Wednesday, October 16, 2002
Smoking ban in Boston: The Globe has endorsed the proposed smoking ban in Boston bars and restaurants. The lead on the editorial starts out: “Each year, secondhand smoke kills 53,000 Americans, according to a 1998 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That is 13,000 more than the toll of breast cancer.” How can one argue with those stats? But can’t a similar lead be written about, oh, the abuse of alcohol? The point is not that smoking and alcohol should be banned. The point is that bars, in particular, are in the business of selling a vice: booze. Last time Hub Blog checked, booze also kills and destroys innocents in huge numbers. Yet we tolerate and regulate it -- not ban it, as the U.S. once tried to do during Prohibition. There’s something very, very illogical about the self-righteous way the city’s health department is moving ahead on cracking down on one vice in bars (smoking) while leaving in place the vice that’s the very essence and soul of bars: alcohol.
Postscript: One of the arguments against the smoking ban is that Boston may fall out of favor with overseas tourists, particularly Europeans. But the health Puritans have an answer to that: Foreigners have to learn ''that's what life is like in America,'' says John Auerbach, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission. Oh, how perfectly Puritanical in logic and conviction. ... Postscript postscript: For the life of me, Hub Blog will never forget the remarks of Mayor Menino when he was in New Orleans last January to attend the Pats’ Superbowl game. Surveying the huge crowds surging through that city’s streets at night, the mayor said something like: ‘I don’t get it. What does New Orleans have that Boston doesn’t have?’ In a word, mayor, it’s called: D-E-C-A-D-E-N-C-E.
Postscript: One of the arguments against the smoking ban is that Boston may fall out of favor with overseas tourists, particularly Europeans. But the health Puritans have an answer to that: Foreigners have to learn ''that's what life is like in America,'' says John Auerbach, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission. Oh, how perfectly Puritanical in logic and conviction. ... Postscript postscript: For the life of me, Hub Blog will never forget the remarks of Mayor Menino when he was in New Orleans last January to attend the Pats’ Superbowl game. Surveying the huge crowds surging through that city’s streets at night, the mayor said something like: ‘I don’t get it. What does New Orleans have that Boston doesn’t have?’ In a word, mayor, it’s called: D-E-C-A-D-E-N-C-E.
