Council’s arrogance steals our liberty
By Brian Yates (07/31/05)
WARNING: Readers of this column could be exposed to the secondhand smoke and delicious aroma of a fine cigar presently being puffed on by the author – who could die at anytime during the writing of this column from the deadly toxins and poisonous chemicals contained within the finely hand-rolled Hoyo de Monterrey.
Under the guise of “protecting public health,” members of Louisville’s Metro Council have continued to push for a ban on smoking in all nearly all workplaces. This even includes the smoke-filled halls of day-care centers, where presumably the tots are already beginning to bum smokes off the workers.
Councilwoman Tina Ward-Pugh accused ban opponents of choosing business over health in a Courier-Journal op-ed. “If we were to accept that business owners should have free reign to operate their establishments entirely as they…see fit, then all regulations enacted to protect public safety would be rendered meaningless,” she complained.
Ban proponents always try to cast this as being in the same mold as regulating food quality in restaurants. Just as people become ill from spoiled food, many patrons become sick from secondhand smoke also, they say.
The difference between the two (somehow omitted every single time!) being that no one in their right mind will choose to eat at an establishment which knowingly serves spoiled food. But anyone can choose whether or not they wish to endure the smoke.
[Full disclosure here: The occasional fine cigar notwithstanding, I am a nonsmoker who goes to bars and restaurants to eat and drink. There are also bars in Louisville which I choose not to frequent because the fog of cigarette smoke is simply too much for me to bear. However, the key word there was “choose.”]
Lately the argument has centered on the poor employee forced to endure the nasty smoke. The Courier-Journal editorialized that “one office worker’s desire to smoke shouldn’t trump the right of his colleagues to breathe healthful air.”
This vision of the cruel, callous co-worker lighting up in his cubicle while across the partition Asthmatic Annie hacks up a lung is overboard, to say the least. I know of no offices which allow smoking except within designated smoking areas – usually outside.
Liberals have made an art of creating additional “rights” which are in reality nothing more than a shadow attempt to extend government control over even more of the individual’s ability to make decisions for him or herself.
We have a “right” to affordable healthcare, the “right” to eat at any restaurant we so desire and now we have the “right” to work any job we please.
It sounds like a fine idea. From now on, I will refuse to abide by any deadlines set by my boss, the publisher of this newspaper. Working under deadline can cause stress, which can be unhealthy.
While the smoke police claim that the ban will not hurt business – in fact, now they’re claiming that it will actually help business! The Courier-Journal sniffed in an editorial that a ban is necessary in order to “impress the business and health professionals they’re trying to lure.”
The only thing proved by the C-J’s absurd assertion was that they don’t even read their own paper.
An article – a cover story no less – in Velocity Magazine (published by the Courier-Journal) examined the effects of the Lexington smoking ban on bars.
“The problem is that the nonsmokers who were supposed to flock to the city’s newly smoke-free bars and nightclubs have yet to materialize,” reporter Joshua Hammann observed.
Economist Dr. Richard Thalheimer found that there was a 9.8 percent to 13.3 percent reduction in alcohol sales to Lexington hotels, bars, and restaurants following the enactment of their smoking ban.
Ban supporters – unable to question Thalheimer’s facts – were forced to slander his motives. Thalheimer was accused in the Lexington Herald-Leader of having a devious connection to Big Tobacco through his position as a consultant to the American Gaming Association.
This is like accusing me of being biased towards Big Logging because I work for a newspaper.
The Metro Council has decided that the citizenry of Louisville is simply too obtuse to decide for themselves which establishment they prefer to patronize. They feel it is their duty to play baby-sitter and tell each of us what we may and may not do.
Where is our sense of personal responsibility?
The arrogance on display in City Hall ought to offend the hell out of every single person in Louisville. Smoker or not, we are slowly being stripped of our right to make personal choices one by one by one and that ought to scare the hell out of all of us.
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