November 29 - The Goon Squad Comes Calling - There's smoking going on in Howard County, Maryland.  Call out the national guard!  Faced with the prospect of going broke or ignoring a stringent smoking ban law the business owners in this small county chose the later.  How selfish!  Something called the Smoke Free Howard Co. Tobacco Coalition wants the full weight of the law to rap the offenders pronto.  SFHC wants the county council to tighten the law so that even more business owners will be faced with the dilemma of following the law or going broke.  The council should swat SFHC away and redo the smoking ban law to reflect the obvious will of the people.

November 29 - Whole Lota Smokin Goin On - "They come to a point where they got to decide, are they going to start throwing their customers out for smoking?"

"They can't come in here and tell me it's illegal to do something that it's legal to do."

And there's the rub.  Tobacco products, including the dreaded cigarette, are legal.  Smoking them is a lawful activity.  Government has put its imprimatur on smoking tobacco.  Not one state, county or city has declared smoking illegal.  

The businesses in Lexington, Kentucky are refusing to treat smokers like criminals, a good thing since if they did they would go broke.  Anti-tobacco claims that 95% of businesses are complying with the 100% smoking ban.  That may be true if bars and restaurants are lumped in with every other business but obviously there is nowhere near 95% compliance in the bars.  Even in anti-tobacco San Francisco health department surveys revealed that only 40% of the bars adhering to the smoking ban.

The smoking ban has been a contentious issue in Lexington ever since the city council banned smoking several years ago.  Newly elected council members have indicated that they are open to revising the ban.

November 24 - Why Bars Are Not "Smokefree" - One can sometimes be tempted to use common language. It frankly becomes tiresome repeatedly debunking ludicrous statistical tricks and other patent nonsense that tobacco prohibitionists spout so nauseously and incessantly.

What has become of common sense? Remember, just for instance, that the Guinness book's oldest human, Jeanne Calment who lived to 122, was a daily cigarette smoker throughout her adult life. Yet anti-smoking goes on spreading panic, most egregiously, about "secondhand smoke." 

It makes you angry. "The peril of passive smoking" trumps the old prohibitionist hysteria about "the fatal glass of beer" hands down. Indeed, smoking itself compares to weight as a health factor, like being either very fit or very fat, depending as whether one smokes sparingly or spatially. 

What's obvious is obvious. One would expect to find a relatively higher proportion of smokers amongst fun-loving denizens of the night-life, just as one would expect to find a comparatively higher proportion of non-smokers (and non-drinkers) amongst regular church-goers, than might be typical of the population at large. Bar and restaurant smoking prohibitions deny customers basic and expected accommodation. 

In relaxed bars and pubs particularly, smoking is characteristically widespread, amongst even those who generally abstain from tobacco. Prissy types and health hysterics are a distinct minority in "fun" spots. In fact one should think that most such sober-minded persons would tend to avoid all bars except under pressing conditions of social obligation, just as many fun-lovers stay out of church, but for weddings and funerals. 

This is why voluntarily smoke-free bars are rare indeed even despite decades of panicked passive smoking propaganda. So the story is the same wherever fanatical government-mandated smoking bans appear. Lots of places try to cheat and lots of others go belly-up. 

Journalist Eddie Barnes asked Irish pub manager Margaret Brogan about prohibitionists' claims to the contrary: "What about the claims that the ban has actually boosted business — that it has brought out non-smokers to the pubs for the first time? 'Crap,' says Brogan, candidly." And so say all of us.

November 4 - Duluth Rejects Smoking Ban -  Duluth has been subject to a controversial smoking ban for several years.  By today's zero tolerance approach to liberty the Duluth smoking ban is fairly reasonable.  Although it does shred property rights it does provide a modicum of choice for smokers and nonsmokers.  When it went into effect the anti-tobacco operatives who had crafted the ban swore that their work was done and that they wouldn't return to toughen the ban.  They lied.  This time their lies were rejected.

Asked whether to install total prohibition, the good citizens of Duluth, by a healthy margin, said "Hell no."   Despite all the money spent by groups such as the American Lung Association, despite the constant pro-ban coverage by the local rag and despite the "mountain of evidence" that secondhand smoke equals death, the citizens voted their self-interest and voted for liberty.

Dan Hass, president of FORCES-Duluth, is vigilant in bringing the facts about smoking ban to the business community.  He is relentless in exposing the deceptions of the the rich and powerful anti-smoking organizations who have lied to the citizens of Duluth.  His hard work was instrumental in this victory for common sense, common decency and freedom of choice. 

November 4 - Smoking In Toledo -  So worried was the anti-tobacco control industry about the repeal of Toledo's smoking ban that they persuaded Stanton Glantz, currently ensconced in luxurious surroundings at the University of California, to stump for prohibition in his home town.  The anti-smoking conman give it his best shot and we are happy to report that it wasn't enough to save the wildly unpopular smoking ban.

By a healthy margin the citizens radically altered the total ban into something that approaches civility.  From smoking banned everywhere now small business owners of bowling alleys, bingo parlors, restaurants and bars are again free to cater to their smoking customers desires.  

"This is a vote from the blood, sweat, and tears of a lot of individual bar owners in Toledo. Now we have an ordinance that is a little more fair, that accommodates the interests of smokers and nonsmokers alike," said one jubilant bar owner.

The anti-tobacco operatives are crying the blues and consoling themselves that the voters really didn't know what they were doing.  One theorizes that many people voting "Yes" to relax the total ban really thought they were voting to ban smoking.  Such condescension is typical of a the type of person attracted to the anti philosophy.

Despite an avalanche of anti-tobacco propaganda from the vitriolic Toledo Blade the citizens made the right decision and they made it decisively against all odds.  May such a retaking of freedom become the norm.

November 3 - Saving The Pub Owners From Themselves -  The first signs of a business backlash against the Scottish Executive’s proposed smoking ban have emerged, with one of Scotland’s biggest finance firms believed to be selling off shares in a major pub chain.

Scotland's First Minister Jack McConnell is poised to impose a draconian smoking ban within weeks. McConnell endorses the opinion of anti-smoking advocates that the ban will serve to increase tavern business. Devastated tavern owners in other ban-oppressed areas cry out desperately to the contrary, but those of us uninvolved financially in the hospitality business, can afford to be open-minded. Of course it could be that smoking has been permitted in virtually every Scottish pub, by choice, for half a millennium, due to a massive misunderstanding of popular preference. It could be that drinkers are actually grim and abstemious persons, who all along have only wandered into pubs purely by mistake, when they were actually seeking the atmosphere of a puritanical health spa. The high proportion of smokers amongst barroom clientèle may for centuries have secretly wished to be greeted at their accustomed haunts, with the friendly phrase, "Get the hell out of here or I'll call the cops." Of course, all of that could be, but we'll have to await the advent of the ban to find out. What we do see, in anticipation of the ban, is that wise investors are getting the hell out of the Scottish bar business.

