A waggish fellow once swore he'd seen this advertisement in the Companions Wanted section of the Classified: "Man. Smokes, drinks, gambles. Seeking woman who smokes, drinks, gambles. Objective: Smoking, drinking and gambling."
Since I'm a pretty open-minded kind of a fellow, who has no interest in imposing my own (lack of) moral standards on other men and women, I quite enjoyed that ad.
It's supposedly still a free country, so if someone wants to spend their loonies smoking, drinking and gambling, I say let them go ahead.
Sadly, there are others in our community who don't have this view. They want to ram their own warped ideas down the throats of everyone else. This, as history has so often taught us, is a dangerous thing.
Now, except for the occasional Gitane, Gaulois or cigar at a military function, I rarely smoke. That said, if someone else wants to sit at a bar taking deep philosophical drags on cigarettes while pouring a pint of Big Rock over their vocal cords and into their bellies, or do the same while tossing loonies into a VLT machine, who am I to complain? It's their money, their space -- and their choice.
But, in this city built on free enterprise, we have a bunch of closed-minded, puritanical nitpickers on council, in the bureaucracy and in various groups throughout the city who want to ban smoking in all public places.
This includes restaurants and bars -- which makes no sense. But common sense isn't a quality these intolerant wimps and whiners have in their genetic make-up. It just makes you want to gasp.
By the way, the definition of puritanical is someone who just can't bear to see another person enjoying life. The strident anti-smoking brigade is in this category.
Frankly, I can see -- and support -- the banning of smoking in jetliners, on buses and in McDonald's and Burger King. Movie houses and theatres, too. Department stores for sure. These are either enclosed spaces, or places where children go, and customers shouldn't be forced to sit next to someone puffing away.
Yet, in restaurants and especially bars? Come on. This is just banal. Why would anyone go to a country and western bar, or an English or Irish pub if they were not allowed to smoke? These places would go belly-up if the anti-smoking fanatics got their way, just throwing many people out of jobs. It is absolutely ridiculous.
Ridiculous, too, is an idea put forward by these people bent on tyranny that restaurants or bars should at least be forced to put up a wall down the centre of their establishments with one-side being smoke-free. The last time some totalitarian types put up a wall, it divided an entire nation -- and became the shame of the world.
The answer to the smoking in restaurants and bars issue is simple: Let men, women and teenagers who don't smoke or whiff tobacco go to an establishment that has voluntarily decided their business is smoke-free.
Let the rest of us go out for an evening to a place whose owner has decided he wants his establishment to be a smoking one. That's what democracy is all about.
Of course, strait-laced anti-smoking types don't believe in democracy, or freedom of choice. It's their way, or no way. It is frightening, for after they've got their way on this, they will move to some other issue. They are like anti-fluoride freaks, they just can't stop.
I actually saw one of these types the other day. Fanatical zeal burst from this rat-faced woman's eyes. Her voice was shrill. I thought, My God, I pity her poor husband -- that's if her husband is still around. Personally, I'd have made my escape from this harridan long ago.
On council, whose membership is generally either third-rate or uninspired, there is one who stands out -- Rick McIver. This alderman doesn't believe in any ban at all. It should all be voluntary. He points out the devastation these small-minded spoilsports and busybodies would bring to businesses in the city. People he says, can vote with their wallets, and he equates fanatical anti-smoking groups with authoritarian communism.
We have to stop these people. They are like termites. Once they get into a home, they breed and start to tear it down. They'll do that to our community. If they win on anti-smoking, they'll then move to another issue and our freedoms will be increasingly gnawed away. We'll then live in an authoritarian state. Believe me.
Jackson, associate editor of the Sun, can be reached at paul.jackson@calgarysun.com.
November 9, 2001