Belmont: Personal Choice Goes Up in Smoke

Smoking will soon be against the law in the California city of Belmont. You won't be allowed to smoke anywhere, the sole exception being a single-family detached home. That means that if you live in a townhouse or an apartment building, you're out of luck. Oh, by the way, you'll also be prohibited from lighting up in your own car.

The Belmont City Council voted unanimously last night to pursue a strict law that will prohibit smoking anywhere in the city except for single-family detached residences. Smoking on the street, in a park and even in one’s car will become illegal and police would have the option of handing out tickets if they catch someone.

Read the whole thing, and marvel at the small-time fascists who've convinced themselves that forbidding other people from voluntarily using a legal product is actually proof of selfless heroism.

It's the wave of the future. Actually, strike that: in the future we'll have to go even further.

The decision puts Belmont on the forefront of smoking policy and it is already attracting attention from other states. "You have the ability to do something a little more extraordinary than Dublin or Calabasas. I see what they've done as five or six on the Richter Scale. What the citizens of Belmont, and of America, need is five brave people to do something that's a seven or eight on the Richter Scale," said Philip Henry Jarosz of the Condominium Council of Maui.

I wonder what a 9 or a 10 on tobacco nannies' Richter scale looks like. A 9 might be the dispatch of SWAT teams to the homes of apartment dwellers who smoke. A 10 probably entails their summary execution.

Yeah, I'm exaggerating — it's called sarcasm. Then again, considering the breakneck speed at which smoking foes are implementing their radical agenda, the years ahead do look bleaker and more depressing all the time.

Comments

[someone] has the right to have the police come and give them a ticket,” said Councilwoman Coralin Feierbach.

Wow, every once and awhile you come across people with whom you don't even know where to start. Okay, I do.....how about with a basic defintion of a "right".

I don't often think of having the police arrest and/or ticket me as something enshrined in the constitution.

[David]

OK, so how long before the first person is killed while police are serving a no-smoking warrant?

[GreginOz]

Any cockhead that tried to tell me I can't smoke in my own car would end with my wheel jack inserted up da bazoolo! I think people need to go visit their local govenment meetings with a little 'attitude adjustment' eqipment ie locked n loaded.

The smoking ban is wrong! I find it hard to understand how a band of do-gooder's has succeded in stealing our freedom. Their ranting has been heard, and normal people are expected to conform. Bar's were being forced out of business by the breathalizer. Now the final straw comes with the smoking ban. Maybe those in major cities can hang on, since that seems to be where all of the idiot's that wanted the ban live, but small town bar's have lost their customer's since the majority are smokers.

House parties, where anything goes, seems to be the alternative. Minor's flock to them. Since there is no supervision, they can drink all they want, get in their car's and drive away. For people who still like to go out, it is off to the tribal Casino's.

Now the do-gooder's are on a crusade to make everyone stop eating anything that tastes good. Should we expect to do a weigh in at the grocery store? Maybe we will be shuttled to the isle of granola, and sprouts, if we are over the limit. Washington will probably want to be the first to force stores to install scales, and comply.

I remember a time when Washington was a wonderful place to live, but those times are gone, thanks to the control freaks. My dream now is that I can sell everything I own in this miserable state and go to another country.

[Ed]

They can't demonstrate any health benefit whatsoever from banning outdoor smoking in a smog-ridden town. Smoke traveling from one closed apartment to another is equally fraudulent.

If the law doesn't prevent such arbitrary and capricious fanaticism we no longer have any freedom left. Sue the bastards!!