smoking bans kill braincells

Posted: March 1st, 2005 | Author: jason | Filed under: politics | View Comments

Smoking bans are all the rage these days. New York, California, and now right here in lil’ ole Decatur, Georgia. For the remainder of this month you can’t smoke in any bar or restaurant before 9 pm. Not too bad as far as smoking bans go, right? Well, starting the first of April, the fascists won’t let you smoke anywhere that ain’t your own home. That’s right, when you go out to the bar for a nice healthy rum and coke, you’ll be protected from all that horrible, nasty tobacco smoke.

Let me go ahead and establish that I am not a smoker. I’ve never been a smoker, never even had a lit cigarette between my lips (I don’t like my clothes smelling like an ashtray and prefer to spend my money on a nice 18 year scotch). What I am though is a believer in the freedom of an adult in the presence of other adults to do whatever the f*ck he or she wants to do.

If you want to legislate non-smoking areas, fine. Write it up and I’ll pat you on the back for it. Secondhand smoke is a danger and you’ve just protected people from it. You own a restaurant or bar and don’t want any of those scummy smokers discoloring your ceilings and littering your floor with filthy butts? Good for you. You want to open a bar next door to that guy and allow smoking? Welcome to capitalism.

But in a city that has a f*cking beer festival you want to outlaw smoking? No way, Jack.

Now I’m coming to the game a bit late here. The city commission passed the ordinance, unanimously, last year (April 19th, you can find the meeting minutes here), so it’s too late to stop it. It’s not too late to protest or throw out those lovely people who voted it in.

Here in Decatur, we have two commission districts, conveniently named District 1 and District 2. The commissioners for District 1 are Bill Floyd (also the mayor) and Fred Boykin. Boykin’s up for election this year (November 8th), I happen to live in his district and I was already prepared to cast my ballot, but then I read the minutes of the April 19th meeting. And I quote:

Commissioner Boykin stated he had been reluctant to support government interference into business operations when it involved the use of a legal product; however, he stated he had come to realize that the issue of banning indoor smoking had become inevitable.

Maybe the guy deserves a break. I’ll at least wait to see who runs against him.

As for District 2, coming from there we have Kecia Cunningham and Mary Alice Kemp. Kemp is up for election this year. Let’s look at her part of the minutes shall we?

Commissioner Kemp thanked everyone for the work done to craft an ordinance for the City Commission’s consideration. Commissioner Kemp acknowledged that it is difficult to address the unknown but that the City Commission’s first responsibility is to protect the public, including protecting public health.

Commissioner Kemp moved to amend Ordinance O-04-13 to modify section 53-33 A-1 and A-3 to change the date from April 1, 2006 to January 1, 2005. The motion died for a lack of a second.

It’s a good thing she’s there to protect us from ourselves. Maybe I should craft an ordinance that outlaws having scissors in public. Somebody could put an eye out.

We also have an At-Large commissioner, Jim Baskett. If you check the minutes, you’ll see that it’s him we have to thank for the deadline being April 2005 and not April 2006, as it was originally going to be. He’s not up for election until 2007, same as Floyd and Cunningham.

I do want to say I’ve meet all five of these people and they all seemed to be nice, friendly people. I’ve got no problems with them personally. My problem is solely with their votes on this ordinance.

In a way the ordinance is not even the real demon. The real demon is the massive conscience complex that governments large and small are growing across this land. Instead of just protecting us from threats of a violent nature, which the police and military already exist to do, they want to protect us from ourselves. That’s not what the government’s for people. That’s why you have a f*cking brain. By the time you realize it, the government will have protected you out of being able to do anything with your brain other than keep your skull from collapsing.

EDIT: I was going to post a link to the ordinance since the city code is online, but it hasn’t been updated since January 2004 and so the relevent section (53, as noted above) is not available there.

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