Los Angeles City Council Set to Ban Smoking
If you want to smoke a cigar in LA you better do it quickly because the LA City Council is working on a way to basically ban smoking in their “great” city. From the LA Times:
Councilman Tom LaBonge, chairman of the Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee, said it was getting easier to enforce the smoking bans because of cooperation by restaurant owners.
“The patrons are really demanding it,” LaBonge said after his committee directed city lawyers to draft the ordinance Wednesday. “One day we’ll be an absolutely smoke-free world as we move forward, but people still enjoy it, so we’re still allowing it.”
If the patrons are “really demanding it” then why don’t they patronize some other establishment? There are many great restaurants in LA where smoking is not allowed so why not go to those restaurants? The reason why they don’t just take their business somewhere else is because Councilman LaBonge is lying here.
It’s not an outright lie like you or I can tell. He is telling a politician’s lie. I’m positive that some people are complaining about the smoke just as I’m positive that many are complaining about not being allowed to smoke. But this councilman has a vendetta. Just like so many crusading nanny staters out there he has an easy cause: destroy smokers.
He and the rest of the smoke Nazis have convoluted the debate to make it solely about the “health of children.” I guess that’s why smoking isn’t allowed in bars – because the children might, might what exactly in a bar? “Never mind the facts,” the crusading councilman will say, “we are banning smoke in the off chance that some poor kid, who’s just trying to get a splendid public education, will come across one of these dirty animal smokers and breathe in some second hand smoke and die the next day.”
What’s even sadder about this is that those who have the most to lose from a smoking ban, restaurant and bar owners and cigar merchants, are acting like whipped puppies. Some more from the story:
Officials from the California Restaurant Assn. and several cigar groups said Wednesday that they were concerned about the original proposal but were satisfied after negotiations that led to the exemption for age-restricted venues like bars and cigar bars.
“We were able to work with them on a compromise, which makes it so you can’t smoke on the patio of a Chili’s, but if you’re going to a nightclub at midnight on a Friday and it’s age-restricted, smoking would be allowed,” said Michael Hugh Dougherty, an area sales manager for Fuente & Newman Premium Cigars. Dougherty addressed the committee Wednesday.
What a brave man Mr. Dougherty is. Bravo sir! Why don’t you just bundle up your cigars and put them on the street so the crusading LA Council can hack them up? It would be a wonderful photo op for them, they would get to look like prohibitionists did in those black and white film strips when they hacked up barrels of alcohol. And you wouldn’t have to stand up for your livelihood or your (and our) rights any longer.
This is the thing I just don’t get. People who make a living off of selling cigars and/or a place to smoke are more likely to work for a “compromise” and die off slowly than they are likely to fight back. Yes, I am aware of some groups that are fighting back – I actually link to one, Cigar Rights of America – but that’s not enough anymore. If those who profit from the sale of tobacco products are content with a slow death than there isn’t much hope for us cigar smokers.
I’m going to close by re-quoting the councilman:
“One day we’ll be an absolutely smoke-free world as we move forward, but people still enjoy it, so we’re still allowing it.”
If you thought that their goal was to just “protect the children” or some other high and mighty calling then you’re fooling yourself. The endgame for smoking is total prohibition. Ask this guy and he’ll tell you that all cigars are good for is killing you and, in his little world, they should be banned. Is this the America that you want?
