Sunday, August 27, 2006

Smokers are excellent citizens

Since moving back to Chicago a couple of years ago, there have been two big laws that I can think of restricting the usage of something in certain situations.

The first is a ban on cell phone use while driving (unless you use an earpiece), the second the ban on smoking in Chicago restaurants.

When they first passed the latter, I objected not so much as a smoker (it's really not a big deal to have to go outside) but because it seemed weird that the owner of a particular restaurant wasn't being allowed to make the call for himself. Smoking is still legal, after all.

So that was in January. And in all that time I have only once seen a human being smoke in a restaurant where it might have been prohibited. And no, it wasn't me. It was in a restaurant that was essentially closed, but I hadn't left yet. The chairs were on the tables and everything. I was the only patron left, and the waitress asked me if I minded, even though she knew I smoked, wasn't eating anymore, and was on the verge of trespassing by still sitting there.

The cell phone ban was passed about two years ago, and I cannot tell you how often I have been behind someone on the road, weaving around or going two miles per hour, who when I finally pass, I see is holding a cell phone to their ear. Last night, while walking through a 4-way stop intersection, I was almost struck by someone on a cell phone.

The difference in what these laws prohibit is clear: you cannot smoke under any circumstances in a restaurant without a liquor license. You cannot operate a cell phone while driving a vehicle unless you buy an earpiece (many of which cost less than a monthly cell bill) to use while talking. So the greater inconvenience is gonna be to the smoker, on average. Because we can safely assume that for every person who actually cannot fit an earpiece in their ear, there will be a day where it is raining, hailing, snowing or well below freezing outside.

So it isn't hard to see: smokers are good citizens, polite and virtuous; cell phone users are scofflaws and dangerous maniacs.

Smokers also provide an awful lot of additional tax revenue into the coffers. Of the $7.60 I currently pay at the corner store for a pack of Marlboros, more than $4 is just tax. So I'm pumping $8-12 a day into the city, county, state and federal governments. Paying, no doubt, for all sorts of social services.

About five years ago, I took cabs all the time to get places. Taxis were at that time way ahead of the curve, in that it was already forbidden to smoke and for the driver to be operating both a cell phone and the vehicle at the same time. They told us both these things right on the back of the seat, along with how much it should cost to get to Rolling Meadows from the airports.

From time to time I'd be smoking while hailing a cab, and the cabbie would point at my cigarette before I entered. This always meant one of two things: either he was ensuring I was gonna put the filthy thing out before I got in, or he was a smoker who wanted me to get in with my cigarette in order to enable him to smoke one of his own. The one thing they almost always had in common was that they were going to be talking on a phone for the entire ride.

I had one driver who got a call shortly after I informed him of my destination. Whoever he was talking to must have set him off, because it quickly became an argument in a language I do not speak. As he was yelling (screaming, really), he kept going faster and faster. At one point, we were skipping down Chicago Avenue like a flat rock on a pond, going at least 60. There was no doubt in my mind I was going to die in this cab. But despite my fear, I didn't light up a cigarette, because that would be wrong.

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