I have a friend who owns a bar. We have the nannystatism disease in Illinois. The nosmokenazis have made it a 250 dollar fine for smoking anywhere indoors in IL. Anywhere. That means bars, restaurants, anywhere. Oh, I lied, one exception is tobacco stores. You can smoke in them.
The net result is that the business in the bar is way off. Way off. I asked him, what that means, he said, people come in for a beer but they don't linger or stick around like they used to. So, a beer or a drink and then it's off to home.
It's also illegal to smoke in cars if a child is present. It's still legal to smoke in your home. They haven't gotten around to that yet.
Now, to be clear, I'm not involved. Don't spend much time in bars. This whole thing doesn't affect me. But I hate the nannystate. I know that those of you who dislike Mike Huckabee will point out that he wanted to have a nationwide smoking ban. I'm not a one issue voter so even though I don't agree with him, that doesn't disqualify him in my view.
How far will they take us if we don't say no to the nannystate. I wore blue underwear today. Is that the right color nanny?
This stinks far worse than smoke ever did..
1 comment:
Gene,
Here in CA, we're about 10 years ahead of you (or, er, behind you, as the case might be). Most of what you wrote happened here back in the 90's. Recently, because of the tight fitting newer homes on smaller lots, one city banned people from smoking in their own yards because somebody else might smell it. Another city banned all smoking anywhere including people in their own homes, if those homes were attached to other homes (i.e. apartments, condos, townhomes, duplex, etc.), in public, and even in cars within city limits.
I'm not a one issue voter either, but I put something like this in the bigger category of freedom/liberty, and that category is pretty big. I don't vote for nazis.
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