Mean-spirited, petty busybodies put bar owner behind eight-ball

He's an affable, congenial man, who for 18 years ran a top-notch Volkswagen/Audi/Porsche dealership on Macleod Tr.

Then, at the age of 56, Charlie got up one day and decided he wanted to do something different in life. So he sold his dealership and opened up The Garage Billiards Bar and Restaurant at Eau Claire Market.

"I'm a people-type person," he says. "I like to meet people and chat with them. That's why I went into the automobile business, and it's why I went into the hospitality business."

If you've been to The Garage, you'll know it's a big, spacious place -- 8,000 sq. ft. with high ceilings -- and with 18 pool tables neatly placed throughout. The younger jean-clad crowd go to Charlie's place to play pool, and business executives and lawyers come in their three-piece suits to talk about the market, the latest ramifications of some case, or politics.

It's a family business. Charlie's there just about every hour of the day and his always-cheerful daughter Melissa happily works behind the bar.

But these days, when you catch a glimpse of Charlie unawares, you see the occasional expression of strain on his face. It's as if there's a touch of worry behind his affable manner.

There is -- because as vivacious as his business is today -- he fears it won't last.

This past Jan. 1, our puritanical aldermen forced Charlie to put a dividing line down the centre of his enterprise. One side is for smokers, the other for customers under the age of 18.

Next July 1, Mendelman will be forced to erect a solid wall reaching up to the ceiling, dividing his bar and restaurant into two. On one side, smokers, on the other non-smokers and those under 18.

Come 2005 -- and this is really crazy considering Mendelman will have had to spend about $50,000 to build that wall -- the city's anti-smoking committee has recommended smoking be banned entirely from city bars and restaurants.

Charlie wonders what will happen to his business when these draconian moves are forced on him, and at the age when he is about to start collecting his OAP and CPP, he's too old to start another venture in another field.

In Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver where similar authoritarian laws have been enacted, customers have left in droves. True, the bars and restaurants now do have "clean air" -- they just don't have many customers to breathe it.

In Calgary, the city aldermen and mandarins -- who are planning to wreck everyone's fun -- claim smoking is going out of style in any case, and they are just giving it a little push.

They may be right in declaring in Calgary only about 25% of residents smoke, but other statistics show 80% of people who go to bars and pool halls smoke.

Add to that, even non-smokers who go to bars and pool halls don't object to other customers who do smoke. It's part of the ambience, so to speak.

In reality, once anti-smoking zealots force Charlie to slam a wall down the middle of his room, there won't be much ambience left. Everything Charlie has tried to accomplish in his huge, spacious bar will be slashed in half.

One of the many aspects of all of this that frustrates Mendelman is that even as all parties were actually agreeing on the 50/50% split on smoking and non-smoking space -- with owners believing that was it -- the city was already surreptitiously forming another committee to draw up and impose the other measures.

That was dishonest. The owners thought they had a mutual long term deal, but the city knifed them in the back.

Now, Mendelman is just one of hundreds of bar and restaurant owners in our city facing these drastic measures and facing huge losses on their investments.

Says Charlie: "If you don't want to go to a place where people smoke, you surely have a right to go elsewhere. But surely it should be freedom of choice for everyone. Isn't that fair? Doesn't that make sense?"

But this is Calgary --- governed by mean-spirited, petty busybodies who want to regiment society to their Orwellian dreams.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jackson, associate editor of the Sun, can be reached at paul.jackson@calgarysun.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to
callet@sunpub.com.

You're absolutely correct. What people don't understand, is while they are "Hey, this is great -- we stopped all those ba$ta#@'s from smoking here." and feeling smug, they've opened the door still further into regulation of private businesses and "public" (ha!) activity. They will not be amused when their sacred ox gets gored. It's the same logic that led to prohibition, in fact. NOBODY wanted prohibition, but it was the Politically Correct stance to take at the time. It sort of snowballed from there, and was a complete disaster.

Its a slippery slope. You control one unpopular behavior, then another then another. Sooner or later, the behavior being controlled is your own. This is why the original founders based the bill of rights on principals. I'm trying to remember that old saying but it goes something like this:

They came for smokers but I didn't smoke so I said nothing.
They came for fast foods but I always ate at fine restaurants so I said nothing.
They came for gun owners but I've always had a liking for the sword.
But when the came for free speakers, I could not defend myself for I could no longer speak.

