I just saw a news item that had me yelling at the TV.  Dallas Mayor Laura Miller has decided that no one should smoke in resturants.  This came at the urging of the so-called “grassroots” campaign to stop “secondhand smoke”.  She got a lot of push-back when it was first announced and the last I had heard was that it was being tabled.  Well, it came back today with a vengeance.  They are now considering an ordinance that would not only ban smoking in restaurants but in bars and private clubs (*).  Miller had the nerve to say that she thought that people would spend more time in the bars and restaurants if they didn’t have to worry about people smoking.  This really chaps my ass.  Restaurants are already required to provide separate smoking areas and I can’t recall a time when I was bothered by smoke from the smoking section.  So that’s a non-starter.  As for bars, I seem to recall something about freedom of choice.  If people don’t like smoke, they can choose not to go into a smoky bar.  If enough people complain, then some entrepreneur will open a smoke-free bar.  However, I think that the fact that no one has done so yet (at least that I’m aware of) speaks volumes to how much demand there is for such a thing.

Of course we’ll be hit with the second-hand smoke shibboleth next.  Whether second-hand smoke actually causes harm (and the primary study that supposedly proves this is based more on bias than on science), I have a hard time justifying the use of the power of the state (ultimately enforced by people with guns) to tell business owners how they may or may not use their private property.

If this nonsense passes, I will make it a point to avoid Dallas bars and restaurants on general principle.  I like to enjoy a Macanudo from time to time so the nannys at Dallas city hall can kiss my ass.

(*) The private club is something that was created to work around the stupid Texas laws concerning alcohol.  By default all political entities (precincts, cities, counties, etc) are ‘dry’, which means that no alcoholic beverages may be sold there.  In order to get around this, a business may deem itself a private club.  To drink in the club you must become a member.  Of course, this has turned into a sham where you can obtain a “Unicard”, which makes you a “member” of all the participating businesses. 

A political district must hold an election to become “wet”.  A lot of Texas cities are “damp”, which means that only beer and wine are sold there (Denton is an example of this).  This often means that people have to travel out of their way to get alcoholic beverages, which I think contributes to drunk driving.  I grew up in Big Sandy, which is a small town in East Texas (population of approx. 1500).  What’s interesting is in that small town we had (and still have) 6 liquor stores.  This is because we were the only fully wet place in the county.  People were driving 25 or 30 miles to get there.  However, I seem to have gotten off on a tangent here (train of thought derailment).