Monday, June 05, 2006

I wouldn't object to a ban on Lite beer, either.


The clock’s ticking down for smokers in Jeffersonville.

How will Jeffersonville greet ban on smoking?, by Dale Moss (columnist, Courier-Journal).

Chris Smith figures some old Come Back Inn customers will go and some new ones will come. Might break even, Smith guesses …

… "To be told what I can do and can't do, in my own building, is just wrong," he said, tending bar early on a recent evening.

The (Jeffersonville smoking) ban covers most workplaces, restaurants, public buildings and stores. Private residences, bars and outdoor areas will be exempt.


The new law takes effect on June 14.

Although I understand where Chris is coming from, it remains that we are told more often than not what to do and not do in our own buildings. Among others, there are alcohol laws, health department laws and employment fairness laws.

I doubt whether well-intentioned restaurant owners who advance this argument are seriously advocating that we abandon these regulatory modifications of free enterprise, many of which serve undoubtedly useful purposes and are accepted as a condition of doing business.

Ironically, smoking rights advocates correctly note that smoking is a legal activity, but seldom is it mentioned that beverage alcohol is legal, too – and subject to enough rules and restrictions to produce a guide the size of a phonebook.

What’s next, you ask?

What!!

No … say it ain’t true … not goose liver pate?

A ban on foie gras? Could this really be Chicago?, by Amanda Paulson (staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor).

News readers in the Windy City this fall might be forgiven for thinking they've stumbled into California by mistake.

Last week the city council approved a far-reaching smoking ban; now, they're following in California's footsteps again as they consider outlawing another un-PC indulgence: foie gras.

Aficionados, get thee to France and Hungary -- unless, of course, the EU hasn't already followed the broad shouldered city's lead.

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