I’ve already written about this subject plenty, but I feel like I have one more take on it left in me. Let’s get it over with.
As soon as August, the city council will vote to enact a stronger smoking ordinance, which will amount to the final nail in the coffin for coffin nails. That, as they say, will be that. I don’t think it’s a winnable fight for the opposition. It’s the one issue just about everyone on the council agrees on, and there are too many secondhand smoke studies to back them up. Some are more subjective than others, but those studies are out there.
See, once the ban on lighting up in restaurants went into effect, the push for kicking cigarettes out of bars was just a matter of time. It gave anti-smokers all the leverage they needed. They could be open about detesting smoking and demanding that it be eradicated anywhere and everywhere. They were maybe even right. I won’t debate the point anymore.
Seriously, look: they have the votes. It’s over, smokers. I’ve been resigned to this for months. I am, more or less, okay with it. It’s just another adjustment that I hope I won’t have to live with for long. (Yeah, I’m smoking; no, I won’t talk about quitting again when I give it another shot.)
Here’s what bothers me. If the anti-smoking faction would just take the victory and be done with it, that would be fine. But, no, they have to scoreboard everyone. Smoke-Free Dallas is swooping in now, and they’ll act like they brought home a victory. It was happening anyway. This was on the table as soon as Tom Leppert won, and it would have been on the table if Laura Miller had still been in office.
All I’m asking? Accept the win humbly. In August, I’ll raise my glass to you when I see you at the bar. I’ll nod at you and you’ll nod back. Until then, don’t shout me down with statistics and horror stories and talk about your right to get drunk in a smoke-free environment. You won. We lost. Don’t act like Kevin Garnett when he won the NBA title. Act like you’ve been there before.
(I’m sure there will be those who choose to overreact in the comments and shout me down with statistics and whatnot. I’ll thank you in advance for not reading a word I said.)