November 2 - Softening The Smoking Ban -  The smoking ban imposed in Toledo, Ohio has been extremely unpopular and has resulted in many businesses going broke.  The citizens have the chance to correct the situation today at the ballot box.  Weighing in is the rabidly anti-tobacco Toledo Blade which supports the anti-tobacco agenda as if it were written by God on tablets of stone.  This article, however, examines the history of smoking bans after tobacco was introduced into Europe 500 years ago.  Smoking ban proponents should educate themselves about the people who were pioneers in prohibition.  They include dictators, the church of the Inquisition era and various busybodies of the most annoying persuasion.  Punishments meted out for enjoying tobacco include imprisonment, exile, bodily mutilations and decapitation.  The Sultan of Turkey executed smokers as infidels.

Are these the sort of goons that inspire the citizens?  Maybe a modern era goon, Stanton Glantz, the mechanical engineer turned medical professor turned conman is more in tune with the times.  Why Stanton Glantz, who fled Toledo as soon as he could, is consulted by the Toledo Blade on a local matter is anyone's guess.  His comments on the issue are as honest as the science that manufactured the secondhand smoke scare.  Reminiscing about previous, less stingent statewide attempts to ban smoking in Ohio, Glantz opines:

"They would have been better off letting us win," said Stanton Glantz, another member of the group. "We would have accepted no-smoking sections and gone on to other problems."

Sure you would have.  For Stanton Glantz the only problem on earth is smokers enjoying a cigarette.  Until each and every one of them is eliminated he will not have won.

November 1 - American Lung Association's Penchant For Wasting Taxpayer Money -   Several years ago the Minnesota city of Duluth enacted a harsh smoking ban.  Although it stopped slightly short of imposing total prohibition, the results have been disastrous for private business.  Anti-tobacco promised that there would be no additional toughening of the ban but, as always, they lied and wrote a voter initiative to turn the screws tighter against the small business people who are trying to live under the current ban.

Adding insult to injury anti-tobacco, in the form of the American Lung Association, is complaining that those who oppose the initiative are spreading untruths.  As Dan Hass, FORCES-Duluth, notes, the ALA can hardly accuse others of lying when its whole smoking ban agenda is comprised of nothing by a tissue of lies.  Further, he asks, why is this political group receiving over $1-million of taxpayer dollars and using those funds to promote a political agenda?

October 28 - Paris tries to stub out smoking in bars and cafes - Angered by the France's refusal to get with President Brush's Iraq program many Americans are angry with what they consider the arrogance and self-satisfaction of the French.  The most vitriolic are recycling the tired old chestnuts about French rudeness and condescension towards American tourists.  Instead of ragging the French, freedom-loving Americans should praise France for refusing to worship at the Anglo-American cult of health...at least for now.

Hoping to be the moral, cultural and political center of the expanding European Union the French government has been dabbling in Big Health social engineering schemes that have ruined Ireland and threaten to castrate Europe. Raising tobacco taxes, agonizing over obesity and fretting about alcohol, the government risks alienating its citizens and destroying a civilized refuge for North Americans weary of the brutal sterility turning the land of the brave into the land of the hysterical hypochondriacs.

The good news, as this news story indicates, is that the French are resisting their government's attempt to impose the values of Berkeley upon Paris.  Despite the nonsense that the Americans and the British are clamoring for "smoke-free" restaurants and bars, the proprietors of France are not likely to voluntarily impose smoking bans on their restaurants and bars.  Just like their American peers, the French are quite capable of deciding their own smoking policies and those policies always favor treating all customers, including smokers, with respect.  If the government follows the ant-tobacco industry's demand to impose prohibition we are likely to see another French Revolution, this time against the tyranny of Big Health.

October 27 - Santa Cruz expected to ban beach smoking -  Santa Cruz California is proud of its "progressive" politics, although the policies enacted by the loony left city council has driven most productive people out of the city long ago.  It now is playing follow the leader and will soon ban smoking from the beach.  Trash is the justification, although anyone strolling down the Boardwalk will realize that cigarette butts are the least of anyone's worries.  Secondhand smoke also make as appearance even though there is not one study that even pretends to find nonsmokers are harmed by wisps of tobacco smoke outdoors.  The real reason, of course, is that there is a particular type of person today who revels in denigrating his neighbors.  That type of person provides the makeup for many city councils in trendy areas throughout the country.

The number of butts hitting the beach will not diminish even if this idiotic ordinance is enforced, a very dubious proposition. The butts appearing on the beach come from the storm drains into which discarded butts are washed from the streets. Now that California smokers have to smoke outside the litter problem has really kicked into high gear. One way to end the litter is to repeal the silly "public place" smoking bans imposed by the hard left.  Since these people never do anything right, expect the beach butt problem to become permanent, ban or no ban.

October 25 - Bright light of Elmwood darkens with parting shot at government -  As winter grows near driving smokers indoor, the devastation caused by the New York statewide smoking ban accelerates.  From Buffalo comes the sad tale of a bar, a consistent moneymaker for 23 years, has reached the end of its road.  The owner publicly says that he is selling the bar rather than cope with the severe losses in revenue brought to him by the smoking ban.  Predictably anti-tobacco is disputing his losses although it is strange that anyone would doubt the bar owner's word while taking that of an organization that makes its living prevaricating about smoking bans.  To put it clearly so that anyone can understand his plight, the owner says that, prior to the smoking ban, the bar was making $100,000 to $115,000 per month.  After the ban the bar brings in only $80,000 per month.  Such a loss, considering that bills and salary must be paid from the monthly gross, renders such an establishment unprofitable.  This story is repeated in the financial downturns of thousands of bars and restaurants in New York State.

March 26 - Rolling The Small Business Owners - Back in the late 1990s, Shaun Trenholm started a bar, Second Wind, that catered to nonsmokers.  It promptly went out of business.

"We didn't make jack doo-dah," said Trenholm, who owns the more successful West Coast Saloon at 2222 Iowa, where smoking is allowed.

That's why news of a possible smoking ban in public places around Lawrence makes Trenholm nervous

This article notes the existence of one no-smoking bar, the Bella Lounge, in Lawrence, Kansas. Bella's, and a smoker-friendly bar in Lawrence called The Wheel Cafe, are both owned by Rob Farha. As he explains, "I don't have a line around the corner at the nonsmoking place. Why do we need a ban if we already have choices for people to make?"

The answer, Mister Farha, is blowin' in the wind. You and your fellow bar and restaurant owners are wise to plan resistance to a proposed local smoking ban but you must prepare for the worst. Your question is eminently reasonable but reason has nothing to do with this. 

Anti-smoking has a standard strategy by now. It will descend on your Mayor and your City Commission, and likely carry them away, with primitive lies, and invitations to fear. Be prepared to expose and debunk your opposition's fallaciously annotated onslaught of hysteria. If you expect reason, or fairness, or any genuine willingness to compromise from them, you'll be wrong. 

There are places in the mind that are not rational. That is the domain where anti-smoking reigns, so you must be prepared to war, where the battle will be placed. Look in your Commissioners' eyes, as they absorb anti-smoking's solicitations to panic, and you'll see the change. They won't be in Kansas anymore.

