Smoking Ban shows need for part-time legislature

Nathan Shrader makes the case that the smoking ban – along with other nonsensical legislation – shows why Pennsylvania should move to a part-time, citizen legislature.

Smoking ban proponents are quick to buttress their position with bogus, inane theories about how people who work in bars and restaurants are dying from smoke inhalation. They ignore the fact that these hard working waiters, waitresses, and barkeeps can do what anyone else does if they don’t like their jobs: quit and get another one. It is called the free market and it is a beautiful thing.

Senate Bill 246 also creates loopholes allowing the state’s casino racket to be partially exempt from the ban and permitting smoking in cigar bars, tobacco shops, and bars that have 20 percent or less in annual sales of food. This number was concocted arbitrarily. Senator Stewart “Nanny State Stew� Greenleaf (R-Montgomery) and his cadre of cradle-to-grave coddlers were kind enough to “exempt� people who choose to smoke in their own cars or their own homes! I hope someone remembers to send him a thank you note and a pack of Swisher Sweets.