Thursday, 18 November 2004
Lexington Kentucky's Smoking Ban
« ACLU - The Greate Defenders of Freedom! | Main | Two Articles: Geneva Convention / Supreme Court. »The city of Lexington Kentucky in the past six months introduced a smokingban on all public locations including restraunts and bars. The ban wasbravely fought against by the owners of the affected establishments becausethey knew the negative impact it would have on their business. Once themeasure went into effect it did indeed impose a downturn in thoseindustries including the closing of a very nice cigar bar that I usedto occasionally visit when I lived in the Lexington area. Nothing likea law that makes owning a legal business illegal.
It seems to me if this idea was so overwhelmingly desired, thenbusinesses would have voluntarily banned smoking without compulsorymeasures from the city. I think it is safe to assume that the peoplerunning the businesses effected would best know how a smoking banwould impact them. Which is why they so vociferously opposed the measure.
Anyway, a local radio station played awonderful hoax recently in which they told thier listeners that thecity had inacted an ordinance that banned smoking in cars. They even hadfake callers call in to the show saying that they had been pulledover by cops.
The city received 875 calls to the centralized information center for themayor, city council, and council clerk. The police department recieved anadditional 375 calls. All in an 8 hour period.
When I heard about this, I busted out laughing in my car. The wholeincident perfectly illustrates once again that any good hoax must be bothoutrageous and believable. If the city hadn't already implementeddraconian smoking laws then this would never have been believed.
Of course local officials had no sense of humor (liberals never do) aboutthe incident. In fact the mayour was planning to file a complaint with theFCC until someone in her office decided how assinine and petty that wouldappear to the public.
The sad thing about the whole incident is it will inevitably give the anti-smoking people a new crusade. The more bizarre the cause the morelikely it is to be taken up by some leftist wacko group. I can just hearcomplaints about second hand passenger smoke, and how drivers are morereckless when they smoke. We will have to wait and see.
