Leader of the Banned

Push to restrict, ban fireworks fizzles in North Charleston

http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/aug/17/push_restrict_ban_fireworks_fizzles_nort13246/

City Council decided Wednesday not to ban or restrict the sale or use of fireworks. Two residents from different parts of the city had complained recently that they couldn't leave their homes during the Fourth of July because they were afraid their homes might catch fire from neighbors' fireworks.

State law allows the sale of fireworks in South Carolina and the city cannot pre-empt state law, Mayor Keith Summey said. "If we allow people to sell them, we have to allow people to use them," he said. [emphasis mine]

State law allows someone to erect a sign in his yard declaring it a fireworks-free zone…

So where the fuck was the mayor when this was going down:

Smoking ban starts today
Monday, Jul 23, 2007

http://www.wcbd.com/midatlantic/cbd/news.apx.-content-articles-CBD-2007-07-23-0004.html

The smoking ban applies to all indoor workplaces and that includes bars and restaurants…The ban prevents smoking inside, but allows smokers to smoke outside of the buildings, as long as the smoke doesn’t drift inside.

Isn’t that interesting? South Carolina state law allows people to sell cigarettes, but Charleston isn’t allowing people to use them. And why can’t a bar or restaurant owner erect a sign declaring their business a smoke-free or smoke-friendly zone? And what the hell is that about “as long as the smoke doesn’t drift inside”? Kiss my ass. When I smoke, I take care not to blow smoke in anyone’s face. Anything beyond that is not my problem. I’ve heard people complain that they had to walk past the smokers on the sidewalks outside of these businesses. I’m sorry that the outdoors isn’t big enough for both my smoke and your comfort. Who’s taking more than their fair share of the parts per million, here?

I was in Minneapolis recently, and they are quite anti-smoking there. Not as rabid about it as California, but getting there. You can’t smoke within fifty feet of entrances to public buildings. My flight had a layover in O’Hare, and there also isn’t any smoking area inside those buildings. If you want to smoke, you have to go outside, and then back through Security. How ridiculous. Even our teeny little airport at home has a smoking lounge.

IT’S A LEGAL PRODUCT, YOU BUSYBODY FUCKHEADS!

One of my favorite things to do in places like that is to walk around with an unlit cigarette in my mouth. It’s amusing to watch the faces of the nanny-staters as they realize that they are approaching one of the most lethal, inconsiderate, and smelliest weapons ever devised by man. Doesn’t matter that it isn’t lit, all that means is that it’s poised to unleash enough second-hand smoke to pollute the entire O’Hare airport, afflicting the happy, shiny travelers with all manner of disfiguring cancers and bulbous tumors, and turning each of the five terminals into superfund sites, as useless for commercial travel as your average leper colony. (That’s why I continue to smoke – it’s the power trip that gets me off.) You’d think I was walking around with an open canister of malaria or something. Actually, I’m pretty certain that the science-ignorant antis would be more comfortable with malaria than Marlboros. At least, they seem to equate smokers with that TB-infected douchebag that flew from Italy to Canada to the US.

I think that next time someone accosts me for smoking, I’ll just tell them that it’s a firecracker.