prior to the business being established, you can fight it, complain and argue all you want... that is when you should be battling).

As for everyone else in the community... many people believe that outdoor grilling is bad for air quality. Yes, smoke is bad. Yes, indoor grilling would save that. Yes, our air in So Cali is polluted enough as is and we really shouldn't contribute to it. I agree with all that. But (the flip side again):
1. People have been grilling on outdoor fires since the beginning of time. There are probably thousands of people grilling at any given time and I'm sure many more than a few million grilling on any given weekend. People have fireplaces on throughout the winter. Why not ban those?
2. Factories spew (I'm making up numbers here...) 100 times more smoke and pollutants than grills. If you're going to start a crusade - start with the big problems. (Oh ya, and stop driving or riding the bus - if you're going to be "green" you should be true to the cause. Stop using hairspray. And while you're at it, start recycling, stop littering, don't smoke, don't use diapers... okay, maybe I'm sure you get my exagerated point).
3. Nancy Grubb recently wrote to the GNP, "Do we really need to poll the residents of our community to understand how 10 square feet of intensely smoking fires all over our city for 10 to 12 hours a day would affect our air quality and health?" Others have said that the grills would be running all day, 7 days a week. Okay folks, they don't really barbeque all that much. They only use the barbeques for a few hours a day on the weekends. Most banquet halls don't have events on weekdays and when they do, they produce food in much smaller quanitites (typically they only serve appetizers at the mixers they host on weekdays). So stop stating untrue "facts."
4. People keep talking about Burger King. Really? I mean, do you REALLY want to compare a meal cooked on an outdoor barbeque to BURGER KING? Okay, I'm not even going to go here because if you don't already see whats wrong with this comparison, there is no hope for you.

I will say that there have been some valid arguments made against the B.H.s outdoor grilling. First, if you allow banquet halls to have outdoor grilling, where will you draw the line? Isn't it unfair to allow banquet halls and not restaurants? Yes, it probably is. I think a natural line would be drawn just because some businesses find more convenient to grill indoors. Furthermore, most places don't need to cook for 400 people at once (finding space to cook all that indoors is difficult). Its to Burger Kings advantage to cook on a charbroiler rather than running a fire outside all day long. But, ya, the line would get a little confusing when other mom and pop shops decided to join the outdoor grilling bandwagon. How would you ever justify allowing one group to barbeque outside and not the other? And trying to differentiate between a banquet hall and a restaurant is already a huge mess - so trying to issue "use permits" to BH's and not restaurants would obviously start another war.

I'm not sure where I stand on this honestly. I would have to see some strong evidence suggesting that outdoor grilling will have a huge detrimental affect on our air quality before I'd be against it. But I'd want to see exactly how "grilling" permits would be handed out before supporting it. I just wish people would stop with the "black and white" "this is how it is" arguments and the ridiculous statements they make (with ABSOLUTELY NO BACKGROUND knowledge). There is always two sides to every story and neither is absolute truth!