Gregory D.

Lee

Read Greg's bio and previous columns here

June 13, 2008

Freedom Up in Smoke in California

The predominately Democratic California legislature is at it again, coming up with different ways to take your personal freedoms away for the sake of a few.

On the heels of attempting to make spanking a misdemeanor, the legislature now wants to make it permissible for a landlord to prevent smoking in apartment buildings on the pretext of protecting other tenants from secondhand smoke. The spineless legislator who sponsored the bill didn’t have the courage to make it a crime under the state’s Health and Safety Code. The proposed legislation merely allows the landlord to make the decision, essentially making him the bad guy.

California was among the first to ban smoking in offices, bars, restaurants and other public places. Before you knew it, other states started banning smoking at sporting events, in your car if a child is present, within 25 feet of an entryway of a building, and even at some beaches. Why postpone the inevitable when you could just ban smoking altogether?

Critics to the proposed legislation like the Western Center on Law and Poverty maintain such law would discriminate against the poor, the disabled and “people of color.” I’m not sure what a person’s income, disability or skin color has to do with anything when it comes to smoking. But the point is those people, along with rich white apartment dwellers, will have yet another personal freedom taken away from them, if the California state legislature gets its way.

If a man’s home is his castle, whether he rents or owns, is rich or poor, white or another color, then government shouldn’t have any say about what happens there unless it directly affects other people. If someone doesn’t like his neighbor smoking, then either shut the window or move. People who rent apartments know they will be living in close quarters to others and that there’s a good chance someone in the building smokes. People also sometimes play their music loud, but there is a law forbidding disturbing the peace. The next thing you know, the California legislature will ban rap or country music from being played in apartments if it offends your neighbor. Think that’s not possible? Who would have ever guessed that government would seek to stop you from smoking in the last bastion of solitude you have – your own home?

California legislators also want to require restaurant chains to make nutritional information available to consumers for all standard menu items, including total calories, saturated fat, trans fats, carbohydrates and sodium. Why stop there? Why not require the counter person recite the caloric and sodium content of each item the customer orders, just in case the consumer can’t read due to the lousy California public school system? No, wait! How about also requiring the restaurant to inform the public how many calories and milligrams of sodium their competitors’ food items contain? That way it would save them a lot of gas driving from restaurant to restaurant to compare the nutritional information. Think of the gasoline and energy that would be saved.

In another brilliant piece of legislation, there is a proposal that an “ocean ranger” be assigned by the state on every cruise ship in California waters. The ranger would be on the cruise ship to deter crime. Passengers would be assessed a $1.50 fee when departing and arriving on ships to fund the program. I’m guessing if someone departed Los Angeles harbor to sail to Mexico, the ship would have to stop in San Diego to let the ranger off just when you need him the most.

Or, if that wasn’t enough, how about grocery stores being required to charge you 25 cents for each plastic bag you use? The money would allegedly be used for litter abatement. I’m sure the poor, the disabled and “people of color” can’t wait for that piece of legislation to pass, too. That would tack on about $2.50 every time you grocery shopped.

But the most progressive law being proposed by a San Francisco Democrat is making it illegal for employers to discriminate against workers who have been permitted by a doctor and the state to use marijuana for medicinal purposes. Employers would be forced to knowingly hire known drug abusers – just the employees you want reading the nutritional value of meals or protecting you on a cruise ship.

If the liberal Democrats take an even larger majority in the U.S. House and Senate this November, this is the type of federal legislation you can expect. God help us all.

Gregory D. Lee is a California-based nationally syndicated columnist. He can be reached through his website: www.gregorydlee.com.   

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