Thursday, February 17, 2005

Burlington, IA has plans for young lungs

The Hawk Eye Newspaper
The Hawkeye reports that Burlington's city council is debating the prospect of prohibiting anybody under 18 from entering a business where smoking is allowed.
I think this is a very cool method of undermining smokers' grip on public places. Rather than punish businesses for allowing smoking on the premises, they're treating tobacco the same as alcohol. They're saying, just don't put the two of them (that would be juvies and combustibles) in a room together.

Of course, this means that restaurants which have smoking sections will have to start carding every person who comes in. That'll be kind of tough on those mom-and-pop diners where the truckers stop for real eats.


What I really wonder is, will they punish a smoke-filled business in which some kid rushes in for an emergency use of the john, or do they arrest the kid for illegally entering a smoking den?

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