OK, its paraphrased, and perhaps accelerated, but it is the trend of the slippery slope. The steepness of the slope is what seems to be in question to me for there is definately a slope.

I'm addressing both of your posts.

I wish they'd banned smoking from any place open to the public here in the States years ago.

First, I don't know what state you are from, but this issue is none of the federal govt's business. 10th Amendment.

Maybe then my father and sister would still be alive. Maybe then I could go out to a bar or a pool hall without being assaulted by unwanted and unhealthy tobacco smoke and made ill.

You have NO RIGHT to go to a bar or pool hall that is tobacco free unless the BAR OWNER makes the decision on his PRIVATE PROPERTY. And, your father and sister knew that they could kill themselves by smoking. That was THEIR choice to smoke.

As conservatives you have to realize that your right to the pursuit of happiness ends when it endangers someone else's health - and smoking in public or in the presence of nonsmokers does exactly that.

It's a private property issue. THAT'S the basic issue of conservatives. If I want to allow smoking in a place I own, that's my choice, and none of the GOVERNMENT's business. Period.

Smoking in a private place among other smokers or smoking in the open away from others is the harmless pursuit of your own happiness, but inflicting your unwanted, nasty and unhealthy smoke on other people who don't want anything to do with it and who are physically harmed by it isn't just rude - it's morally wrong. And that is why legislation like this is happening.

First, nonsmokers can walk away and take their business elsewhere. IF enough people do that, the bars etc, will go smoke free. Let the MARKET make that decision, not a bunch of FASCIST THUGS from the PUBLIC HEALTH GESTAPO(same bunch of left wing gun grabbers) that want to ban everything. Second, the legislation isn't to save lives. Anyone that thinks that is an idiot, and that's an undisputable fact from anyone with a BRAIN. It's about CONTROL.

Save your own life and quit smoking now. Had you seen how horribly my father and sister died you would never go near tobacco again in your life.

Most of my family smoked, and I only smoke an occasional cigar. If tobacco smoke bugs me, I walk away. MY CHOICE, and that way, I AM in control, not the govt thugs.

I'm a conservative Republican who would outlaw smoking in publicly-accessed places in a heartbeat.

You can not support more regulation over peoples' lives and be a conservative Republican.

And if you really think that your right to the pursuit of happiness includes that of inflicting unhappiness and bad health onto unwilling others then there is really no point in our even discussing matters because we have no common ground at all.

You are right. I support freedom. You are a big government statist.

You need to realize that tobacco smoke is the number one cause of preventable illness and premature death,

No. Tobacco smoke isn't. THE PEOPLE that smoke it are the cause of their OWN deaths.

and that no one has the right to injure another person's health by polluting the air in places open to the public.

If I own the building, I can do whatever I damn well please. If you don't like it, get out.

Hiding behind the concept of "property rights" just won't cut it; by smoking in publicly accessed places, smokers make those places unusable at worst and unhealthy at best to nonsmokers in general and to those with cardipulmonary problems in particular. It's a form of denial of access.

You have NO RIGHT to access to PRIVATE PROPERTY, and that's the bottom line.

As for the local "smoking lobby" coming after me, well, it's only natural that some smokers, particularly the hardcore nicotine addicts, will be extremely defensive about their smoking and in denial about the negative health impacts that their smoking has on nonsmokers.

Well, I only smoke an occasional cigar. I'm not the smoking lobby. I'm the anti-public health fascist govt thugs lobby that want to take FREEDOM away. You are as bad as any gun grabber.

Eventually smoking will be banned in every place open to the public in America - no matter what the ownership status is - as it is now in almost all government and university buildings and in some states and communities.

So what. I'll light up if I want to anyway. Why? Just to piss off you and your buddy Henry Waxman..:)

The final, total, national ban probably won't happen in our lifetime so I wouldn't get too upset about it.
Unconstitutional. 10th Amendment.

The ashtray is going the way of the spittoon. You may as well get used to it. And there's really no point getting angry about it.

If it goes away by the MARKET, I won't complain. If it is done because of govt thugs, than I will complain because it is unAmerican, anti-freedom, and sets bad precident.

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