Give Them An Inch....

Not that the City of Arcata was taking an inch. They already have any number of smoking restrictions, and are considering others. According to today's Times- Standard the obvious consequences of banning smoking in the Plaza area are taking hold with people moving just outside the no smoking zone to smoke.

Now some are calling for the city council to extend the no smoking area even further, the obvious line of thinking being they can just vote or legislate their way to non- smoking nirvana.

Their police chief is asking for more time to see how well the current ban works. I'm surprised at that if only because I would think the police would be opposed to this ban to begin with. Someone could literally end up being hurt or killed every time police make a citizen contact for any sort of violation. You'd think they'd want to less opportunity for that to happen, not more. Would you want to get in a knock down, drag out fight over issuing a ticket for smoking?

Regardless, this does go to show the prohibitionists will never be satisfied. We need to remember back when the first smoking restrictions were proposed in the country those of us who said those restrictions might eventually extend to our homes were considered paranoid. History has shown we were right. It will get worse.