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

The Calgary Sun ^ | 30 July 2002 | PAUL JACKSON

[SheLion]

Perhaps you know Charlie Mendelman.

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.

There are lots of well-known faces there.

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.

City hall's stern-faced, anti-smoking zealots are moving in.

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.

A pool hall where you can't smoke?

Give me a break.

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.

What supercilious, sanctimonious individuals they are.

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.

Thousands of young waiters and waitresses risk losing their jobs.

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?"

Sure it should be.

And sure it would be.

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.

[freeeee]

Let's talk about free will and responsibility, two supposedly conservative values.

Bar owners (should) have free will to decide whether or not their establishment allows smoking.

Customers, of their own free will, vote with their feet and their dollars. If they like the bar's policy (smoking or not), they'll patronize the establishment. If not, they'll go somewhere with a policy more to their liking. The free market (conservatives claim to like) will dictate the smoking policy.

The bar owner takes responsibility for his choice. If he chooses poorly, he loses customers and his business fails.

The customers take responsibility for their choices as well. If they choose to smoke, or frequent establishments that allow smoking, they and they alone are responsible for the consequences. No one made them smoke. No one made them go into a bar that allowed smoking. They did that by themselves. Therefore no one but they are responsible.

While you have my condolences for the loss of your father and sister, their deaths are the result of their own conscious decision they made to smoke. Period.

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.

Infringing upon free will and personal responsibility, not to mention property rights is not only wrong, it is morally indefensible. This nanny like crusade to protect people of themselves is socialistic, and liberal by definition. It supposes that the people cannot be trusted to live their own lives, and that the elite must make laws, and use force against them for their own good. If that is what being conservative has become, then I want to part of it.

These laws come about because people don't want to take responsibilty for their own actions. They want their cake and eat it too. They want to be reckless and yet be saved from the consequences of their own actions. In short, they are foolish and greedy.

BTW, my grandmother died of emphysema due to her choice to smoke. And I have chosen not to smoke.

[Sir Gawain]

Smoking in a private place among other smokers or smoking in the open away from others is the harmless pursuit of your own happiness

As much as I think smoking is stupid, a bar is not a public place.

[SheLion]

A large hole, indeed!

They becry the ills of smoking while picking our pockets all the while. The Nanny's are banning smoking and running all the way to the bank, laughing.

[Jaidyn]

Your answer is too logical for the liberal mind. They want to go where they want and do as they please and to heck with the rest of us. People with AIDs are killing themselves and others and they get sympathy, money and more sex. Maybe they should be included with the sin taxes, too!

[Salgak]

So because, your father and sister died, apparentely of tobacco-related disease, it should be banned in public places ? People die from alcohol abuse, should we ban drinking in public places ? How about peanut allergies, the latest "fad" ??

What really cheeses me off about anti-whatever zealots of all sorts, is their smug "we know better than you do" attitude. VERY liberal-like.

I'll also note that 50% of your posts here on FR, since you joined on 7/10/2002, are anti-smoking. So tell us, what's your REAL agenda, friend ??? Find a bar that caters to non-smokers. . .

[Andy Ross]

As a conservative, you should recognise that you have no damn right to tell a pool-hall owner how to run his business. If someone wants to avoid 2nd-hand-smoke, they should go somewhere else.

Smoking in a private place...

A pool hall is an entirely private place, and no one amongst us has any excuse for imposing rules on the owners and customers of such an establishment.

What in the hell is next? Are we going to ban swearing in bars, because it might rub off on others?

Andrew

[SheLion]

Save your own life and quit smoking now.

When my number is up, I don't think the Good Lord will have cared if I smoked or not. None of us are going to get out of here alive.

And there are plenty of places for you to go where you do not have to be around second hand smoke. Which, by the way, is not the killer that the Anti's claim it to be.

[lodwick]

Smoke this you rat bastards. bttt Thanks, SL

[E Rocc]

Gives new meaning to "Blame Canada...."

-Eric

[mysterio]

I really agree with you.

Why do you vote Republican if you feel this strongly? Are Republicans in your state pro smokers' rights? Because in my state they sure aren't. They are just like the democrats when it comes to bringing in money. Tax the poor. Same thing at the federal level. I don't think I will vote for them again.