March 25 - Fun City?  No Longer - America's Fun City is now Cleveland. Or so says a New Yorker, lately barred from dancing in most night spots, and from smoking in virtually all of them. Meanwhile, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is once again claiming a thousand NYC secondhand smoke victims per year, back down from his escalating claims of recent months, of up to two or three thousand. Maybe what Mike's really referring to is the number of people who believe him. Or the number of out-of-work bartenders since the ban came in. Or the number of votes he's likely to get for re-election. Bye, bye, Bloomberg.

March 24 - Tightening The Vise - The Santa Monica City Council will give initial consideration Tuesday night to an ordinance that would ban smoking at the city's beach, pier and public waiting areas, such as bus stops.  The draft ordinance also would expand on a state law that bans smoking within 20 feet of the entrance to a public building.

Violators would be issued citations carrying $250 fines, said Deputy City Attorney Adam Radinsky. 

Santa Monica banned smoking in public parks last year.

San Clemente in Orange County and Solana Beach in San Diego County have banned smoking on their beaches. Some council members in those cities backed the bans for health reasons, while others favored them because they thought it would stop smokers from littering the beaches with cigarette butts. 

There are two reasons that Santa Monica will soon prohibit taxpaying citizens from enjoying the once public beaches.  Neither reason has nothing to do with health or litter.  First, outlawing smokers will, according to anti-tobacco orthodoxy, induce them to quit.  The second, and more encompassing, reason for this legislation is that there is a huge gang of people who are paid to demonize smokers.  This gang, supported by the Californian taxpayer, needs to justify its existence.  Smoking has already been banned in bars and restaurants so the great outdoors must now be swept clean of smokers as were the German streets swept clean of Jews.  The gang's resources are now being spent on ridding smokers from sight while simultaneously making it difficult to smoke even at home.  There are task forces in place in each county pressuring apartment owners to ban smoking and other task forces exploring ways to prevent home owners from smoking in their own houses if children are present.  The goal of the state Tobacco Control Section is to run every smoker out of the state.  When that happens, the money collected from smokers having dried up, the gangs will not fade away.  They will merely transfer their hatefulness onto another target group.

It's amusing that Santa Monica is one of the most "progressive" cities in the country.  As such the city council is on record opposing laws such as the Patriot Act as "totalitarian" and a threat to liberty.  Those running Santa Monica consider Attorney General John Ashcroft to be the gravest threat to freedom in our time.  Try peddling that pap to the first smoker thrown in jail for smoking on the Santa Monica Pier.

March 24 - Paper Corrects Its Error -  A March 18 editorial should have mentioned that proposed anti-smoking initiatives would not apply to businesses operated on tribal lands. Also, Phillip Morris is not a sponsor of one of the initiatives being advanced by a group representing mainly nontribal gambling businesses.

The remaining text, unfortunately but unsurprisingly, runs through the usual threadbare justifications to prohibit property owners from setting their own smoking policies.  Most newspapers in the country are knee-jerk smoking ban proponents and have big problems allowing people to make their own decisions.  

The King County Journal, however, is to be commended for correcting two inaccuracies in an editorial last week.  Relying on information sent out by the American Lung Association front group that wrote an initiative to ban smoking in Washington state, the paper said that passing it would "protect" all employees from secondhand smoke and that a competing, although less severe initiative, was sponsored by Philip Morris.  The real story is that smoking would continue to be permitted in tribal establishments should the ALA initiative be passed and Philip Morris has nothing to do with the competing initiative.  The ALA just can't tell the truth and has snookered many papers into making the same error made by the King County Journal.

This editorial correction was made possible by a persistent and polite presentation of the facts.  It may be considered trivial that one newspaper did correct one could be considered two irrelevant errors but Rome wasn't built in a day.  One paper at least has had its eyes opened to the duplicity of anti-tobacco.  The editors will remember to check all the assumptions made by people who have been given a pass for many years.  Pointing out anti-tobacco's lies is always worthwhile.

March 24 - Anti-tobacco Has Its Head Up Its... -  Tavern industry associations and air-cleaning companies said technology can do as good a job clearing the air as the outright ban on indoor smoking, but proponents for the law against lighting up indoors said they're just puffing on junk science.

[Russell Sciandra, director of the Center for a Tobacco Free New York] and other health advocates are resorting to "fear mongering" instead of allowing a fair change to a law that is killing business, said the New York Nightlife Association.

Paul Chirayath, the chief executive of FailSafe Air Safety Systems, said his equipment has been proved to virtually eliminate poisons in the air.

"If I, with a machine, can eliminate the smoke, what's the problem?" he said.

It depends on the style of a place and its clientele. Some New York bars plug along all right despite the smoking ban. Others have been absolutely devastated. New York legislators know they've knifed the industry. They know about the lawsuits, and the increasing public awareness, that secondhand smoke propaganda is ridiculous. Defiance and ridicule of the law is rife. Still, the lawmakers would like to place a fig leaf, over their embarrassment. So, some congressional members have suggested letting smoking return, in places that install air cleaning systems. 

The problem is that anti-tobacco's only, although completely bogus, rationalization for smoking bans is based on protecting innocent bystanders from toxic air.  Remove the "toxins" and there is no problem, except for anti-tobacco.  It's telling that the fanatical goon squad is doing everything possible to prevent all establishments from utilizing devices that purifies the air completely.  The tobacco control industry does not want there to be any research in ventilation systems because their entire house of cards would fall.

Paul Chirayath's FailSafe Air Systems are accepted for use in removing poisonous gas, in military situations, and to provide a level of air sanitation suitable for hospital operating rooms. Little surgery is performed in New York barrooms, so you'd think a system like Chirayath's might be overdoing it, to provide suitable air filtration for healthy people to sit in, drinking cocktails. Not just tobacco smoke, but factory emissions, auto exhaust, and whatever else goes in and out the barroom door, would be finely filtered. Fresh sanitized air would be circulated throughout the bar. 

Who could argue with that? Enter James L. Repace, notorious traveling snake oil salesman, on the anti-smoking payroll. Repace was behind the scathingly denounced EPA "research" on secondhand smoke (really a contrived reanalysis of previous studies which distorted the original results.) Now he's hawking his standard spiel to New York legislators. A cigarette across a room means death to all! It can't be blown away! Repace claims that would require a "tornado-like condition" at the least! So that's the blowhard case. New York legislators, you'd better know better, by now. It's past time to can the ban.

March 19 - "Toothless" Ban - Smoking in most workplaces may soon go the way of the spittoon in Wayne County, but scofflaws probably shouldn’t worry about government beating a path to their door.  In a move that will be cheered by public health activists but will raise doubts about enforceability, the Wayne County Board of Commissioners is expected to approve an ordinance today to prohibit smoking in private businesses except bars, restaurants and casinos.

Commissioner Ilona Varga, D-Detroit, expects the ordinance to pass, although she said it has been watered down to the point of worthlessness.  She plans to offer an amendment exempting businesses with smoking rooms from the ban.

“It has no teeth,” she said. “It’s basically a law that’s not going to work, so why not vote for it?”

