St. Paul City Council Member Dave Thune plans to introduce a proposal next week that would ban smoking in all of the city's bars and restaurants. With all of the due repsect that I can muster between puffs of my smooth Turkish and domestic blend heater, blow it out your piehole, Dave.
Any bar or restaurant owner in St. Paul can ban smoking right this minute if they want to. They don't need the permission of some meddling little government pissant to mandate what they can or cannot do on their own private property (yes, a bar does qualify as someone's private property as much as someone else's lungs do). Some owners choose a smoking ban, others do not. This choice is based on one simple principle...the free market.
You all know both sides of the market argument so I won't go into that here (although those who are interested can check out some good ones in the comments section of this post by Captain Ed). I'd like to focus on the hypocrisy of this smoking ban nonsense that seems to be sweeping the globe.
If Thune and other like-minded chuckleheads truly think that the hazards of secondhand smoke are reaching klaxon shrieking crisis level, then their only moral choice is to push for a complete ban on cigarettes. Given all of the dire warnings we're being forced to swallow, anything short of that condemns us all to live the rest of our doomed existence with oxygen tank in tow and coughing up chunks of phlegm.
No, an outright ban just ain't part of the plan. You see, there are other economic interests at play here. The State of Minnesota benefits from tobacco sales to the tune of about $182 million per year. In turn, the city of St. Paul relies on the state of Minnesota to provide a whopping 37% of its general fund. You don't think the city depends on cigarette taxes?
Dave Thune isn't really interested in saving lives by eliminating smoking. On the contrary, he and the city DEPEND on smokers. They just don't have the guts to admit it. Thune is just another low level government weenie who wants to enact feel-good legislation so he can go home at night with a smug sense of satisfaction that he's changing his little part of the world for the better while not jeopardizing the funding of the next ridiculous council proposal to come down the pike.
I've got a good idea of where Mr. Thune, who himself is an "addicted smoker" (i.e. a victim of big tobacco), could start on his crusade. How about taking some personal responsibility and not smoking around others? Apparently, Dave doesn't have the strength to control his own behavior and feels he needs the government to regulate his, and my, smoking habit.
Butt out, Dave.
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