Chastened by a state supreme court decision, the bigots in Charleston, South Carolina, have eased up a bit on the punishment meted out to rebels.
Instead of facing fines of $1,087 and possible jail time for violating the city’s anti-smoking ordinance, business people who allow their customers to light up in the private property known as restaurants and bars will be dinged for $10 or $25 per day. While such fines could easily be lumped into the cost of running a business, Charleston could still exact its revenge by taking away business licenses.
Until business people and their customers recognize that smoking ban laws are based on fraud and deceit, the Catch-22 scenario where restaurants and bars must break the law in order to stay in business will continue. The only recourse is to make cities such as Charleston prove that secondhand smoke is a hazard. As readers of this site are well aware, secondhand smoke cannot be proven to be dangerous. Playing games with legal technicalities can only end with the honest business people as losers. Getting to the heart of the anti-smoking fraud is ultimately the only way to win.
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