Smokers, and other sane persons, are right to be outraged at a proposed "workplace smoking ban" in Wayne County, Michigan. The ban pretends to moderation. It exempts bars, restaurants, and casinos. Yet the outrage is not moderate nor should it be. If area residents abide this step, their control-mad Anti will be back, and soon, to claim every last inch of Wayne County. Across the world today, the scowling old girl with the hatchet is moving in step by step, toward our living rooms. She's even begun to admit it now in moments of arrogant candor. She's going to make you conform. Or else place you in a smoke-free jail cell.

March 18 - The Gangs That Can't Get Their Facts Straight - The legislative session in Washington is over, anti-tobacco activists failed to persuade legislators to impose a statewide smoking ban, and the die is now cast for aggressive media promotion of tobacco control’s agenda, until at least election day November 2004. Fresh out of a legislative session where they were summarily rebuffed by legislators, tobacco control operatives now seek to do an end run around legislative intent with a generously-funded and well-oiled initiative for a statewide smoking ban. In now-predictable style, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has come out smokin’ less than a week after the legislature adjourned. Today’s edition of The PI includes two pieces of work that should stun even the most jaded among us as preeminent examples of sheer chutzpah, delinquent thinking, and colossal gall. That such efforts are aided and abetted by the reported point-man for Washington Breathe, Tacoma City Council member Kevin Phelps, and therefore the front man for pharmaceutical nicotine, merely adds sour icing to an already-deflated anti-tobacco cake. The Tacoma News Tribune chimed in with its own promotional editorial, which is noteworthy for its misleading characterization of what the Breathe Easy Washington statewide smoking ban actually accomplishes.

It's become painfully clear that the Washington state smoking bans are based on information that is false and known to be false.  The anti-tobacco industry takes deception to new heights yet is outdone in sheer cynicism by the old, worn-out publications that rake in the pharmaceutical advertising dollars without even pretending to cover the smoking ban issue competently.  The bias is glaring.

March 17 - Uganda.  An Anti-smoker's Dream Come True - Uganda has banned smoking in all "public places," officially defined as anywhere any non-smoker doesn't want any smoking going on, at any time, including smokers' own private homes. There's a partial exception. If you have no children, nor any non-smoking visitors, and you keep all the blinds closed, you can still apparently get away with smoking inside your own house. That's the big loophole the government can close at the next legislative session. Sales of tobacco products, and tax collection on same, are unaffected by the new law. Reportedly, a lone public health official suddenly declared the ban in progress, while all the other officials were away "at a burial," or something like that. No we're not making this up. It's a preview of Massachusetts in 2005. By the way, the police are confused regarding enforcement, and Ugandans are ignoring the law fairly universally. Pray they keep at it, and smokers, when making your next regularly scheduled visit to Uganda, pack extra ammo.

March 11 - UK- Smoking Ban A Bust - The Student Union at Britain's University of Leeds hedged its bet on political correctness. It prohibited smoking in Student Union campus buildings during the day but not at night. The daytime ban included Student Union bars, and the Union extended this complete smoking ban to the night hours, at one of its campus bars. At another bar smokers were merely segregated from their betters in the evening. At the Student Union's three other bars, and at its three nightclubs, smoking after 7 p.m. was left unrestricted. 

Surely these "moderate" and "progressive" steps would delight the whole student body and make the prohibitionist bars (only in this age could such a description be other than satirical) into a Mecca for the superior beings that all non-smoking boozers are. Surely everyone recognized the ungodly peril of "secondhand" smoke! Or so thought the social engineers at the Student Union. However, within just weeks student protests, and more importantly, the bars' cash receipts came in. So the ban is out. One month's painful financial losses were as much as the Student Union could bear. 

Can we anticipate an argument from anti-smoking activists, that if a partial ban in one set buildings was a remarkable disaster, then total town-wide, district-wide, or nation-wide bans would surely be a remarkable success? Unquestionably, yes, they're already starting at it. Will politically correct media wholeheartedly endorse that kind of logic? Absolutely. 

The government, unlike the Leeds Student Union, does not operate bars to support itself. Following in the long tradition of flim-flam artists, anti-smoking lobbyists oil their cons with flattery, and our legislators and bureaucrats just love being called "health heroes." So when will these puffed-up tyrants start listening to the private citizens and business owners who suffer the real consequences of government-mandated smoking bans? When we beat the message into them, till they hurt so bad, they can't bear it.

March 10 - Small Business Owners File Suit - A coalition of Washington restaurant owners sued the District yesterday in hopes of keeping an initiative off the November ballot that would ban smoking in bars and restaurants in the city.

Andrew J. Kline, the attorney for the restaurants, said the initiative is not suitable for the ballot because it would interfere with sales tax and cigarette tax revenue collected by the District. In addition, he said, the elections board has not followed proper procedures. Among other things, the board failed to give adequate notice of a public hearing on the measure last month, Kline said. 

I guess at this late date it would be useless to say also that smoking bans are an unjustified taking of private property and that, after all, there are no health benefits to banning smoking since secondhand smoke has not been shown to cause negative health effects.   Still, it's better to nip this ban in the bud so kudos to the small business owners who are not hiding their heads in the sand.

For laughs, check out the anodyne prose of the reporter:

A push for a statewide ban in Maryland also is under way, but the Senate Finance Committee recently killed the measure, making its passage unlikely soon. Delaware, New York, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts and California prohibit smoking inside certain places.

By "certain places" the reporter means every speck of private property.  The reporter knows full well that the only reason these states pop up in stories such as this is to persuade the locals that the smoking ban proposed by anti-tobacco special interests is a reasonable restriction that respects both property rights and nonsmokers health.  All these states are losing money hand over fist because of their smoking bans.  Connecticut and New York are both reconsidering their smoking bans and the issue is far from settled in Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts and even California.

March 9 - No to EU-wide ban on tobacco in the workplace: do not believe them  – ‘The European Union’s commissioner for health and consumer protection, Mr David Byrne, has stated that he will not be introducing community-wide legislation on tobacco in the workplace. He made his comments at an EU conference in Cork—"Promoting heart health, a European consensus"—in response to a threat by hospitality industry sources that such EU legislation would be used as the basis for a challenge to the smoking ban that is due to come into effect in Ireland on 29 March.’
 

Do you remember the old joke: “Q.: How do you know when a used car salesman lies? A.: As soon as he  moves his lips”? Antismokers are compulsive liars – always.  It is their only way to exist. Extreme position? Not really. The Italian minister of "health", for example, keeps on reassuring the public that he does respect smokers' rights, while attempting to push prohibition every which way he can. By the same token, the EU commissioner, a few months ago, was fully in favour of the ban. What made him change his mind? Perhaps some buried, residual ethics floating to the surface -- or considerations for truth or freedom of choice? Now, that’s a joke! There are only two possible explanations for this reversal of position: the first is that Byrne and what he represents have come to the summation that they would be easily defeated by the defenders of free choice in a court of law.  Alternatively, they have found a better strategy to use the passive smoke fraud in their favour to install total prohibition, which seems to be the only goal of their parasitic existence. So, no deep breaths of relief (and inhalation of delicious tobacco scent) – not even cigars. Just be prepared for more insidious attacks, as antismokers and healthists never quit, as they are truly addicted. To put an end to them it takes uprooting solutions -- not stalls and band-aids.

