God bless Christopher Buckley and God bless Wilonsky for knowing who Nick Naylor is...

All hail the MOD.

The city council needs to get their priorities straight. The number of alcohol related deaths and injuries to innocent bystanders far exceeds cigarette related deaths and injuries..... sooooooo, ban alcohol sales in the city of Dallas if you're so fucking concerned about our health and well being..... oh wait a minute, they like the tax $$$ generated by alcohol sales, so they're OK with those deaths and injuries.

This is a joke. Everyone knows the vast majority of establishments in this city are smoke free. The city council needs to focus on REAL concerns. That's why you were voted into office, assholes.

I feel conflicted, on one hand I'm going to enjoy waking up from a night of drinking reeking of only booze, not booze and cigarettes, on the other hand I'm going to miss that cigarette or two I bum off of a friend after half a dozen drinks.

Nick Naylor: Cigarettes in space?
Jeff Megall: It's the final frontier, Nick.
Nick Naylor: But wouldn't they blow up in an all oxygen environment?
Jeff Megall: Probably. But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. 'Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device.'

@ Lakewooder:

1. The city doesn't get any tax from alcohol sales in bars, that all goes to the state.

2. There's a big tax on Tobacco too, but I'm not sure if the city gets any of it.

I'm not sure what it is, but it's not the tax. I have a feeling it's some very heavy lobbying by insurance companies, and our county hospital.

Dallasite, thanks. I have a habit speaking before thinking. My point is this.... from an innocent bystander’s point of view, alcohol is far more dangerous than tobacco. It's pretty easy to avoid cigarette smoke these days. Virtually every bar/restaurant in our neighborhood is smoke free with the exception of 1 or 2, but we all run the risk of serious injury or death as a result of an intoxicated driver. Oh, and one other thing... enact a new law and someone has to enforce it. Do we really want to spend money policing the air quality of bars, or would we rather direct those $$/resources towards violent crime?

In every era, there's somebody or something that we just have to demonize. One hundred years ago, it was alcohol, Demon Rum. Our great-grandparents were so het up about the evils of drink that they kept on and kept on until they finally changed the Constitution of the United States to make the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol illegal everywhere in the country.

Now we look back and smugly smile at how silly they were. Yes, we know alcohol causes lots of serious problems, physical, mental, social, etc. But how many people are demanding the total eradication of alcohol from the landscape? Do you turn up your nose and make a sneering comment every time a friend of yours pops open a beer? Is anyone proposing to shut down all the bars and liquor stores "to protect our children"?

Actually, there are still some dry counties out here in rural Texas, a legacy of that hundred-year-old campaign against alcohol; but we all know the dry-county routine is just an exercise in hypocrisy, don't we?

Furthermore, a big influential group of college presidents - yeah - is now advocating lowering, not raising the drinking age. I thought we had that debate and settled it back in the 70's; lower drinking age = more auto accidents and deaths, no?

And of course, it's entirely likely that sometime in the next 10 years, certainly the next 20, we will see marijuana legalized all over the country, even here in Bible-believing Texas.

So if we get out of the self-righteous, I'm-so-pure, Health Nazi mode, we see that our own attitudes are likely very inconsistent. Hypocritical. Intolerant.

Except when it comes down to what *we* like. The fashionable vices. Oh then it's just okay - pot, beer, booze, you name it. Not a problem. "Leave me alone. It's my body. My sacred choice."

Yeah, well, think about that in terms of the tobacco thing, guys. Is it really necessary, especially out in the open air, or indoors where adults congregate, with big machines to sweep the air clean? Or does it just make you feel all warm and Sunday-school-righteous inside to kick somebody else's freedom into the gutter?

Is the other guy's health the *real* motive here? Or is something else? I ask you.

Right on, Russ! You see the picture clearly. Please let the "Sunday school righteous" mayor and other pro ban members of the City Council know your opinion. Too many non smokers don't think this prejudice against smoking is thier problem. It is. They could be part of the next segment of society to be demonized for some legal activity they pursue and have thier freedom kicked into the gutterby the Marxist nannies!

Jim Graham