Just Say No to More Smoking Bans in MA
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Kevin Godbee - Jan 29, 2010
- 3 min read
Apparently State Rep. Ted Speliotis doesn’t believe Massachusetts has gone far enough to control the lives of its citizens, but the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association and its several dozen members statewide believe that the tipping point of public opinion has been reached against legislated deprivation of their individual rights.
Speliotis’ bill to essentially ban smoking within 25 feet of windows and entrances of buildings is expected to be reviewed this week at a State House hearing.
People are complaining today that governments at all levels have gone too far by intruding on their lives and taking away more and more of their rights Well, a smoking ban such as proposed by Speliotis only serves to embolden legislators to deprive more and more people of their rights in an ever widening variety of categories . That’s why smokers and non-smokers alike should take a stand against legislated smoking bans of any kind. What hypocrisy! Many of the same state and federal legislators who vote for smoking bans or over-the-top tax increases on tobacco enjoy cigars and pipes or smoke cigarettes whenever they get a chance. Businesses should be left to decide for themselves to allow smoking or not and customers can patronize them or not. That’s the American way Our customers are outraged and have reached the tipping point on issues like this that deprive them of their rights "People are complaining today that governments at all levels have gone too far by intruding on their lives and taking away more and more of their rights," said Chris McCalla, legislative director of the IPCPR. "Well, a smoking ban such as proposed by Speliotis only serves to embolden legislators to deprive more and more people of their rights in an ever widening variety of categories . That’s why smokers and non-smokers alike should take a stand against legislated smoking bans of any kind."
Massachusetts! Let’s Light Up the Switchboards!
Phone option: Call your state legislators and the governor! No New Tobacco Taxes!GO »
McCalla cites the Federal Reserve Bank which uses data supplied by the Bureau of Statistics to prove that jobs are lost and businesses are threatened in areas where smoking bans are tolerated.
Stephen Willett, owner of tobacconist L. J. Peretti Co., a family operated business in Boston for nearly 140 years, agrees. He is among the Massachusetts members of IPCPR who, along with their customers, are even more strident in their opposition to government control over lifestyle decisions.
"What hypocrisy! Many of the same state and federal legislators who vote for smoking bans or over-the-top tax increases on tobacco enjoy cigars and pipes or smoke cigarettes whenever they get a chance. Businesses should be left to decide for themselves to allow smoking or not and customers can patronize them or not. That’s the American way," said Willett.
"For nearly a century and a half, our business has survived wars, weather, depressions and other man-made and natural disasters. However, the recent actions of our local, state and federal governmental bodies have hurt us the most. They’ve raised tobacco taxes too high in order to pay for programs they can’t afford. They’ve restricted smoking or banned it outright in order to control us, which denies us of our constitutional rights," Willett said.
"Our customers are outraged and have reached the tipping point on issues like this that deprive them of their rights," he added.
Massachusetts! Let’s Light Up the Switchboards!
Phone option: Call your state legislators and the governor! No New Tobacco Taxes!GO »
Massachusetts! Let’s Light Up the Switchboards!
Phone option: Call your state legislators and the governor! No New Tobacco Taxes! GO »
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
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It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Mr. Willet is correct.
Smokers are have been losing their rights – to Free and Unabridged Assembly. Let’s call smoking bans out for what they really are … the return of Segregation.
As things stand, smokers are not allowed to even “assemble” with Each Other!
This is an abridgment of Free Assembly, and the SCOTUS has already ruled against “abridgements” of any kind. What our downtrodden “minority group” needs, is a good lawyer with the moxie to challenge this point in a court of law.
So far, no one has leveled this particular charge against the steamroller which is “tobacco control.” They have repeatedly banded together to complain of their business losses, but not of the loss of society which they had enjoyed with their former patrons – nor of of their patrons’ loss of society with each other.
And since a majority of the electorate finds ETS to be inconvenient or annoying, smokers suffer at the hands of political opportunists, who know that it is the “majority” who will re-elect them. This amounts to “mob rule” democracy.
In Los Angeles, the city council is about to consider an ordinance to ban “patio smoking” at restaurants. I have heard there is a similar edict in Boston. Now, local despots are closing the gates of public parks and even beaches to smokers. There is absolutely no “health threat” justification for banning smoking out-of-doors. It is a simple acquiescence to the personal preferences of one group, while punishing another. Tobacco afficionados are citizens too! And we pay more than our “fair share” in taxes to pay for public parks, or the right to walk down the street in peace. This is yet another inequity, which has yet to be challenged.
To muster with others who share these concerns, join us at: http://www.thesmokersclubinternational.com
Stop being a doormat to nanny-incited guilt, and start demanding the restoration of your first class citizenship.
Numerous times has the subject of chance conversation and civility demonstrated by pipe smokers talking to others outside business establishments arisen in the Pipe Forum. Never have these chance meetings been contentious. Never has anyone objected to my pipe. I find this type of legislation contrary to the common good, and an affront to our personal right to self expression. My pipe is as much a choice of personal expression as any tee-shirt that is worn to make any humorous, political, artistic, or activistic point. My pipe just says that I’m a nice guy and enjoy the company of good, real people.