March 8 - Clearing The Air - As a Republican senator readied a bill to permit smoking in taverns with air purifiers, a liquor industry lobbying team on Tuesday met behind closed doors with lawmakers to show how $3,000 devices can clear a room of smoke.

Sen. Ray Meier, R-Utica, is circulating a draft of a measure he intends to introduce within a few days. Meier, who voted for the law that bans smoking in workplaces, said he has received numerous calls from tavern owners in his district who say the prohibition is substantially cutting into their businesses.

"I told them: 'Nobody intended to put you guys out of business,' " Meier said.

His bill would allow bars that draw less than 40 percent of their revenue from food sales to be eligible for an exemption. They would have to install a filtration and purification device approved by the state Health Department and able to clean 99 percent of the contaminants out of the air.  (Times Union, 3/3/04)

Better late than never.  Senator Meier would not be receiving numerous calls from tavern owners had he listened to them rather than the anti-tobacco special interests prior to voting yes on a smoking ban law that is putting his constituents out of business.  Still, it's to his credit that he now realizes that prohibition is poison to small businesses.

Legislators of both parties are looking into air purification systems to eliminate tobacco smoke.  Needless to say the tobacco control industry is adamantly opposed to even examining whether the devices operate as advertised.  In all the years since tobacco smoke was "discovered" to be deadly, anti-tobacco has done its best to ensure that ventilation is never considered even though non-smokers and smokers alike would rather have air scrubbed of all irritants than see prohibition imposed.  Anti-tobacco has worked with various building management groups to promote the fiction that banning smoking will miraculously take care of all indoor issues.  The sick building syndrome, a phenomenon that developed after smoking was banished, demonstrates that tobacco smoke is the least of worries in ensure that indoor air is healthy.

March 5 - Connecticut Mulls Easing Smoking Ban - A year after passing a law that bans smoking in restaurants and bars, lawmakers on Thursday will begin considering some amendments to the legislation.  Smoking already is a thing of the past in restaurants. But for small bars and cafes that thrive on a clientele that likes to light up over a beer after work, losing even a few customers could be disastrous.

Ron Briggs, co-owner of Howard's Cafe in Waterbury, said a number of his customers have already joined private clubs, which are exempt under the law.

"We pay our taxes, we pay our bills, we pay our liquor license," said Briggs, who has been in business for almost 30 years. "We just want to be able to stay in business."

Rep. Leonard Greene, R-Beacon Falls, a ranking member on the General Law Committee, is pushing a bill that would exempt bars and cafes if they purchased air purifiers or smoke eaters or built smoking rooms.

Unfortunately the plights of the Ron Briggses fo Connecticut who will devastated by the smoking are of no concern to the financially motivated special interests who railroaded this unpopular smoking ban through the legislature.  It's up to the elected representatives to correct the situation they find themselves in after listening to and being conned by the lies of the tobacco control industry.

The evidence from New York state, Delaware and other locations makes clear that smoking bans are poison for business.  If smart politicians in Connecticut do not want to completely wipe out a large junk of the small business base that cannot survive after kicking out all their smoking customers they will amend the smoking ban or, better still, trash the whole ugly mess and go back to a time when property owners owned and directed their businesses as they see fit.

March 2 - Campaign To Take Back New York City - In response to falling sales and hordes of complaints by smokers, bar staff, and owners, numerous organizations throughout Manhattan are fighting back against New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's smoking ban.

Seinfeld, along with many other Upper West Side bar owners, is involved in a campaign to repeal the ban. The New York City Nightlife Association, in conjunction with the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association, is working toward an amendment to the ban that would allow smoking in bars where state-of-the-art filtration systems are in place. New York City Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment (CLASH) has also launched a campaign--and filed a lawsuit--hoping to see the smoking ban abolished.

"There's no compromising. Every time we compromise, it just comes down to greater limitations," said Audrey Silk, founder of CLASH.

"People who happen to enjoy a legal product are being told they can't go anywhere," Silk said. "You can't even open up a smokers' club, which really tells you what this is about ... It's not about protecting anybody. It's about keeping people from smoking."

Even if there were no sneezing people, nor any matches, incense, fireplaces, cars, factories, dust, lint, pets, fresh paint or cooking odors anywhere in the world, concern about "secondhand" tobacco smoke would still be a joke. Windows are made for opening and private business owners were always free to ban smoking in their establishments if they wanted to. Government-mandated smoking bans are wrongheaded, hysterical, divisive and tyrannical. The health cult is entrenched, vastly funded, vicious and uncompromising. Today's horde of Puritans are bent on social engineering, and will ban every free choice, and every joy in life they sets their sites on, until this is forcibly stopped. New Yorkers are fighting, and defying, and they must keep at it.

March 1 - Lawlessness In Washington State - Tobacco consumer advocacy group, Forces International, said the ban violates state law.  Skerlec, the appeals court commissioner, “did not overturn or vacate (the earlier) ruling that the Pierce County smoking ban violates state law,” said Norman Kjono, a spokesman for Forces International. “Skerlec ordered a stay of enforcing Judge Culpepper’s order while the case progresses through the Washington appeals process. A stay of a previous order is not precedent.

What we confront in Pierce County is a frightening situation where a special-interest smoking ban that violates private property rights, damages small business and negatively labels persons who smoke as ‘killers’ is to be enforced, despite the fact that a Superior Court judge has ruled that the ban violates state law. The question is will other counties choose to follow that example?“

The Pierce county smoking ban controversy took an ominous twist last week when a single court commissioner on the state court of appeals ordered the smoking ban to be reinstated, despite a county superior court ruling that the ban was illegal under state law.  The court commissioner's action means that, while the appeal processes grind forward, the county can enforce a smoking ban that has been ruled illegal.  

So we have a law that has been overturned yet still continues to be enforced.  Such an arrogant upending of established legal processes would be astonishing were tobacco not involved.  The tobacco control industry is firmly in control in Washington state.  When its illegal ban is overturned it merely shops an appeal to a sympathetic judge and violà, the illegal ban is still in effect.  Citizens should be concerned that special interest power plays are trumping the law and the courts.

February 23 - When Absurdity Is Codified Into Law - As ridiculous as this seems, isn’t that exactly what has recently happened with Bainbridge’s passing of a “no-smoking” ordinance. Rather than allowing the business owners to have the right to decide, “Big Brother” steps up and decides! I agree that non-smokers have rights; however, there were already several restaurants operating as smoke free. Both smokers and non-smokers have rights concerning such matters but more importantly, the business owners should make this call.

Bainbridge, Georgia recently introduced a bar and restaurant smoking ban. A man named Bert Steen smoked in a diner as a deliberate act of civil disobedience. He plans on paying $150 in fines and court costs, to avoid spending thirty days in jail, but he also intends to appeal. Mister Steen's neighbors understand his indignation. They see through the absurd veneer of anti-smoking propaganda. Anti-smoking has become the bellwether cause of hysterics and zealots, hypochondriacs, technocrats and control freaks of all stripes. With regard to tobacco 1984 came along right about on schedule. Too many people shrugged. Things are much worse now. Every aspect of common civility, and personal liberty, are seen as fair prey by the sick social engineers of the twenty-first century. More and more Bert Steens, and armies of their neighbors, are awakening to the need for active rebellion.

