Well, unless Governor Rounds pulls a fast one like he did on the abortion ban, smoking in every public place..except a couple cigar bars..will be banned as of July 1st. Thank god. The wishes of the many have triumphed over the rights of the few.Now people can stop worrying about catching cancer or having a heart attack because they walked through a smoky bar. And thank you lawmakers for helping us all to realize what’s best for us..what’s good for us..especially the children.
It’s too late this session..but next time around why not take an even bolder step and ban the sale and consumption of alcohol in South Dakota? Oh, sure, we’d lose a lot of tax revenue but if the objective of these bans is to protect our citizens from harm, what could be more fitting than to eliminate the source of half the car accidents in which innocent people, including the children, are killed or injured by drunk drivers? Think of all the other problems that would go away if booze went away. No more families destroyed by alcoholic addicted dads and moms; murders, rapes and other violent crimes would drop dramatically; no more unwanted pregnancies because of guys taking advantage of their drunk girlfriends; no more firings over three martini lunches and on and on.
Exceptions could be made, I suppose, to churches for communion. But it probably should come with a strong recommendation for them to gradually phase-in grape juice and phase-out the wine. You might also cut some slack to those clubs made up of old war veterans who’ve been saving a bottle of brandy so the last couple of survivors can drink a toast to their dead buddies and to the freedom they all fought for.
Writer, James Lileks had an interesting observation on all this. He’s from Minnesota..a state that never met a ban it didn’t like. He says, "Now and then it seems that banning is all they (lawmakers) can do. It’s all they seem to want to do. That’s the problem with a free nation: you can’t make yourself significant by granting freedoms, so you spend your time looking for freedoms to restrict in the name of a greater good, and there’s always a greater good.”