I'm all about choice. Maybe it would be a good idea to allow bars that have smoking and bars that don't have smoking. Employees could choose to work in either. Patrons could choose to patronize either. Now that non-smoking places have found they do just fine without smoking it might be a fairer market-based alternative.
Especially since so many establishments have erected nearly enclosed outside spaces where patrons and employees imbibe secondhand smoke anyhow. Not to mention innocent bystanders walking by outside.
So it was with interest I read of a bill the legislature's considering about allowing "cigar room" smoking. (I'm sure it isn't related to the state also eliminating the presidential primary. Smoked-filled cigar rooms and caucuses separated long ago.)
The cigar room bill allows the state to garner—or possibly ci-garner—some licensing revenue from entrepreneurs and tobacconists that choose to erect an area "physically separated from any other and fully enclosed by walls or windows with a self-closing door." I hope a separate air-conditioning and heating system as well.
But here's the kicker. You can only smoke cigars there. Cigarette laws and rules still apply. Which, to a person who has smelled both, seems odd. Cigar smoke is far more penetrating and far more stick-to-your-clothes stinky. And since it isn't inhaled, far more dense in its secondhand manifestation.
So what about Cigarillos—Crooks, Winchesters, and Tiparillos? What about pipes?
I think it sounds discriminatory. The connoisseur factor. Cigarette people are smokers, Fancy-schmancy cigar people are aficionados. Like saying it's okay to have merlot and brie at the wine and cheese bistro. But no Mad Dog and Velveeta.
So if a fancy coffee person is a barista and a fancy wine server is a sommelier, what's a fancy cigar server?
A ci-garçon?
America, ya gotta love it.
Thursday, June 02, 2011
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