For smokers it’s starting to look more and more like that. This past June was a bad month for many smokers and an early Christmas holiday for many anti smokers and the folks who lobby on behalf of limiting smoking rights and freedoms.
A few of the more news worthy and important smoking items (At least to me) were:
Philadelphia Pennsylvania’s city counsel after wrangling for almost two years finally passed a bill to ban smoking in almost all public spaces. Following the lead of the states of Delaware, and more recently New Jersey (Statewide bans) Philly has decided that it needs to protect people from themselves whether they like it or not. Business owners be damned. At first it got very little support from the council and was voted down at least once and then tabled. But like everything else in Philly the real game was played on the sly and just when it was thought to be dead for at least a good long time it amazingly, out of nowhere came back to life. Councilman Michael Nutter (Who is annoying to the extreme, in Philly that takes some doing) was behind the scenes tweaking the bill and cajoling folks to support the new version and finally got the votes needed. I know the majority of you could care less about Philly politics, but the point I’d like to make here was and is the insidious nature of how this bill was tweaked and passed if only to show that some folks will do anything no matter how deceptive to forward their agenda. Those were small items like not making the bill an all-encompassing ban. For instance, small neighborhood bars would be exempt if they could show that less than 10% of their income came from the sale of food, and outdoor cafes would allow you to light up also, allowing establishments lots of wiggle room to bend and twist and find loopholes. Like one other member of city council said “It’s like allowing smoking in economy class on a plane and not first class.” Typically Philly, and yet a reason the mayor still may not sign it into law. And of course Nutter wants to be our next mayor…blech!
The surgeon general’s office just issued a damning report on the dangers of secondhand smoke and all it’s evils. Justifying what our MD’s, the non-smoking segments of society and politicians have been nagging on and on about for some time now. This was just more fuel for righteous indignation for those of us who in public still dare to strike a match or flick our Bic and ignite tobacco.
What could be one of the most ludicrous notions came from the State of Arkansas and Rep. Bob Mathis. It wasn’t enough that he helped pass legislation making it a crime to smoke in a car in the presence of children but got to seriously thinking and said to himself “Hey Bob, I was just wondering if I could make this into law what would be so unreasonable and crazy about looking into the constitutionality of mothers smoking while pregnant?” While his heart may be in the right place, he’s sticking his nose in all the wrong places.
As it stands now they won’t take me without at least a small scrap.
