Not a butt-ugly town

Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette Click photo for larger image.

If you're a smoker, you might want to avoid Calabasas, Calif. The city of 30,000 in the San Fernando Valley is about to enact one of the nation's toughest smoking laws. When the ordinance goes through the formalities of final passage in the next few weeks, smoking outdoors will be pretty much out of the question. We're talking sidewalks, streets and restaurant patios.

Smokers would be permitted to pursue their ongoing efforts to kill themselves in small "smoker outposts," which businesses could establish in parking lots. You could also smoke when no one is in sight, but if someone catches you, and the smoke bothers them, you could be turned in to the authorities. Even nonsmoker Linda Jones of Calabasas has reservations. "I think it's fabulous, but I don't think it's right," she told The Los Angeles Times. "People have the right to kill themselves. They should be working to get people off their cell phones when they drive."

Alarmed Libertarians

From the AP
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From the open forum on reason.com, the Web site of the Libertarian magazine, Reason:

"Stop [fooling] around and ban them. Then we can see how long it takes before we have the first drive by shooting in the nicotine wars. My money is on four months."

"Personally, I'd be more OK with a fatty ban. At least smoking helps some people keep weight off so they still look good in swimsuits."

"It is now proven, beyond a doubt, that smoking is a leading cause of statistics."

"Can you give me directions to this place? I'd like to move there. I'm currently in New York."

Meanwhile, in Scotland . . .

March 26 will be a big day for the Scots. That's the day a smoking ban in public places takes effect. The Scots might have been better off going the Draconian Calabasas route. Already, as described by the Scotsman newspaper yesterday, it seems like a legalistic nightmare:

"You can light up on an oil rig, but must stub out in a cigar store; you can smoke on a ferry berthed in Rosyth, but not one moored in Oban. The baffling contradictions in Scotland's smoking ban -- which allow a suspect to puff freely in a police interview room while environmental wardens crack down on those sneaking a furtive drag in an outdoor smoking shelter -- are coming to light with only a few weeks to go before the big stub-out."

Smoking will be permitted in hospices and submarines, but not in a truck driver's cab, because that's the driver's workplace. Same goes for Scotland's farmers -- no smoking while operating heavy machinery in an enclosed cab. Smoking will even be prohibited in outdoor smoking shelters if more than half the structure is enclosed.

Last suppers

Like prisoners on death row, many Scots intend to go out in style. Restaurants and clubs are planning a series of "last suppers" to mark the passing of the smoke-'em-if-you-got-'em era. Chef-proprietor Alan Burns said his Glasgow restaurant Wild Bergamot will feature a tobacco-themed meal. "Tobacco comes in leaves which we will use to infuse the cream in dishes like the panna cotta," Mr. Burns explained to The Scotsman. "Otherwise we will use it as a spice or, as with the crumble, broken into small pieces. It will give the dishes a kick but it won't be overpowering." Diners will then retire to the lounge to enjoy their last smoke before midnight.

Is this what they mean by smokeless tobacco?

Move to Calabasas, Fiona

Fiona Leith, Scotsman writer:

"Let me make it clear from the start that I am absolutely in favor of the ban. I think it is something for Scotland to be proud of. In seven weeks' time we will be waking up to a very different world.

"It will be a world of fighting in the streets, of people scuttling home with their head held low and afraid to walk out of their front door the following morning, and in which criminal damage to properties will rise to chaotic proportions. At least that was the dystopian vision I conjured all too quickly last week when I stepped out of my front door to find a stubbing-out bin nailed to its frame.

"Now, I know that living next door to a public house on a main street in Scotland's capital is never going to be akin to cooryin' doon in the glen of tranquility, but I can't help feeling more than a little put upon. Since then I've spotted these metallic bins outside lots of pubs around the town, but I've yet to see one so close to a house door. Does that mean that not only am I to obligingly accept being subjected to increased fumes on the street, but that it is my responsibility to tackle and disperse people who will inevitably take shelter in my doorway to have a cigarette?

Somebody doesn't love Raymond

Judy, a 48-year-old blogger from New Jersey and possibly a smoker, has added to her "dead-to-me" list, now at 12 and counting. We feel compelled to share the updated list with you:

1) Ex-husbands (one might actually be dead, he's so dead to me)
2) Ray Romano (From "Everybody Loves Raymond")
3) Gnomes
4) Pee Wee Herman
5) Members of more than three online groups, and myspace people over the age of 21.
6) The Raiders
7) Oprah
8) Natural Light
9) People who drive Hummers
10) Cheese
11) My sister, the "postal one." Oh, and the other one, the "born-again Christian"
12) Calabasas, Calif.