Here we go. Another push to ban smoking in Mecklenburg restaurants. Great to know the schools are fixed and crooks are all in jail so we can move on to such trivial matters.

But no, we are evidently paying county employees to run around and concoct bogus “studies” of tobacco smoke. The Uptown paper of the record reports:

Kate Uslan, the county’s tobacco control coordinator, said county workers went to 32 places around the county to measure air quality. It shows that “we’re putting people at risk every day” by taking children and elderly people to places where they are exposed to secondhand smoke, she said.

“You’re breathing in five times as many toxins,” even if you sit in the nonsmoking section, she said.

Results of the study, by Mecklenburg’s health department, will be released today. The study measured particles in the air at smoke-free establishments, places that designate smoking sections, and places that allow smoking freely, and compared them. The particles can be caused by other things, such as grilling, but Uslan said the difference between smoke-free restaurants and the others showed the effect of allowing smoking.

That is a lie. There is no “putting people at risk” involved. Second-hand tobacco smoke is not gamma radiation; a few minutes, hours even, of “exposure” is not going to have long-term health effects. You might as well worry about someone giving you the evil eye.

Now, is tobacco smoke nasty? Abso-friggin’-lutely. That is why there are dozens and dozens of establishments in the county who are not going to get my business because of that nasty smoke. But, evidently, the smokers’ dollar speaks louder than mine. That’s life. I’m not a victim, I’m just in the minority. There is a difference.

Many, many, many, people like to go to bars, clubs, and restaurants and smoke. I think that is insane, but I also think driving a 400-hp, RWD SUV is insane. Paying money for a cell phone ring-tone is positively nuts, can I get county workers running around trying to ban that too?

And here’s why this issue is particularly inflaming. Were it not for the wishes of taxpayer-funded government staff we would not be having this discussion in Mecklenburg right now. But because county staff want this ban to happen, because they take it as a measuring stick against their public-sector peers around the country, because “everyone” knows that “progressive” locales ban smoking, here we are wasting time with this junk.

Update:
Here’s the Charlotte Capitalist noting what John Stossel has to say on the topic of smoke bans.