#1 Parking meters- After careful consideration by the city council, they have decided NOT to install parking meters at this time.
#2 No-smoking Ordinance- has passed! The downtown core will be a smoke free zone. The GVDA staff will be working with Grass Valley Police Department to contact each of you about the ordinance and how it will affect your business. We will be designing signs that will compliment the downtown historic decor that will state NO SMOKING in public areas and municipal areas, with the municipal code etc…
—Grass Valley Downtown Association
Filed under: Uncategorized
No comments? This is the stuff that’s red meat for the right. I’ve been a smoker and a non smoker–started in Vietnam, near the end of my tour after a particularly bad episode. Don’t have lung cancer now, just a real rare lung disease. But when I didn’t smoke, I didn’t care if someone else was. NC and GV laws are BS on this. It’s more about being annoyed, than public health. Bet business revenues go down. Lots is annoying, wood stove smog, pollutants from the products we all use. Bad, bad decision. Who will arrest the first tourist from a senior’s bus?
Ed wrote: “It’s more about being annoyed, than public health.”
Perhaps. Indoor smoking (restaurants, bars) is obnoxious. I remember having this conversation with a friend of mine when these bans went into effect. My point was at the time, if you walk into Cirino’s and someone has a drink at the back table, you’d probably wouldn’t notice. If they bust out a cigarette, you’d notice walking in the door.
“Bet business revenues go down.”
This was the argument back in the day. So far, I think Cooper’s, McGees, the Shaft, are doing just fine.
“Lots is annoying, wood stove smog, pollutants from the products we all use.”
True. See my first point.
IMO, this is just like the loitering laws as a round about way of curtailing bad public behavior and law enforcement not wanting to do the hard things.
It’s been mentioned for years (this blog included) that a step up in police presence seems to be the best strategy. To his credit, our new NC police chief seems to understand this and has implemented this.
With that being said, I understand NC has enacted a smoking ban downtown. The Bars, here, have accommodations for their patrons so I don’t think it’s been a big deal.
Going down to Bonanza yesterday, guess what?!? People smoking everywhere; outside McGees, outside City Hall, outside Bonanza.
Again, you can duck behind legislation to drive public behavior, but in the end, it doesn’t work. A few constables walking around seems to be the best.
Chris:
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a non-smoker. I think the last time I smoked a cigarette I was ten years old in a neighbor’s treehouse pretending to be a big kid.
But even as a non-smoker, my stubborn Libertarian streak has always opposed smoking bans. I think bars and restaurants –– or any other business, for that matter –– should be able to post relevant signage on their front door that identifies them as a smoking or non-smoking establishment. The public can then decide which businesses to patronize and which to avoid. That keeps it simple –– and keeps government out of the loop.
The examples you used (except in front of City Hall) have their own private property smoking areas, unaffected by the recent sidewalk ordinance. The small area in front of McGee’s is private property, not public. Also, the parking area alongside Bonanza is private property.
But what about the Crazy Horse? Where do their customers go? They will go out on the sidewalk, and I doubt if the police will do much about that. Don’t blame them. There are bigger law enforcement issues than policing smokers outside The Horse on a Friday night.
To me, it’s another feel-good ordinance that will be lightly enforced at best, and selectively enforced at worst. I can’t imagine a police officer stopping a tourist –– laden with shopping bags from downtown merchants –– and telling them to put out the cigarette dangling from their lips. But if they spot someone standing on the public sidewalk outside The Mine Shaft with a cigarette in their hand, well, that’s another story.
I don’t like cigarette smoke, and prior to the indoor ban I always looked for the most smoke-free area of any saloon I stopped in, (and I stopped in ‘em all on a regular basis, as you know), but I never thought it was government’s job to tell the business owners that their customers couldn’t smoke. For that matter, I don’t think government should prohibit smoking on public sidewalks. But like I said at the top, I guess that’s part of my stubborn Libertarian outlook on life.
You are absolutely right: “…you can duck behind legislation to drive public behavior, but in the end, it doesn’t work.”
And since it doesn’t work, why in blazes do city councils bother to even enact such ordinances?
Steve, I have to agree with you on this!
I’m happy with the way that regulations have treated smokers in California, especially in restaurants. I got to taste my food, they got to keep their smokes, just step outside.
Now, smokers in the Tahoe National Forest (that were in) all bets are off, cigarette flippers from vehicles here should be arrested -
Oh, BTW, Good Luck to GV and John Foster on this one.
Sure, the bars with music will be OK. Just felt a comment was needed since soon perhaps, the City wll try and regulate this in ones condo, home. Stuff like this drives people nuts, talking about regulations, etc.
Some people go so overboard, it’s enough to drive one to smoking Thai Sticks. But I always field striped cigs, as butts on the ground is just being a slob.
Steve, Indeed these city ords. offend the Libertarian part of me. Of course I wasn’t talking about restaurants, as I agree, smoke is enclosed and can turn a dining outing into an unpleasant affair. But I find that communities that don’t really have real crime, get carried away with this type of legislation.
I’ve always felt police officers should apprentice in areas with “mean streets” before getting cushy jobs in what are basically easy gigs. Still, legislative over reach into just about every area of life is, IMO, about the worst enemy of progressives and their more humane agenda that the rightists.
Couldn’t let that post go without a single comment.
None of you get it, it’s all part of UN Agenda 21.
Yeah, everyone knows the ChiComm’s don’t smoke!
Steve, when I traveled to China and the Shaolin Temple to study T’ai Chi and some Kung Fu, the head Sensei smoked like Gary, Indiana used to. Quite a spectacle to see a seven year old smash bricks in half.
But the Politburo is really smoking now.