Predictably, now a C…

Predictably, now a California town has banned outdoor smoking.

The new Calabasas secondhand smoke ordinance, which would prohibit smoking in all public areas of the city including parks, sidewalks and outdoor businesses, will take effect by the middle of March, city officials said.

But in their magnanimity, they did allow some exceptions.

The city council agreed to allow smoking in the following areas:

•Private residential property, other than housing used as a childcare or health care facility when employees, children or patients are present

•Up to 20 percent of guest rooms in any hotel or motel

•Designated smoking “outposts” in shopping mall common areas that are at least five feet away from any doorway or opening that leads to an enclosed area.

Check out that first one; private property? They allowed it on private property? Folks, if you can’t smoke a cigarette outside on your own land, how private is that property? I’m not a smoker and I encourage folks not to smoke, but if second-hand smoke, diluted by the vast outdoors, is as bad and harmful as all this, then have the guts to ban it completely.

If you don’t, then legislation like this has no place. If you do completely ban tobacco, I’ll bet some folks, lulled to sleep during all these incremental incursions into their liberty by an ever more intrusive government, will wake up and kick you out. (Which is why I’m sure it’s all being done incrementally.)

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