February 23 - Ban Destroying Small Businesses - December sales taxes declined between five and 15 percent from the same month a year ago at several one-time smoker hangouts, the city said. The names and the number of businesses included in the sampling were not available.  Some bar and restaurant owners had warned the ban would cost them business because the adjacent towns of Evans and Garden City don't have similar restrictions.  Noreen Romero used to patronize Dutch's Bar in Greeley, but on Thursday she stopped to drink and smoke at Scooter's Bar in Garden City.

"I go to the bars where I can smoke," she said.

Tom Kidder said he sold The Brewery bar in Greeley because he didn't think he could survive under the smoking ban. He said he's scouting locations for another bar in Evans.

It didn't take long for the bad effects from the Greeley, Colorado smoking ban to hit the pocketbooks of the restaurant and bar owners.  They knew that their business would decline once the smoking ban went into effect yet the politicians listened to out-of-town anti-smoking special interests' promises that throwing out smokers is good for business.  

What's sad is that the small business owners being driven to bankruptcy might now support the same liars who as they go to the neighboring smoker-friendly cities preaching more local smoking bans.  This time they will be selling a "level the playing field" fraud which will not bring in more customers but will make all cities suffer the same losses that Greeley has.

February 20 - Prohibition Soon To Hit Ireland - Here comes the Irish smoking ban. It will go something like things have gone in New York. Certain fat-cats in certain fancy places will ignore the ban with impunity. Family-type restaurants will muddle through while most adult venues will suffer badly. "Smoking decks" may help some but not when it rains and surely not at all in the months when it snows. Obedient pub and night-club owners will tighten their belts or else go bust altogether. Those businessmen most bent on survival will adopt "smokeasy" tactics. Accordingly as the law is ignored place to place, customers will either gleefully cheat, or else gripe and move on. Certainly, there will be fiery arguments, or drunken brawls, or a killing here or there.

At the same time anti-smoking organizations will propagate biased studies and polls revealing everybody but everybody is positively delighted with the senseless fascist ban. Politically correct media will regurgitate the anti-smoking groups' press releases but over time the awful truth will become unavoidable, as disgust with government and disrespect for law, become the general rule. New York is backpedaling just months into its ban, while fighting lawsuits, brought by business owners and smokers' rights advocates. Irish defiance, and lawsuits, are already being planned. All this is brought to us by idiotic hysterics folks. The beat goes on.

February 18 - Anti-Family Smoking Ban - One busybody in Indiana was dining out recently when he encountered a situation that perturbed in greatly.  Since whiners are rewarded in this society his pet peeve will know be debated by a city council that is being urged to pass yet one more intrusive law.  The law would not ban smoking in restaurants but would instead ban customers younger than 18 years old.  As usual the anti-smoking busybody is incapable of following logical thought.  

Children who accompany their smoking parents to restaurants are exposed to secondhand smoke at home.  Forbidding parents to bring their children to a restaurant that allows smoking will "protect" their children for a couple of hours.  Enacting a law that specifically forbids children from being around smoking is setting up the first stage to ban smoking at home.  Since smoking has never been proved to cause harm to anyone, the politicians now considering whether to craft such a bill should rip up the busybody's proposal and toss it in the trash can.

February 17 - Statewide Smoking Ban Proposed - Georgia could be the latest state to ban smoking. State Sen. Don Thomas has said that he will introduce legislation that would prohibit smoking in all public places, including bars and restaurants.

"This is not an effort to make people quit smoking, it's to make it so their smoke doesn't hurt others," Thomas, a family doctor, told the Marietta Daily Journal. "I've seen firsthand the damages of smoking."

However, Thomas' proposed legislation will likely be met by strong opposition.

"There is only so far you can go to regulate businesses," state Sen. Chuck Clay told the Associated Press. "I'd like to see more smoke-free restaurants, but I'm not in favor of a statewide ban."

The good old family doctor quoted above is a liar.  Since secondhand smoke is harmless, the only reason to impose a smoking ban is to compel smokers to quit.  The pharmaceutical money pouring into localities to buy smoking bans is spent on the premise that smoking bans are good for their business.  They believe that when smokers are forbidden to smoke they will spend their hard-earned dollars on smoking cessation devices.  Dr. Thomas is a drug company shill whose legislation was written by the drug companies.  He works for them, not his Georgia constituents.

As the economic disasters caused by smoking bans in Delaware, New York, Maine and California become well known, smart politicians are looking more closely at the claims of anti-tobacco and are becoming more likely to listen to the restaurant and bar owners who know that they will lose money should smokers be shown the door.  At a time of economic uncertainty, it is insane to hobble a major business with laws that drive up to 30 percent of the population to stay home.

February 10 - Killing Off The Small Businesses - Viva Debris Comedy and Magic Club in Syracuse said the state’s smoking ban has put a damper on business.  Since the state's smoking ban took affect in July, there hasn't been a lot of laughs at Viva Debris Comedy and Magic Club. Business is down, way down.

"We have lost about 30% of our business which includes 30% of our staff," said owner Joe Delion.

The comedy club says the smoking ban hasn't only impacted their business, but other companies that it does business with have also been affected.  “Our liquor and beer salespeople are losing business. People who supply us with supplies are losing business, it has been a disaster," said Delion.

The laughs have been choked off, and the thrill is gone, at the Viva Debris Comedy and Magic Club in Syracuse, New York. Sales have declined thirty per cent since the state mandated a smoking ban. So staffing was reduced by the same margin, and management says the feasibility of the business, now hinges on its application for a smoking ban waiver. The Viva Debris can hardly provide a separate smoking room, in a venue based on watching a stage performance, so they are begging to offer two "smoking nights" per week. Just months ago, in the days before free choice had to be begged for, every night was a smoking night at the Viva Debris, as at virtually every bar and nightclub. Denny's might contain it, but Puritanism does not find a natural home, in places devoted to adult fun.

Try to imagine George Burns or Jackie Gleason, Whoopi Goldberg or Denis Leary, at a smoke-free comedy club. They would have no business there. That's what's happened to the business there. The victims of idiotic secondhand smoke hysteria keep gasping and falling, as legislators in Albany try to disguise their error, even while perpetuating it, with the bone-headed temporary waiver policy. The ban must be canned. Indignation will mount, defiance will spread, and lawsuits will continue, until the folly of the New York ban is reversed. Normal people do not believe the nonsense their "secondhand saviors" have fallen for and they want their freedom back. A significant constituency amongst these normal people, New York's smokers are indeed not so desperate to smoke at night spots, that they can't step outside to light up, nor are they so desperate for a drink or a limp laugh, that they can't just walk away, and not come back.

February 3 - Breaking The Law Or Going Broke - "People assumed they were going to be able to smoke tonight, so I'm letting them," the owner said. "I'll take the hit."

"The hit" is up to a $1,000 for each violation and $2,000 in certain circumstances, according to the state Health Department Web site. The amount seems high, but to bar owners, it is dwarfed by the sales they have lost since the ban went into effect six months ago.

