Cell phones in restaurants?

People should be discouraged from using cell-phones in restaurants that find it inappropriate to have their patrons needlessly disturbed. I am far from suggesting a complete ban. Rather it seems as if establishments should make their own choices. I know a couple of restaurants where the atmosphere is such that one could care less (and it is so noisy there that you could not use a phone anyway). In fact, it would not be such a bad idea to have cell-phone licenses issued to restaurants. This would indicate that noise pollution and additional high-tech nuisances often associated with mobile phones are generally not welcome in certain public areas.

There is also another, more important issue. By making a choice about the use of cell-phones in locations typically understood as safe havens of human existence, we are preparing ourselves for other decisions that will be dealing with technologies that have not yet fully evolved. If mobile phones are primarily 'hated' as agents of sonic and social distraction, imagine how much worse things will become when popular personal devices allow one to project a 40-inch holographic videophone screen from a pen-size device.

Our ancestors in their wisdom decided that when gentlemen go inside, their horses must stay outside. By getting it right with cell phones we save ourselves some trouble in the future.