Unfortunately, the House of Delegates weakened the bill so severely last night, you can't even call it a smoking ban anymore:
Amendments would permit smoking in rooms separated by doors, even if there is no separate ventilation system. They carved out exceptions for smoking in outdoor patio areas; at restaurants during private functions when the function takes up the entire restaurant; and at clubs or bars at times when under-age patrons are not admitted.As Del. Adam Ebbin twittered, "It seems more like a non-smoking SECTION bill than a non-smoking restaurant bill."
The Senate and Gov. Kaine need to work to strengthen the bill. If House Republicans won't support a stronger bill, then smoking ban supporters should let them go to the voters this fall and explain why they wouldn't protect our children from the effects of secondhand smoke. Even the Bush administration's own Surgeon General pointed out there's no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke.
Meanwhile, I enjoyed the comments of Virginia's Republican Party chair, Del. Jeff Frederick, who said, "As much as I personally would love a smoking ban, it's not my job to tell small-business owners what they can and cannot allow in their small businesses."
Really? I look forward to Del. Frederick introducing legislation to roll back fire codes, food safety regulations, and the drinking age. Clearly we can't tell small businesses what to do, can we, Del. Frederick?
5 comments:
Miles-You will have to work with the GOP if, God forbid, you are elected. You won't be winning any friends on the other side, who you will need on your side sometimes, by posting personal crap like this. You've got a lot to learn. Then again, you are so clueless, you probably won't come close to winning the nomination.
Who doesn't love a good anonymous attack every now and then? Really, it's stuff like this that gets me excited to go knock on more doors every night.
One question though, what was "personal crap" in my post? Suggesting maybe Del. Frederick hasn't thought through his selective libertarianism? Pretty weak mudslinging, no?
Hey Anonymous - You might not like snark but at least Miles is willing to take a stand and say he agrees and disagrees with legislation. While you may think that is not electable, I think it is refreshing and something that Richmond needs. There is way too much shady Republican action (i.e. scheduling votes on holidays in the early morning to avoid attention) that Miles will point out.
Vote for someone who will go down to Richmond and not have an opinion and see if that gets us anywhere.
Any tax exempt political action committee (charity) that spends huge sums of money to hire lobbyists to make laws using THREATS, INTIMIDITATION, LAW ENFORCEMENT, and SNITCHING to FORCE people to OBEY their guidelines will get NO DONATIONS from me. Here are the rest of them, all fed by big pharma through the Robert J. Wood Foundation.
www.no-smoke.org/pdf/CIA_Fundamentals.pdf
Again, I filter my comments, but how can you not let this stuff go through? These are the battle lines - people who think it's a reasonable compromise for smokers to step outside for a minute to have their cigarette ... versus people who think the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is a gang of jack-booted thugs. (And FYI for future rants - it's the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.)
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