At Ziggy's, a bar and nightclub just off the Latham Circle, owner Shane Zyglewicz said he has lost half his daytime business because of the prohibition. And while the air was clean at Ziggy's on Sunday, by comparison to the two other bars visited by The Record, it was nearly empty. Just a few people sat at the bar.

Have you heard how good smoking bans are for bar business? Did you hear it from a Hellth Nazi? Try asking New York State tavern owners, and when they speak, your ears will sense the truth. Tavern owners have been taking it on the chin for months, so once Super Bowl Sunday came around, even some of the more compliant ones finally cried, "let the smoking begin!"

There's history here. Hellth preachers have tried to "sanitize" our bodies, minds, and societies before. Leeches really didn't know enough only to suck the bad blood, though their applicators insisted otherwise, while bleeding patients to death for centuries. Only lately, lobotomies and Eugenics were extolled worldwide by medicos, the types well-schooled in wrongheaded science, while lacking plain sense, or human hearts. Today, within such minds, belief in "secondhand smoke peril" is nothing short of devout. 

Eugenics, the "science" of Nordic superiority, originated in the USA and made its ugly way to Germany with the help of the original Nazis. Not just incidentally, Hitler's regime imposed identical anti-smoking measures, as are being practiced in the USA today. Of course, today's anti-smoking activists are trying to bring New York-style smoking bans, back to Berlin. The heavily-smoking German public is feeling mighty queasy about that as well they should. 

Whether pushing for a Judenfrei (Jew-free) or rauchfrei (smoke-free) agenda, certain types of technocrats convince themselves, that their goals are pure, sanitizing, and lofty. Their arrogance, and compulsion to control, is unbounded. Criticism of their goals and methods is dismissed or denied contemptuously, by "authorities" with such lofty opinions, of themselves. They expect you to believe every wrongheaded, senseless, and heartless word they preach. You have heard them. Do you believe them?

January 30 - He's Outta Here - Hotel Oneida is for sale, so folks worldwide can check it out on eBay.  They can also bid on it, with an asking price of $350,000.  Richard Pfhol, the owner, is selling this property, which features, among other things, two bars, because customers there can no longer light up.

"My biz is down, 50/60 percent that was during the slow part, now were going into the slow, it's not worth staying open," said Pfhol.

He says the state law banning smoking in bars and restaurants is ridiculous.

"I am a hands-on owner.  I am always in the building when it's open, and I can't smoke in my own building," he said.

We understand this business owner's decision to get out of New York. The senseless smoking ban killed his business, but more than that, it mocked his freedom. We hope he finds a way to survive in peace, as he proposes, in Florida. He had better know what he's planning. Florida's smoking bans may be somewhat less draconian than New York's but they're sure bad enough.

January 29 - Anti-tobacco Working On An End Run - Forces spokesman Norman Kjono said the judge “not only affirmed Washington preemption statutes and statutory exemptions from smoking bans for specific businesses but he also upheld the rights of property owners to permit lawful activities on their business premises.”

And although the Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health vowed to appeal, Kjono said Forces International does not expect the appeals court to overturn last week’s ruling.

He also maintains that many of the special interests groups, senators and representatives who support Senate Bill 5791 hold a “hidden agenda” — one that presents a conflict of interest due to lack of full disclosure.

“We find that the legislators who sponsor such bills are connected in one fashion or the other to supporting use of pharmaceutical nicotine products,” Kjono said.

Kjono maintained that the legislators and special-interests groups who push for a statewide sweeping smoking ban omit information about their own involvement in pushing a heavy-handed anti-smoking campaign, funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  If legislators spoke openly about their involvement and respected the public’s right to know, he said, he wouldn’t be as angry.

“A vote to change current state law...is a vote that says Washington consumers and the will of the people count far less to our legislators than the will of special interests and out-of-state private foundations,” Kjono said.

Now that the smoking ban in Pierce County, Washington has been overturned the action moves to the legislature.  Descending like a swarm of locust upon the legislators are the political operatives working for anti-tobacco special interests.  The goal is a statewide smoking ban, a key component in the tobacco control industry's marketing plan to replace tobacco products with pharmaceutical nicotine.  This time they will not be operating in a media vacuum.  As this story makes clear, observant reporters are taking notes.

January 28 - Slow Burning Fuse - Here is what has been going on since the smoking ban went into effect. At a recent cocktail hour at a large bar in Dedham, which once buzzed with dozens of patrons, there were six people present, three of whom were bartenders. The owner, near tears, said his entire life savings was invested in his business. He had also borrowed money to upgrade the ventilation system. He is losing everything. Diane Pickles, head of Tobacco-Free Mass. Coalition, along with her uninformed sheeplike legislators, couldn't care less. They believe smoking bans are for the common good and protect employees' health. They ignore extensive studies (notably a UCLA study of 35,000 nonsmokers published in the British Medical Journal) stating unequivocally that there is no correlation between secondhand smoke and disease in nonsmokers.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has the highest state cigarette tax in the nation. Restaurant smoking bans appeared in numerous Massachusetts towns in recent years. Some were ultimately reversed but others stubbornly held on despite restaurateurs' objections. Spreaders of hysteria had scored some wins.

In many places smokers could still eat, drink and smoke within the restaurants' bar sections. Of course distinct drinking spots, the taverns and nightclubs where smokers congregate, and where butts are commonly bummed by the occasional puffers, weren't affected by bans at the beginning of this slippery slope. At worst some taverns and clubs were forced to install pricey ventilation systems. Towns guaranteed that was as far as things would go. Decent people took them at their word. 

At the same time, venues like fast food joints and the chain hash houses, weren't hurt too badly. A lot of folks smelled the hysteria and tyranny in the air, but what the hell, there was still room for life to go on. Freedom of choice was diminished and too many people shrugged. So things got worse.

Most people are unaware of the fat pockets and organization of today's fanatical anti-smoking movement. Where ignored, it is encouraged, so it progresses. It cajoles, coerces, and lies pathologically. The result in Massachusetts was a smoking ban domino effect, in a cascade of towns, over the past year or so. For a whole lot of pubs and clubs, the diverse kinds of places where smokers and their friends had felt naturally relaxed and at home, the consequences of adhering to these senseless bans, were what you'd think. 

Outrage from bar owners and patrons grew. Anti-smokers and their enthralled legislators dismissed the complaints with contempt. FORCES readers understand why. To single-minded anti-smokers every casualty is collateral. Humiliating and ostracizing bar patrons is the primary goal, while putting bars entirely out of business, is sweet icing on the cake. After all, the activists are health cultists, and prohibitionist by general nature. So their assault on Massachusetts continued. Now a state-wide smoking ban is planned to begin, ironically enough, in July. 

We recall roguish Arthur Fiedler's quip, that he smoked Chesterfields, because they matched his overcoat. Unfortunately, thoughts of Boston aren't so jolly, as queasy, in 2004. For our stomachs' sake, we'll skip the Pops and the fireworks on the Charles, this July. The battle is already raging in neighboring New York and across the country. Bay Staters are belatedly catching on, and speaking up, ever louder. Fanatics can only be put down by force. The drum beat is starting to be heard again near Lexington Green.