[SheLion]

I'll also note that 50% of your posts here on FR, since you joined on 7/10/2002, are anti-smoking.

hmmmmmmm no kidding! Thanks for pointing that out.

[SheLion]

Are Republicans in your state pro smokers' rights?

There are quite a few Republican Lawmakers in my State that are against taxation of the smokers. They, too, wish the government would let up on us.

I have seen their roll calls, btw.

[nothingnew]

Here in Maine, they are making way for gays, but smokers are out. I can't get over it. And Maine is $itching about health care.

Sorry for you SheLion...but I guess it's not a whole lot different around the country.

I spent many a fine vacation at my uncle's cabins on Lake Sebago(little).

Also went to St. Francis College in Biddeford...beautiful country being taken over by nazi/facist/socialists.

FMCDH

[SheLion]

Also went to St. Francis College in Biddeford...beautiful country being taken over by nazi/facist/socialists.

I love Maine. We have made a life here since 1983. I just hate the Government here.

Maine is beautiful. We surely aren't moving. I just wish the government could return to the days when we first came here. It was pretty good back then. Oh well.

The facists have taken over Maine!

[joesnuffy]

Youd think they'd learned a long time ago that you can fleece a sheep many times but you can only skin 'em once!

[SheLion]

Youd think they'd learned a long time ago that you can fleece a sheep many times but you can only skin 'em once!

Like this?

[Malleus Dei]

"I'll also note that 50% of your posts here on FR, since you joined on 7/10/2002, are anti-smoking. So tell us, what's your REAL agenda, friend ???"

I'm a conservative Republican who would outlaw smoking in publicly-accessed places in a heartbeat. 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 need to realize that tobacco smoke is the number one cause of preventable illness and premature death, and that no one has the right to injure another person's health by polluting the air in places open to the public. 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. But smoking in private or in the open away from nonsmokers doesn't hurt anyone who doesn't choose to be hurt and it doesn't keep anyone away from anything; have at it.

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. It's understandable that they feel threatened by recent changes and by anti-smoking laws designed to protect the health of other people at their expense. Nor will some of the more extreme ones ever be willing to accept the legitimacy of anything involving them ever not being able to smoke anywhere they please and in the presence of anyone they please; I have seen some of these people try to smoke amid the sick in doctor's offices, in hospital rooms, and in emergency rooms and a number of them became furious when told that they were not allowed to smoke there. (On the other hand, it should be pointed out that there exists a significant percentage of smokers who actually are considerate of the rights and the health of others.) And if someone wants to flame me for being anti-smoking, they can have at it. They can get as mad or as abusive or as defensive as they want, because it won't change anything. They will remain wrong and smoking in public places will continue to be restricted more and more as time goes by, whether they like it or not. The bottom line will remain: neither smokers nor any other class of citizens has the moral right to damage other people's health, only their own. 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. The final, total, national ban probably won't happen in our lifetime so I wouldn't get too upset about it. But it will eventually happen, and future generations will be much healthier for it and will wonder why such an unhealthy activity was as smoking was ever legal in publicly accessed places to begin with.

Smoking is, thank God, on its way out. 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.

[Just another Joe]

But this is Calgary just about anywhere in the USA anymore --- governed by mean-spirited, petty busybodies who want to regiment society to their Orwellian dreams.

There, that's worse.

[SheLion]

Smoking is, thank God, on its way out. 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.

Smoking is on it's way out? What would you propose to do with 55 million of us then? Shoot us or imprison us? eh?

Thank God this is just your opinion. There are many others who will disagree with you. And you call yourself a Conservation. In my book, your nothing but a RINO!

There aren't many places left where you have to be around us, so stay there, and don't infringe on taking away more of our rights as adults who choose to smoke. It's no MUSTARD GAS for crying out loud.

And heh! I bet YOU have habits that WE would find despicable!

Just what size Brown Shirt and Jack Boots do you wear, btw.

[SheLion]

Joe, did you check out post 37 from Malleus Dei?

~whew! Nasty person, to say the least. I guess they live in Perfect! And they must live life "according to Malleus Dei, eh? Must be nice. Or not.......