It's about Time!

Those guys over in Harrisburg finally took their heads out of their asses and the state smoking ban is now out of committee. When I moved to Pittsburgh over a year ago, I was excited to see that a smoking ban had been passed for Allegheny county. Unfortunately, that ban was over-turned very rapidly. Now, after a year of the state discussing it, 6 people in a committee are finally ready to present a bill to the Senate and House of Representatives. Having seen the change-over to state-wide smoking bans while living in both Connecticut and New York and seeing that the sky didn't fall and all legitimate businesses continued to stay in business and do well, I'm a big proponent of these bills.

Frankly, it's been embarrassing to bring out-of-towners to Pittsburgh for one reason alone, the smoke when we go out to restaurants.

Unfortunately, it is a shoddy bill, but it is better than nothing. I would love to hear someone justify this exception as anything except pandering to constituents: "smaller 'mom and pop"'taverns where food sales don't exceed 20 percent of total revenue." Does Jack's count? Does the Town Tavern? Of course, there's the obvious casino exemption as well, so maybe the committee-members were just hedging their bets?

(reference: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08155/887031-100.stm)