Posted from a Downtown Hotspot, 1300ish
A provocative title, to be sure, but think about western sterotypes; cowboy hat wearing, truck driving, right wing… smokers. Walking from City Hall through Stephen Ave. Mall, it was amazing how many were huddled in doorways, or puffing in groups. Not once was I beyond nose–shot of the smell.
Yep, along with diesel burning duellies, Albertans like their smokes.
We have got to be one of the last jurisdictions in Canada that allows smoking in restaurants. Oh, how I long for the those long winter nights in Fernie, where we could go pubbing without smoking a pack by evening’s end.
Alberta does have “new†legislation that will ban lighting up in all public places (except of course for bars, casinos and bingo halls) – it comes into effect on January 1. But there is one more place you can smoke, if you want to. Just head to Edmonton.
See, Edmonton (and Banff) has fairly good anti-smoking bylaws. Best in the province. So why go to Edmonto? Because the Legislative Assembly Building is a law unto itself.
And private offices of MLAs are hereby exempt from both the city’s bylaws and from the Provincial Law.
Amazing how that works, eh?
Liberal Health critic, Laurie Blakeman (from the Grope and Dope):
It is our greatest public building in Alberta, but the cabinet ministers have given themselves the power to do this and the continue to take advantage of the law they wrote. It’s unfair and two–tiered.
Um, yeh. And so illustrative of the parochial, redneck powers–that–be. And you wonder why Albertans have the rep we have?
And please Mom, no flames.
Addendum
Just goes to show how quickly events can take over… I post this and things change. It appears as though Our Dear Leader has reversed himself due to popular outcry. MLAs will not be allowed to smoke in their own offices.
But we’re still full of rednecks.
okay, no flames. Just a quick coment on our city, Toronto The Good. There is a really tough no smoking law in effect here, but our city councellors and Major have decided that smoking bad, cocaine and heroin good. As a result we will be getting an enabling, excuse me, i mean safe injection site. Isn’t that kind of two faced? Personally I no longer care about were you can and cannot smoke, I simply dont go to these places any more. See when the state starts making decisions for the people, smells like communism to me. Why not just simply allow a restaurant/bar to designate itself as either smoking or not. That way patrons have a choice. Of course with only 25 percent of Canadians still smoking, the smoking joints would go out of business. But that’s the natural way it should be, not government control. Sorry Ted, that comes from having had family under the communist boot. Smoking in the Legislature or workplaces should not be allowed and your MLA’s need to be spanked.
One of the things I liked about visiting vancouver was how little cig smoke we had to passively inhale. People visit canada partly for the clean air right? ;O)
BC is more than a breath of fresh air. So’s California, I hear. And therein lies the rub – if Cali can do it, and Ontario and BC, why are we waiting so long?
If we don’t want to be known as a backwoods, redneckville, then don’t you suppose we ought to act it?