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You live in a city that has the highest property taxes in North America. The city has the highest child poverty in Canada. The same city also has the dubious distinction of being both the murder and arson capitol of Canada. The library has the lowest book collection of any major city in Canada. Residential streets are full of potholes. The arena was built in 1954. The city does not have the money to sand streets and sidewalks which are often skating rinks in winter. You are on city council and your NUMBER ONE priority, at a cost of $175,000, is Banning Kids from places that allow smoking. Welcome to Winnipeg(Often referred to as "Winterpeg"and "Loserpeg") On January 1,2002 City Council banned indoor smoking in any venue that allows children. You can imagine what this has done to the few functioning businesses in Winnipeg such as restaurants and bowling alleys. Some have banned smoking. Some have banned kids. It's hard to quote exact figures of how the smoking ban has impacted local businesses (the media has been rather silent on that point), but from anecdotal data it has been severe. Restaurants in my neighborhood that were once busy and thriving are now empty and deserted. City Council met a few days ago "to level the playing field" by banning smoking everywhere in Winnipeg. They could not agree to that step - yet. So now for example, if you are unlucky enough to have invested your life savings in a restaurant that has to ban smoking and are located next to a bar that all of a sudden is serving breakfast, your restaurant is empty and the bar is full. If you want to go bowling and enjoy a cigarette along with this leisure activity, you now have to do it after 9:30 P.M. - when kids are banned but smoking is allowed. The bars, which have invested millions in ventilation equipment in the vain hope that this would appease the fanatics, are sitting with the sword of Damocles over their heads. Of the 161 bars, not one has banned smoking. There is a reason for this. The Provincially owned gambling casinos however are a smoker's paradise, on the grounds that its OK for private businesses to lose fortunes - but don't do anything to hurt Provincial revenue. All of this is done in the name of protecting The Children™. Not one iota of valid evidence was ever presented on how second-hand smoke has ever harmed a child. Check out the Forces evidence archives if you think I'm kidding. None exists. Busloads of brainwashed Grade 6 kids were sent to the most recent City Council 'show trial' to lobby the media, who have been cheering this absurdity on, and plead with City Council to support a City-wide smoking ban. You have a better chance of winning Lotto 649 than having a letter published in the Winnipeg Free Press criticizing this insanity. Think I'm kidding? Send them a message at letters@freepress.mb.ca and see if it gets 'ink'. This is not the first time that The Children™ have been cynically exploited to further an agenda. Here's a quote from the expert on the subject: "The state must declare the child to be the
most precious treasure of the people...as long as the government is perceived
as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure
almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation." If there is any good that has come out of the Winnipeg experience (as I write this, it's about minus 40 degrees outside), other Manitoba cities such as Brandon and Thompson have refused to implement similar smoking bans. I wonder why? If you are a businessman or a potential tourist thinking about investing or visiting Winnipeg, a word of advice, Go elsewhere. Warren Klass,
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