January 27 - Lessons In Denial - "Younger people are now going to D.C.," said Claude J. Andersen, corporate operations manager for Clyde's Restaurant Group. Since the county went smoke-free last October, business has dipped 18 percent, while alcohol sales are down 30 percent, he said. The crowd that lingered at the bar after 9 p.m. has virtually disappeared, Andersen said.

"People said when we're smoke free they would come," he said. "Well, we haven't seen them yet."

Does this make sense to you? Might smoking bans hurt bars, restaurants and clubs of an adult, bohemian or laid-back description, the kinds of atmospheric places that attract smokers and invite smoking, and which have a heavily smoking clientele? Maybe hurt them a lot while hurting other sorts of venues little? Let's say the idea has some logic to it. So why is it restaurateurs always say smoking bans will hurt some businesses badly, and when the bans come that they do indeed hurt businesses badly, but prohibitionist legislators always say the businessmen are always wrong regarding the subject of their very own businesses? A selection of related questions before we get to the answer. If tobacco's still legal, and people can choose whether or not to smoke, why can't they choose to work in or visit a particular bar where others smoke, or else don't go there? Why can people choose employment as crop dusters, highway toll collectors, stunt-men, taxi drivers, horse jockeys, stock car racers, electrical linemen, trapeze artists, or even as bar bouncers, but not at bars with ash trays? If loud music in dance clubs clearly can damage precious hearing, or if music haters believe soft music potentially could, must not all music be banned? Speech too? Why isn't it a threat to public health when alcoholics drink their fill at roadside taverns with capacious parking lots (don't say they walk home), but it is, if the drunk has a smoke? If every ash tray must be removed from every bar, don't all the beer taps and bottles have to go, as well? Wasn't that tried, though, and didn't it fail? Finally, why must all of these asinine questions be asked today? Because anti-smoking is anti-logic, yet vastly funded and entrenched, so it must be confronted, and then extinguished.

January 23 - Pierce County Smoking Ban Overturned - Smokers can light up with impunity again in Pierce County bars and restaurants, thanks to a Thursday court decision.

Pierce County Superior Court Judge Ronald Culpepper overturned the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department’s controversial indoor smoking ban, ruling that it conflicted with state law.

The health department's lawyer pledged to appeal to either the state Court of Appeals or the state Supreme Court.

The taxpayers of Pierce County should be very irritated with the health department for threatening to appeal this decision.  Clearly the county violated state preemption laws when it enacted, at the behest of tobacco control special interest groups, a ban on smoking in restaurants, bowling alleys and bars.  Already the county has wasted too much money that would be better spent on projects or services that the taxpayers want.

We will be commenting on this victory in detail as more details become known.

January 23 - Changing The Rules Again - They banned smoking in bars in Toledo but with an exception for private functions or charity events. So local drinkeries established "Taverns for Tots," a charitable organization that holds members-only private functions, generally every night, at member taverns. No one gets in without buying a lifetime membership for one dollar. Then the folks can sit at the bars, and drink and smoke, as they and their ancestors did for centuries.

The City of Toledo says this is a sham charity, the private functions aren't really private, and the bars will receive citations. Well, the city's petty government is getting what it deserves. When government harkens to the shrieks of prohibitionist zealots it becomes deaf to its constituents. So resistance takes every available form. As such "Taverns for Tots" could not be more legitimate. 

Anti-smoking is in the frothing mouth stage. Decent people will not be ruled by vicious madness. Petty tyrants will not be obeyed. "Taverns for Tots" owners are planning to fight their citations. We hope these savvy Ohioans have good luck in court, and we trust that their talent for innovation, will serve any further test. 

January 23 - Lighting Up To Spite The Nannies - Many of those opposed to Pierce County's indoor smoking ban gathered for what could be their last gasp Wednesday at Tacoma's Pegasus restaurant.  Those who cared to lit up their cigars, Marlboros, Camels and Kools in defiance of the ban and signed petitions to recall members of the County Council who supported the ban and commiserated over what they see as an infringement of their rights.

Several nonsmokers joined them, including Scott and Amy Jackson, who waved an American flag and a sign stating "Legalize Freedom" on the sidewalk out front.

"We're here for liberty and freedom of choice," Amy Jackson said.

In today's America smoking a cigarette is a potent symbol of freedom.  Lighting one up is an act of protest and an aggressive show of defiance against the totalitarian mindset that has pervaded too many corners of this country.  Smoking, essentially a trivial matter, is now the cutting edge issue that separates the enthusiasts for brutal government control from the people who want to live their lives in liberty.

With the overturning of the Pierce County smoking ban, the wonderful people who came to the Pegasus restaurant can breathe a bit easier knowing that the goons have been set back.  They must not forget, however, that the brutes will not give up until the elected representatives finally realize that they represent all constituents, not just those who press a narrow, divisive issue.

January 22 - Smoking Ban Proposal Bites The Dust - Smokers can continue puffing away while eating in the western Kansas town of Scott City. The city council this week rejected a plan to ban smoking in restaurants.

Emily Bryan is one of five Scott City High School students who backed the plan. She says city officials should at least advise restaurants on the dangers of second-hand smoke, and identify ways to mitigate it.  
Bryan had approached the council last month about banning smoking at the city's nine restaurants. Four restaurants already prohibit smoking.

Restaurant owner Debbie Montgomery says banning smoking would have hurt her business, by limiting the number of potential customers.  Councilman Fred Kuntzsch says he was amazed by the number of non-smokers who opposed the plan.

We'll say it again. Secondhand smoke is not a danger to anyone but a hypochondriac no matter how many times anti-smoking alarmists tell us otherwise. So another defeat of a proposed smoking ban is a victory for the causes of sanity and justice. Anti will not quit swinging her big pocketbook while screaming of secondhand doom for all. More and more people (and not just smokers) are telling her to shut up, though, and we can all be most grateful for that.

January 21 - Smoking Ban Destroying Businesses - Pierce County casinos say the county's new smoking ban is costing them money and could cost jobs. So, they're fighting the ban in court.  But the county Health Department doesn't buy the argument and says, "show me the numbers".

"It's just not true," says Pierce County Health Director Federico Cruz.

Seattle’s KOMOTV 4 reports that nontribal casinos are losing revenues and probably jobs in Washington to Pierce County health’s smoking bans. That makes sense because in Washington casino patrons can simply go to a nearby tribal casino that does not need to enforce the ban due to tribal immunity. Despite such glaring competitive advantages to tribal casinos, and the common sense impact that they have on nontribal casinos, gubernatorial candidate Cruz stridently denies the Pierce County ban accounts for decreased revenues at nontribal casinos. Cruz proclaims the history of smoking bans shows hospitality business increases as a result of mandating the special-interest anti-tobacco agenda. A short few weeks ago the health department refused to stay the Pierce County ban, claiming that Seattle’s severe weather accounted for the decline in nontribal casino revenues, rather than the smoking ban.

Denial of the consequences of their agenda on consumers and business has always been a hallmark of tobacco control. When the business facts do