[img]9|left|||no_popup[/img]Ending one of the longer losing streaks in City Hall, City Councilman Gary Silbiger’s newest pet project, a ban on smoking in certain popular areas, may win approval at tonight’s 7 o’clock meeting.
Mr. Silbiger does not always swim in the mainstream, as Council watchers know.
This time he has at least Mayor Alan Corlin on his side. And while you can bet everything you own Mr. Silbiger is not out lobbying today for a third vote — not his style —merely Mr. Corlin’s presence brings him closer to his goal than he usually gets.
Your Opinion, Please
I polled Vice Mayor Carol Gross, a former nurse, whom I thought might say “Yes, sir,” to the ban.
She did not. “I am not sure,” she said when I telephoned in the late morning. A journalist who wants to play detective would guess Ms. Gross will end up opposing the plan tonight.
As a former nurse, wouldn’t her support for health reasons be logical and obvious? Not necessarily.
The way one votes on such a matter, Ms. Gross ventured, likely will be determined “by your philosophy of government.” This suggests she finds such a broad prohibition inappropriate. She also wonders when a government body will prohibit the sales of certain food items because they are debatably determined to be “unhealthy.”
Crawling Before Learning to Walk
If Mr. Silbiger’s agenda does prevail, you and I, Murgatroyd, will have to crawl on our bellies under a bench in the new Skateboard Park — where they generally don’t do enforcement anyway — at 3 in the morning. Hopefully, Westside paparazzi will be home asleep when we execute our ground mission.
As a dedicated liberal with the widest welfare of society prominent in his daily thoughts, Mr. Silbiger would ban smoking in the following four expansive places:
All outdoor dining areas.
All outdoor events.
All outdoor service areas, such as standing in line for theatre tickets.
All common areas of apartment/condo buildings.
At a glance, these restrictions are arguably not quite as oppressive as the day several months ago when Mayor Stalin of Calabasas led a successful, first-in-the-nation campaign to forbid smoking in private homes.
I believe Mayor Stalin said his next project will be to tape or edit what I say to my wife when we are alone at home, with no children or grandchildren around to corroborate.
Mayor Corlin reasons that the smoking ban would be a capital idea because of the damage that smokers already have done and are doing to our country, economically and medically.
Smoking Expensive — for the Country
He mentioned the domino effect that constant and extensive treatment of smokers has on medical bills. “They may be using the Emergency Room when you or I need it,” Mr. Corlin said. He also cited the damage to other people’s health caused by second-hand smoke.
As the brother of a nationally well-known doctor, the sympathetic Mr. Corlin said that an American Medical Assn. study from several years ago concluded cigarettes should cost between $6 and $7 a pack, based on the way smoking-related problems have driven up a wide assortment of costs for the rest of us.
I See You, I See You
Enforcement of the proposed ban, said Mr. Corlin, would be virtually impossible to police in a traditional manner. “If this passes,” said the Mayor, “enforcement will be complaint-driven.”
Are we talking tattle tales?
Spies?
In the manner of the long-ago television show “I Spy,” will smokers be forced to furtively look over both shoulders — simultaneously — to make sure no witness is afoot.
Golly, I wish had been born a liberal.
Then I could know precisely what was best for everybody else on the planet.
