Virginia Governor and Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine celebrated the successful mulching of another dead horse last week. After presiding over the loss of the governor’s races in his own state and New Jersey, he celebrated the major accomplishment of his last year in office: banning smoking in restaurants.
Talk about a testament to irrelevancy.
Kaine’s “breakthrough” requires smokers to be lectured by a “death panel” if they are bold enough to light up and restaurant owners to be fined $25.00. If restaurateurs want to encourage the continued despoliation of the planet by burning tobacco, they must construct a walled–off, separately ventilated area for the combustion crowd.
Meaning segregation returns to the South, and once again it’s approved and sponsored by Democrats!
This development means my experience is going to be significantly different the next time the family goes to a sports bar to watch the Packers.
We typically have to make do with bulbous LowD sets in the main dining room, since the Packers are not popular enough to rate the larger HDTVs. Occasionally on our way to the table, I could see the game displayed on an HD set in the bar area. But the family always refused to move and stayed with the analog Packers because the thought of spending 3.5 hours marinating in tobacco fumes takes a lot of fun out of our viewing experience.
That won’t be a factor now, thanks to the dynamic leadership of Gov. Tim Kaine.
Unfortunately for his “legacy” restaurant smoking was another issue where the free market had essentially solved the problem before Gov. Nanny butted in.
I’m certainly not an apologist for smoking. My own mother was incapable of telling the truth about her affair with Nick O’Teen. For years she claimed to be a pack–a–day smoker, as if limiting yourself to only 20 smokes a day was an indicator of colossal willpower.
The truth was she burned at least two packs per day and sometimes close to three. And as cigarettes became more expensive, she moved from Winstons down to a generic that closely resembled grass clippings wrapped in a newspaper.
Mom smoked in the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom and the car. Riding in her Toyota was like traveling in a snow globe, every time you hit a bump the accumulation of years of ashes would fly to the ceiling and then slowly drift back to the floorboard. It was Christmas in July and all the rest of the months.
Mother knew that I loathed smoking so she employed various palliative measures to demonstrate she was attempting to meet me halfway. After reading that putting dryer sheets over the heat registers would freshen the air, she taped Bounce over every register in the house.
It might actually have helped if mom ever changed the sheets, but after a decade of filtering smoke–laden air, the tattered, brown–stained sheets looked like Jeffrey Dahmer’s napkins.
Visiting Mom was like having lunch in the Ebola Café. Once inside, you sat gingerly and walked softly, because any vigorous movement stirred up the carcinogens.
When we returned home from The Smokehouse, everyone stripped down to their BVDs in the foyer, dumped the clothes in the washing machine and headed for the nearest shower.
So don’t lecture me about cigarette smoke.
It’s just that Virginia restaurants had already responded to customer demand and banned smoking without government big footing its way around.
Before the law took effect this week, 75 percent of Virginia eateries were smoke–free. Consumers could avoid smoke in three out of four restaurants and workers had plenty of smoke–free workplaces to choose from — all without laws being passed and politicians boasting about “fighting for us.”
Unfortunately, that’s not good enough for the I–know–what’s–good–for–you nannytarians. So Kaine celebrated yet another Democrat burden on business.
I believe a real pollution fighter would be combating a problem more intractable than smoking in restaurants and that’s blaring TVs in the boarding area of airports.
These TVs interfere with reading, concentration and preflight prayer.
The noise gets in your brain just like the smoke got in your hair. You ask the gate agent to turn it down and they throw up their hands, saying volume is outside their power — just like smokers would blame convection currents for the gasses attacking your contact lenses.
As a conservative, I object to CNN on principle, but I would be just irritated if FOX was blaring on the tube. And in contrast to restaurants, airports are a perfect case for government intervention, because airports are run by the government.
But I don’t expect relief, because as Groucho Marx said, “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”
