Well, well. Isn’t this interesting?
A cigar bar exception to the smoking ban legislation working its way through the state house sailed by with little opposition. State Rep. Thom Tillis (Meck.) did object, arguing that would complicate enforcement of the ban, but lost the vote 93-24. However, I think Thom had a larger point that was lost in the enforcement canard.
I think Tillis saw that fellow ban proponent and House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman was making a huge mistake by not fighting the cigar bar amendment. Holliman said that anyone who goes into a cigar bar knows what they are getting into and hence does not need the state to protect them.
How then does this differ from an establishment which makes very clear that smoking — of all kinds — is permitted on the premises? Holliman is also saying that patrons — not workers and staff — are the primary audience the state wants to keep away from smoke, which completely blows up any pretense that the ban is about negative health impacts. There are no long-term health impacts from breathing second-hand smoke for a few hours a year. Put another way, why do cigar bar workers and staff get a sure sentence of death, to borrow Rep. Jeff Barnhart‘s Theodoric of York-style reasoning.
As you can see something, possibly a toad or small dwarf, is playing havoc with the Big Government side’s wits.
