Durham County, get ready. Next summer is the target date for the county to expand its anti-smoking ordinance to prohibit smoking on sidewalks outside county and city buildings. Predictably, county commissioners are engaged in a discussion of what/who should be exempted and what/who should not. According to the Herald-Sun, when a smoker walks down a street that includes public and private property, the smoker would be required to put out the cigarette while walking by the public building and then could light up once he/she passes.Why more regulations? The county health director says tobacco smoke is so unsafe that no exposure is acceptable. So why then aren’t cigarettes illegal in this country? We know why: most public officials want the tax revenue derived from the sales.

Over in Chapel Hill another bureaucratic nightmare awaits. Commissioners are having the same silly conversation about their effort to regulate behavior and ban talking on a cell phone while driving. Since state-owned streets are interspersed with town roads, a driver would be allowed to talk on the phone here, but not there, and then here, but not there, etc. This hopscotching of rules is what occurs when government officials attempt to regulate activity they personally don’t like. I don’t smoke and I don’t talk on the phone while driving in heavy traffic or bad weather. I use judgment; I don’t need ordinances.