In religious terms, Wednesday was Ash Wednesday for the Catholic world. I was born Catholic, went to a Catholic college (this was to repent for the other three colleges I went to first). However with the Diocese blood in my veins I am not a very religious person. I do not attend an organized church nor do I attend one on holidays. Actually, this post does not have much to do with Ash Wednesday to begin with, just the platform to talk about the new smoking ban set to take place in a few months. I wonder if Ash Wednesday will be taken off the books too, since where there is smoke there is fire, which produces the necessary ashes for the holiday ritual? Recently a group of people gathered to protest smoking prohibition. From what I read in the papers, heard on the radio, it was anything but organized and in the end it was just a platform to talk politics not issues. I am not a smoker, never tried to smoke a cigarette in my life, but I am not sure I am an advocate for the smoking ban. I do believe it causes changes for people who smoke. Whether it be a cough, yellowing, smoke smell or cancer. However, as reported earlier in the blog, so does bubble bath, so I guess take your chances. What I do believe is that each person should still have the right to smoke, and owners of establishments should have the right to decide and the public would determine what merit, if any, would prompt patronage. So, next year on Ash Wednesday there may just be no ashes.
1 comment:
Nice post. I echo your comments. Sure, establishments should be encouraged to, at the very least, provide partitioned non-smoking areas. But if a business does not believe that that is financially prudent, who are we to tell them otherwise. Better policy for Council would have been to provide tax credits to businesses that are either smoke free or build in partitioned smoke free areas. Unfortunately for business owners, Council took the easy (cheaper) way out.
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