Well phooey, I had this HUGE rant entered about the new smoking ban in Austin and Blogger just friggin dropped it. I SHOULD have a few entries written about losing entire entries after spending hours on them. Buckets and buckets of crap!

Anyway,
feel free to read about it yourself. It's a load of crap that 7 people get to decide on an ordinance, 7 people we voted for, but frankly, probably don't go to bars in the first place. It's a big topic right now in Austin, even bigger because the vote was 4-3, the 4th vote being councilman Will Wynn who is now Austin's mayor. The two running for his position on the council are split, one for, one against the ban. Can you guess which guy I'll be voting for?

It's just a stupid waste of legislative action. The ban will only include bars and restaurants, but billiard halls, bingo parlors and fraternal organizations are exempt. That's pretty hypocritical of them to say they're looking out for the health of patrons and employess, just apparently not in pool halls or bingo joints. It's more liberties the government is taking away, pretty soon you won't be able to watch certain shows because the government will sick the FCC on those stations, or better yet, will tell cable companies not to air certain shows that they don't like. I can't imagine how this is helping Austin. There was a smoke free bar at one point, it shut down after a few months because no one went. It's what you do in a bar, drink and smoke. It's always been that way. If you don't want to smell like smoke or breath second hand smoke, don't go. A bar really doesn't offer anything else, just liquor, maybe some shuffleboard, so don't use that "Yeah, but I like to see live music too." I would guess over half of Austin's live music venues are either out doors or in a large auditorium where you can't smoke anyway, so that's a line of bull.

I'm pretty hot about this so I think I'll stop before someone's sensibilities are injured.