Infinite Critique

The city of Columbia, SC is following in the footsteps of dirty hippies across from out West and attempting to ban smoking in all public places. A ban is already in place for many venues around my town. Now the veggie-burger eating freaks want to force their will into the bars and dance clubs. I’m not writing this to argue for smoking.

Wait: Yes I am. I am very much in favor of allowing a person to smoke wherever he or she damn well pleases. A business owner can make the decision whether to allow his customers to light up or not. We don’t need to go to the Senate over it. If and when it comes to the point that the general public - not just the few psycho-libs who have the time to lobby our city council - decides as a population to ban smoking, then I’m all for it. But that’s the rub: no one asked us. While the rest of us are changing diapers and working 60 weeks, a few individuals decided they wanna push their lifestyle on the rest of us. One day, I woke up and smoking was banned in public places. The vote never made any newspaper. I never saw any commercials. Even today, I found only a small blurb about it in our city paper… the day before the damn vote.

I’m not a Neanderthal: I would agree that Camels are out of place in a $200 a plate restaurant or in church. But I have to put my foot down when it comes to bars and dance clubs. Of all the dangers that surround a bar - pub for you Euros - cigarettes are the least of all evils. Let me list a few for you:

• Alcohol - you don’t see check points for cigarettes. You don’t see wreaths displayed on the side of the road commemorating the site where some teen got jumped up on Nicotine and drove his daddy’s SUV into a tree. No chick smokes a Marlboro and wakes up with her peek-a-boo Vickies around her ankles in a cloud of abused confusion. If you count every way prolonged alcohol abuse affects the body, alcohol kills more people than cancer. It kills more people than FEMA. Yeah, I said it: FEMA.
• Food - Nicotine is an appetite suppressant. It might save me from buying Fried Mozzarella sticks at 3am. It saves me from those late night binge trips to the IHOP. Rather than waddle over to the local Waffle House, I might smoke a clove and take my black-a$$ home to my wife. Which leads me to…
• Casual Sex - I’m married. So when I go to the bar, all I can really do is stand around and reminisce with my buddies about our lost Pimpitude. Smoking in a bar gives me something to do. It also goes great with my Captain-And-Coke. Truth is, I HATE the smell of smoke, so there’s very little chance of my cozying up to some stank co-ed smelling of smoke and alcohol - them days is done, ya’ll. This lessens the chance of my being slain by my wife. I only smoke when I drink, and I only smoke Mint Cloves at that. I’m lame, I know - but it’s all I got left.

I enjoy watching football with fried foods (Trans fats), alcohol and rolled cloves. It’s part of the bar/club experience. I’ll not have that taken away from me by people who prolly don’t even frequent bars. Let me have my 1 pack a month and (poorly remembered) war stories.

The counter argument supplied is that we’re protecting the waitresses and barkeeps from getting second hand cancer. Hey, we could bury every single smoke in the world and people would still get lung cancer and die. Or if they didn’t die from lung cancer, they’d die anyways. Most of these people can be seen smoking behind their buildings on break. If they didn’t want to work at a bar, they wouldn’t. I bounced on Virginia Beach for 2 years. I never complained about being punched in the face. If I did that, the same hippies would say “Don’t be a bouncer.” Yeah, like no shit.

Let’s take the analogy a step farther (further?).

A barkeep complaining about cigarette smoke is like a prostitute complaining about the type of men in her life.

A waitress at a bar complaining about smoke in her hair is like a prostitute complaining about… well, you get it.

Life is about choices, and right now the pet projects of the few are affecting the partying of the many. Maybe they should concentrate on why bars have parking lots when we all know drinking and driving is illegal.

For today’s homework, ponder that and hit me in the comment section.