Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Tobacco smoke is as American as the hollowed apple pie. Tobacco supported our economy from its discovery through our nation’s foundation, our many wars and various catastrophes. Remember LSMFT*? The indigenous peoples, here and down through Central and South America, considered (and still do) tobacco smoke to be healing, purifying (in the spiritual sense) and beneficial.

My sister frequently goes to Guatemala and particularly enjoys visiting the temple of a local god, Machemon, who always has a cigar in his mouth and a drink in his hand. He sits ensconced on a throne-like chair and visitors are invited to join in—and they do with gusto.  It is a rather appealing Sunday service.

But soon he will not be welcomed here in San Antonio because a new national movement has washed up on the banks of our river— rather like tar balls. These “Safety Nazis,” as P. J. O’Rourke aptly named them, seem to have as their guiding obsession the H. L. Mencken definition of Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

I’m speaking of those sanctimonious jerks who want to ban smoking—everywhere. I know, I know, they say they just want it to be banned in restaurants and bars (and ice houses, beer gardens, and the like). Do not believe them! They are the little pebble rolling down hill turning into an all consuming avalanche, the slimy tentacle under the door which precedes something unspeakably “Lovecraftian.” (H. P., that is.)

The advocates for this Liberal Fascistic idea are the usual suspects: City Council Clowns, the Mayor, the Chamber of Commerce and some big anti-smoking foundations who are in fact fronts for big pharmaceutical outfits that sell, you guessed it—anti-smoking drugs and paraphernalia.

City Council will support anything big taxpaying corporations want, hoping for a cushy job when they get through wrecking the city. The Mayor wants everywhere in San Antonio to look “pretty” like photos in flashy New York magazines. The Chamber will lick the boots of any big deal member or potential member while polishing their apples. None of these people give a damn about small businesses. In fact, the city wages a constant low-level war against them.

By the way, the term Liberal Fascism came from a book by Jonah Goldberg. He did not coin the term, H. G. Wells did. I love to show the book’s cover to liberal friends. They turn white in horror and flee the room—ah, life’s small pleasures.

Have you seen those slick anti-smoking “public service” TV ads? They show people (with officially approved racial diversity) bitching about secondhand smoke. They are in a bar, for crying out loud. No one put a Makarov pistol to their sloshy brains and said get in here and breathe. They apparently went in on their own! And immediately want everyone to conform to their prissy demands. Remember, TV ads are not cheap so someone flush with cash supports them.

There is opposition. Louis Barrios, who started the famous Los Barrios Restaurant on Blanco, with a second out just beyond 1604, has been fighting this for years. Sounding like a character out of The Godfather series he said, “I am really tired of this. I have fought it for years. I thought we settled it in 2004, now they are back wanting it all and pulling me back in.”

Barrios said what is so annoying is that they “all seem to play follow the leader in a bad economy to raise fines, fees and taxes on smaller businesses. They don’t care what kind of damage it does to us.”

“It does not affect me as much because my restaurants were already non-smoking. I could have stayed out but it angers me to see city council and bureaucrats picking on small businesses again…Smoking is really a matter between owners and customers.”

Mark Lewis owns a number of pool halls in South Texas. He knows full well the damage such a ban can do. He had a pool hall in College Station. The Safety Nazis pulled a coup d’état and, Bob’s your Uncle, smoking was banned.

Subsequently Mark’s gross business there dropped from $ 25,000 to $7,000 per month as former customers fled to Bryan, Texas just up the road. Lewis said he had just invested thousands of dollars in upgrading his facilities; College Station gave him little warning.

Meanwhile, Bryan city officials have promised not to ban smoking in bars or pool halls, which reassures him only slightly. He believes in the biblical admonition “Put not your trust in princes.”

Barrios and Lewis are not alone. The San Antonio Restaurant Association opposes the total ban. And wonder of wonders, the League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, held a press conference on the steps of City Hall denouncing the proposed ban.

There is not enough room to go into the “science” of “secondhand smoke.” It reminds me of all the incredible hysteria over “global warming” complete with researchers living grand off of phony studies and rigged statistics. This kind of behavior has ruined the integrity of scientific research. To paraphrase the quote above: “Put not thy faith in research funded by advocacy grants.”

Let me say that I do not smoke. I quit in 2000; but when I did I swore to Heaven I would not become one of those obnoxious creeps who complain about how allergic to cigarettes they are. I, of my own free will, frequently go into smoky bars.

My point is that there is plenty of research showing the horrors attributed to secondhand smoke are exaggerated to say the least. We are always hearing calls for tolerance, blah, blah. Yeah, but the problem with Safety Nazis is that first it is “tolerance” then “compliance” then jail.

Finally the cost of a pack of cigarettes in New York is now about $14.95. I kid you not, and that’s per pack. Get ready. Oh to be a young criminal.

*LSMFT, Lucky Strike means fine tobacco.