Posted on 07/31/2002 12:01:40 PM PDT by 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.
That part of the equation you can strike out. Even with all the anti organizations trying they have still yet to PROVE that ETS even comes CLOSE to damaging a person unless they have a pre-existing medical condition.
The only thing the antis want with these laws is to make people stop smoking for their own good.
"Live your life they way I say to live it." is their rally cry.
No matter what the ownership? No, you aren't a conservative Republican any more. Having decided that there is no such thing as private property, you fall more in line with RINO/marxist Republicans.
Hiding behind the concept of "property rights" just won't cut it;
Here's a clue, Mr. "Conservative Republican," the concept of property rights is the very wellspring of conservatism.
You need to realize that tobacco smoke is the number one cause of preventable illness and premature death
I'm touched by your concern; but it's none of your business.
and that no one has the right to injure another person's health by polluting the air in places open to the public.
No one has the right to demand a business owner conform to his neurotic wants. You do have the right to stay away.
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.
Why how sporting of you, General Napoleon. Who asked your permission, and what makes you think you have the authority to grant it? Does the phrase "pompous ass" mean anything to you?
Sometimes they make me really mad, other times, I get a good laugh.
Good one!
Seems like that is what's needed, right? heh!
I do know what you are talking about here. I can truthfully say that I am not one of these types. I do smoke but do not expect to be able to smoke anywhere I desire.
I do expect to be able to smoke in a business that allows it. Until and IF they prove that ETS causes harm, governments have no business telling a business owner what they can and cannot allow in the way of smoking tobacco.
He LOOKED at a pack of cigarettes.
Bet he's feverishly dialing "911" right now.
Spend your own money and open your own smoke free bar or pool hall and leave the other guy's PRIVATE property alone.
While thumbing through a 1996 Government study of
"Nico-Visual Hazards and How They Kill" no doubt.
Well, I always was an insensitive b@stard.
You are so hopelessly brain-washed as to be a cartoon.
Please list the objective, empirical, scientific studies from which you draw your assertions about the "deadliness" of exposure to someone else's cigarette smoke.
And while you are at it please explain why exposure to tobacco smoke is supposedly so deadly, yet exposure to other forms of smoke are not.
I'll check back with you in a few years - because it will most likely take you that long to learn the information does not exist.
When you go out of business in about 90 days or so, I can buy the joint and let in whoever the hell I please.
L
You didn't explain clearly how your father and sister died, but you seem to imply that it was due to environmental tobacco smoke. If that is in fact what you're saying, I'll have to reply "balderdash." Do you, an obviously educated person, actually believe that if smoking were prohibited tomorrow, no one else would die of the very same "smoking-related" diseases?
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.
Assaulted? I beg your pardon. Tell you what: If anyone ever FORCES you into a smoker-friendly place OR if anyone ever PROHIBITS you from opening a smoker-hostile bar or pool hall, you let us know here at Free Republic. We'll fight for YOUR right to stay away from smokers or to put your own hard earned money, your blood, sweat and tears into a place of YOUR liking.
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.
Oops, you overstepped and fell into the typical anti-smoker bog of fallacious logic here. Dang, I need to brush up on those logical fallacies again. I forget whether this is "argument by selective observation" or "hypothesis contrary to fact" or simply "poisoning the well," but it doesn't wash. Risks are all around us every day, and risks MUST be put in perspective if public policy is to be based on them--particularly public policy that demonstrably harms others.
Smoking in a private place among other smokers or smoking in the open away from others is the harmless pursuit of your own happiness,
So where's the problem? Restaurants, bars, pool halls, etc., ARE private places and if the owner's policy allows smoking, your statement above describes exactly what occurs: "Smoking in a private place among other smokers..." Anti-smokers and others who just don't want to partake of the ambience there should use their personal autonomy and stay away.
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.
Under the circumstances above, how on earth could you say smokers are "inflicting" ANYTHING on "other people who don't want anything to do with it"? If they don't want anything to do with it, they won't be there. Seems very clear to me. You are, however, totally wrong about the reason legislation like this is happening. Which everyone else here knows and you don't care because you're blinded by your hatred of smoking.
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.
It's always disappointing to me to read such drivel from an obviously intelligent, educated person. Just goes to show that education can never take the place of common sense.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.