Smoking Banned in Toledo

Joining other liberal venues, like NYC, the Toledo City Council voted to ban smoking in all bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, and bingo halls according to this story in the Toledo Blade. The overall goal of the anti-smoking do-gooders is to ban smoking in all municipalities in Ohio with the next targeted being Defiance, Wauseon, Cleveland and Dayton.

The article notes several aspects of the new law which are worthy of comment.

"The ordinance will be enforced by the city's division of environmental services in response to complaints."

This sounds to me like a new organization will have law enforcement authority and responsibility. This has to create a conflict with the existing police and sheriff departments.

"A person caught smoking illegally could be slapped with a $100 fine."

In my opinion, that seems awful steep for lighting a cigarette in the wrong place. I'm sure Andy Taylor would just tell the person to put it out or take it outside.

"A bar or restaurant that permits illegal smoking would have to undergo anti-tobacco education after the first three violations, and would face a minor misdemeanor and a referral to the Ohio Department of Liquor Control after that."

Does anybody have a clue as to what "anti-tobacco education" is? Does "referral to the Ohio Department of Liquor Control" mean that they are going to have to take action on smoking violations? Is smoking in the purview of liquor control now? Does the OH Dept. of Liquor Control now work for the city of Toledo and just doesn't know it?

One last thing to note is that this type of frivolous and intrusive lawmaking is costing the taxpayers real dollars. There's monitoring, law enforcement, responding to complaints, anti-tobacco education, and record keeping which will require people, space to work, equipment and some legal representation. All this stuff costs money. Their money.

And, they are adding to an existing government bureaucracy, the epitome of mismanagement. In other words, they're just providing another avenue for government to piss away their hard earned tax dollars. It just don't make a lot of sense to me.

Hey, smoke 'em if you got 'em.