Smoke 'em If You Got'em

So last "night" the Carmel Town Council, who I'm thinking of renaming the Star Chamber for their poorly-noticed late-night sessions, met to discuss, among other things, a new ban on smoking in public for the city of Carmel. From what I could ascertain, most of the speakers were heavily in favor of it, and the council made no secret of the fact that the vast majority of their membership was for it. I even recall the chair having a little outburst of his opinion on smoking and then trying to say that wasn't his opinion. Sometimes politicos are just priceless.

Sadly, I couldn't be there in person, but had I been, I would have liked for them to have heard this little bit of info. I also think smoking is a nasty habit. I come from a family of smokers. My grandparents, my stepfather, my uncles all smoked. I never smoked cigarettes. Never developed a taste for them, thought they were a disgusting habit. Besides, I got all the smoke I needed just being around family growing up. Two of my grandparents lost their lives, one very young, to lung cancer. I know it's nasty and I wouldn't wish its effects on nearly anyone. If I had my way, I'd never eat near smokers in public, or have to deal with them blowing that crap in my face. I always hated going to bars and smelling like smoke. I hate smoking.

That said, what transpired last night in Carmel, and last April in Indianapolis and last year in Monroe County (Bloomington) has absolutely NOTHING to do with the trials and tribulations of being around smokers. And yet, at each of these events, that's all I heard. Every iota of testimony was just like my statements above. They were emotional, laced with personal tragedies and experiences, opinion, and very tired old rhetoric.

In all consideration, if Carmel wanted to say when you're in our city and you want to smoke, don't do it in public areas, that's their right and in their charter. When they have the audacity to sit there, though, and tell a property owner that his private business is their jurisdiction and that they can tell him who he can and cannot allow into his business is segregation. Telling business owners that they cannot allow people to smoke in their establishments is yet one more onerous regulation on a body that already has enough regulations piled on their back that even Atlas shrugs at the sight of them.

Just because the President of the Council or a nurse from a local hospital or a concerned housewife or I think it's a disgusting thing to smoke cigarettes, doesn't give us the right to tell a restaurant owner that he must by law not allow a smoker in or we'll fine or possibly imprison him. What country does that sound like? It doesn't sound like ours.

If a business owner wants to go no-smoking because he thinks it'll bring him more business, and there are economic models that say that's the case, then more power to him. Good luck and I wish him all the best. There are several restaurants and businesses that do this and I applaud them for it. But trying to engineer social change just because you don't like the habit is somewhat facist. What's next, belching and chewing with your mouth open being banned? Hey, it's pretty disgusting. And what about obese people? I mean really big. Do we have to see them eat in public? And aren't they a health hazard too? They could keel over at any minute. There ought to be a law! Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Well, that's the smoking ordinance for you.

I have not seen a definitive study besides a federally-discredited EPA study that shows second hand smoke is a sole causative agent of lung cancer. When that study comes, perhaps these lawmakers might have a little more justification. Until then, it's just bad laws thrown after junk science and personal opinion. That's a helluva way to run a city.

I keep remembering Stacey Keach's great line in the otherwise mediocre Escape From LA. "The United States is a No Smoking Nation". Well, here we come. We're a vote, a couple of quakes, and a John Carpenter score away as we speak. Perhaps not that close, but I see people in power eyeing the offramp.

Offer tax breaks to non smoking businesses. Encourage non-smoking. If you force people to stop an ingrained vice, they just go underground (for ex. Prohibition or Canadian cigarette smugglers). You may stop some, but you turn the rest of the honest citizenry into law breakers. I'm still not clued in on how that's good for anyone except those in power.