This time it’s not about health it’s about money. Mass has fallen short on it’s budget and they need some way to make it up. They say they’ll put the money towards health programs but do we really know that and even if they did it doesn’t matter. We’re like the kid in the school yard that the bully always pics on. Boston cigar bars are already in jeopardy and this could put them under. First they add a 6.5% state tax on alcohol, now this. It’s gone too far.
I wish PipesMagazine had the same service to send letters to Reps as they did with the last tax increase proposal. Is it possible to do that? I can tell you right now, Gov Patrick won’t get my vote in the next election.
As smoking bans have closed many, many businesses across our nation, I’m surprised that is not of concern to MA. I guess the politicians that profit could care less about the cold and hungry.
FYI: Tobacco is IN the SAME food group as potato, tomato, cauliflower, green pepper, chili’s, egg plant and other foods. They ALL contain nicotine. Are those the next bans?
Try this one Nelson:
http://www.change.org/start_a_petition
If you live in Massachusetts, make sure you call and write to let them know that you are opposed to this!
Stand up for your rights to be free and make your voice heard!
NO
This letter, from a non-smoker refers to all anti-smoking legislation.
*An open letter that was emailed to all (103) Ontario, Canada political MPP’s in early May, 2008. No replies! This non-response reflects government without a sense of responsibility or a foundation for their actions!
Betrayal, Anti-Smoking Message is Like Fascism that Preys Upon Our Children
We must not look within ourselves. We may discover what we are becoming!
Moral judgement is the mirror, mirror, on the wall image, always lurking in our mind, like an alter-conscience, prepared to reveal the frightening truth, in our soul, such as the undeserved vengefulness, at any cost, wielded against smokers. Even betrayal, of the next generation, becomes palatable within self-betrayal.
This remorseless mental/emotional preying upon, our precious children, recklessly poisons their mind and spirit, under the government’s pernicious slogan “health and safety.”
By supporting anti-smoking, we endorse and promote Fascism, an historically proven scurvy upon humanity!
The inevitable shame, of our past actions, can still be averted, by rescinding this government agenda!
The most”dangerous smoke” comes not from cigarettes, instead from the government smoke screen to obscure from view, that the real issue is Capitalism and science versus Fascism and politicized environmentalism, not ‘health and safety.’
Science and politicized environmentalism are colliding worlds, science being the height of pursuing truth, politicized environmentalism the depth of distorting truth. Anti-smoking is part of politicized environmentalism and the attempted foundation of Fascism!
Do we therefore side with Capitalism, science, Second World War troops and our allies– honour; or do we side with Fascism, politicized environmentalism, our enemies of the Second World War– disgrace? Thus far we blindly follow our enemies and disgrace!
From the mouth of Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace, “It doesn’t matter what is true; it only matters what people believe is true…..You are what the media define you to be. Greenpeace became a myth and a myth-generating machine.” We deserve truth, not half-truths and propaganda!
For any high ranking government official that lack this critical knowledge, they are in their office under false pretenses. They are unprepared to govern. Their present course of anti-smoking legislations is the proof of that statement.
In the words of Psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden, “I was acutely conscious of the pressure to ‘adapt’ and to absorb the values of the ‘tribe’—family, community and culture. It seemed to me that what was asked was the surrender of my judgement and also my conviction that my life and what I made of it was of the highest possible value. I saw my contemporaries surrendering and losing their fire. Why was growing up equated with giving up?”
Philosopher/Novelist Ayn Rand wrote, “If some demagogue were to offer us, as a guiding creed, the following tenets: that statistics should be substituted for truth, vote-counting for principles, numbers for rights, and public polls for morality–that pragmatic, range-of-the-moment expediency should be the criterion of a country’s interests, and that the number of its adherents should be the criterion of an idea’s truth or falsehood–that any desire of any nature whatsoever should be accepted as a valid claim, provided it is held by a sufficient number of people–that a majority may do anything it pleases to a minority–in short, gang rule and mob rule–if a demagogue were to offer it, he would not get very far. Yet all of it is contained in–and camouflaged by–the notion of ‘Government by Consensus.”
‘Rule by Consensus,’ (Rule by health care pressure group) is todays’ anti-ideology in government. Appeasement of these power-lusting, health care pressure groups is of higher priority than our children and all other tax payers, voters, and citizens. The permeating emotion from ‘Rule by Consensus’ is demoralizing, debilitating fear instead of an optimistic view of the future.
Note this recent example, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said he wouldn’t entertain a ban (smoking in cars with children) because it amounts to “too much intrusion into people’s private lives.” The logical interpretation of this statement is that the entire anti-smoking movement eliminates smoker’s individual rights, and has always been an intrusion into a smoker’s family dynamic. Now, the Ontario government is prepared, in predictable flip-flop fashion, to enact such a ban.
In ignobility, many people have misaligned themself with politicized environmentalism, despite the fact that 1930’s, 1940’s, Germany used “politicized ecology and public health” to base its rationalizations. Are we predisposed to mistakenly mirror the historic footsteps of self-loathing mass destruction? No! Everyone has an individual mind and conscience, above party politics. Be true to them, follow your courage (truth) and dethrone your fear (fallacy). Rescind this government’s shameful anti-smoking agenda.
References:
Paul Watson – Environmental Overkill, (Whatever happened to common sense) – book
Psychotherapist Nathaniel Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem – book
Ayn Rand – Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal – book