City
Smoking The Government.
I don't loathe smoking as much as I enjoy poking fun at smokers.
Realistically, there has never been a sect of people in modern culture that are seemingly in a constant position to accept good-natured mockery, with the noted exception of people that wear sports jersey's out in public and think they're being fashionable.
So you can imagine my delight when it was announced last winter that Ontario Bars and Restaurants had prohibited the act of smoking on their premises. Not necessarily because - as a frequenter of these establishments - I would be adding years to my life, but because I looked forward to hearing the ensuing arguments against such a by-law.
For the purposes of great comedy, listening to people advocate smoking is right up there with a candidate for the NDP spending money on advertising in Rosedale.
Here is my question: Where the hell was this by-law written? Over drinks at a ripper bar? At an all-inclusive resort in Mexico? Because ever since its inception, establishments like, This Is London have been giving the figurative middle-finger to the Ontario Government and finding laughable loopholes in their by-law.
Saturday night at This Is London a member of our party was - essentially - forced to sign up for a "membership". Seems that This Is London was a "private" club for the evening. Membership was free - how lovely - and it gave everyone at the club the right to smoke like it was their job.
(Just in case anyone was curious, I fully support This Is London and their aptitude for making money. Stupidity should be exploited whenever possible.)
How does this happen? More importantly, are there other loopholes hidden in the laws of this province that I am currently unaware of?
"Son, do you realize that you were going 92 km/h in a school-zone?"
"Yes Officer. Luckily I live in this neighborhood and we have decided to re-adjust the speed limit for its residents to 140 km/h."
"Oh. Well, please try and avoid striking a child. Sorry to have bothered you."
"You should be sorry, not to mention embarrassed."
It just seems completely unbelievable to me that our government could be so shortsighted. When something is announced as a critical piece of legislation, and is later proven to have more faults than your typical offensive set from the Raptors; that just serves to make laughingstocks out of its architects.
If it was so important, it should have been done correctly.
SA
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Of course there are loopholes! Beautiful, beautiful loopholes! tax loopholes, crime loopholes, loopholes with their OWN loopholes.
I don't know how this can be so unbelievable. Do you really think it is possible for legislators to come up with every single senario that the human mind can come up with to stump a law? They're only human.
Hamish, the post didn't have anything to do with whether or not people should be able to smoke in bars. Even being a non-smoker, I'm more or less indifferent.
Michael, anybody - ANYBODY - could have come up with the scheme that This Is London uses. This is not an exceptionally intelligent broker manipulating his personal expenses and outsmarting the Ontario Government.
This is the Ontario Government building a house without any locks on the doors and expecting not to get robbed. There's a marked difference.
SA
My analogy was used to illustrate that the Ontario government was not particularly prepared - or, thorough - with respect to this issue. I could have compared the by-law situation with someone who plays the accordion on the street, but I don't think it would have fired through the same way. Whatever.
The "butt-out" act as a whole, has been hugely successful. However, that doesn't change the fact that, if so inclined, any bar or club in the city can circumvent the legislation.
This Is London was NOT a private club on Saturday night. It was a club, masquerading as a "private" one to appease the legions of Torontonians that are trying to avoid frost-bite on their index fingers.
It's not a "grand (poop) up", but it also is not a shining example of our government at its best.
Also, that was the first chance that I got to type "poop" in this space. Many thanks.
But I DO NOT want to say forbidding smoking is bad - it is VERY GOOD.
As far as I know in most European countries in which there is such a law it protects the workers at first - so how it is in Toronto? Private or not - a barman in such a place inhalates cancerogenous substances even if he/she is not smoking at all. He cannot do much because he works there. And this should be forbidden.
And by the way smoking costs all the society immense amount of money - for curing those idiots who were smoking and got cancer.
I'm pretty sure you can't even smoke in your car, if you are transporting a child.
Then again, if Arnold was Mayor of Toronto, This Is London would not have tried this stunt in the first place. SA
In the Globe and Mail:
Court ruling quashes loophole in smoking laws
By OLIVER MOORE
Wednesday, December 21, 2005 Page A15
The city's chief medical officer was hailing a court ruling yesterday that he said eliminated a loophole some bars used to permit smoking.
David McKeown said the Ontario Court decision, which rejected a Toronto pub's attempt to recast itself as a private club, would "improve the health of Toronto residents."
The establishment -- Carlos Murphy, on Kingston Road -- had tried to get around no-smoking laws by claiming membership in a group called the Heritage Bicycle Club, Dr. McKeown said.
But the court found that Carlos Murphy did not meet the qualifications to be exempted as a private club, and fined the owners $4,500.
Bona fide private clubs will be forced to ban smoking by May of next year.