A report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer discusses the fact that the Ohio Supreme Court has decided to hear a case concerning whether matchbooks should be legally defined as advertising as R.J.Reynolds Corp. contends or a form of merchandising as the state contends. If matchbooks are determined to be merchandise, then they can't display any advertising per a 1998 tobacco settlement.
So, there you have it. Your judiciary in action and, for the life of me, I can't figure out what problem they are trying to solve. It's seems fairly trivial an issue and the only benefit to be derived will be to make a bunch of lawyers more wealthy.
However, one aspect of the story caught my attention. The 10th Ohio District Court of Appeals in Columbus stated that:
It "is clear that advertising is not the sole function of the matchbooks as their primary function to the consumer is as a source of fire," the court said. "This means that functionally, matchbooks are no different from T-shirts or other items of apparel that sport a tobacco brand name and are banned" by the national settlement.I'm not going to wait for the Supreme Court decision to declare that I will never attend a wet matchbook competition.
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