Put the Smoking Gun Back in the Holster
My friends at the Indy Star are reporting what I’ve been hearing for about a week now, the proposed expansion of the smoking ban is likely going back to committee. You can hear my heart breaking. Supporters hope to bring it back another day, but I doubt it will come back because the votes aren’t there. Hopefully, this fight is over and I hope there are some lessons to be learned from all sides.
Council Republicans
- This whole thing should have never seen the light of day in the first place. All this did was divide the GOP over an issue that wasn’t a problem. My advice, go away for a weekend, kiss, make up and plan a real agenda for the city for 2010.
Council Democrats
- It’s one thing to push a plan because you believe it’s the right thing to do. It’s another thing to push something for the simple reason that you want to embarrass the incumbent Mayor. If you’re going to do that try doing it over an issue where 80-percent of the public doesn’t agree with him.
Mayor Greg Ballard
- Once again, this entire ordeal could have been avoided in the first place had there been better communication with the Council. I’d join them on their weekend excursion. And as far as political ramifications go, anybody who says they won’t vote for you because of your threatened veto of the current smoking ban, probably wasn’t going to vote for you anyway. So you really haven’t lost anything.
Anti-Smoking Ban Advocates
- Nice job of being organized, especially when it comes to bar owners, who by their very nature have trouble working well with others. You guys held together and have done something no other major city has ever been able to do, you beat back the anti-smoking zealots who wanted to impose their will on everyone else.
Smoke Free Indy
- I’d like to say I feel sorry for you, but I don’t. You majorly underestimated the mood of the public, which is odd because your own survey showed 80-percent of Marion County residents like the current compromise. Of course the problem with zealots is that they tend to hang out with each other and their world view is clouded. My advice is maybe work with bar owners on getting people to quit smoking, rather than ban smoking in bars. My second piece of advice is hire an attorney, because you guys are being looked at by Marion County Grand Jury investigators to see if you used public money for political purposes.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:58 am
I'm not happy with the potential muisuse of “public” money, so the grand jury should go wherever the evidence leads it.
But you're dead wrong about the fallout here. Regardless how you or I feel about the actual ordinance, this is a political fumble.
Ninety percent of this confusion rests with the Mayor. He told crowds in summer 2007 he'd support a ban. I heard it myself. I was a little surprised, and at the time, if you'll recall, few of us thought this man had a bat's chance in hell. Actually, I thought it was a gutsy move by a guy who wasn't going to win.
He waits until the 11th hour to tell fellow Republicans: “Hey, guys, I will probably veto this. Thought you ought to know.”
It's emblematic of his mayoral tenure. I know of a few Republicans who planned to vote for it, but were taken aback by the mayor's tardy and firm pledge.
My never-to-be-humble opinion is: the ban had 16-17 votes before the mayor's intervention. He's certainly entitled to intervene, but his opinion is a 180-degree flip.
761. The number of days Ballard has left. I have no idea if the ban will survive or pass. Don't really even care any more.
Actually this ordinance was important to a lot of folks, but there are far more important issues on which the 25th floor must rule over the next two years. I'd hoped for more consistency and political accumen.
I can still hope, I guess.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:22 am
TA,
This was a bad idea from day one and the original proposal would have put the cigar bars out of business and the Smoke Free Indy people could have cared less. We really should chat sometime. I'll even go non-smoking, just for you.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:29 am
LOL OK
Bad idea or not–the Mayor effed up. Big time. I doubt it will cost him a lot of votes, to be honest, but this was a real stupid hill to die on. He burned some bridges he didn't ened to burn.
I'm all out of metaphors.
November 30th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I view this as a communications failure on the part of the Mayor's staff. Somebody with some of TA's “political acumen” should have headed this fiasco off at the pass. Since the Mayor had jumped into the fray during the campaign, somebody should have informed him early on, and somebody should have been keeping a closer watch on what goes on in committee over at the Council.
.
But, I suppose when the Mayor's office is teeming with “wet-behind-the-ears, surplus, junior B-T associates trying to plump up their résumés” types one must lower one's expectations of getting good help.
November 30th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
What the Mayor said was he would support the smoking ban in bars. Not that I agree with him on this. But he never said he would support a ban in private clubs. Private clubs are just that, Private. Its kind of funny when you think about it. You can buy tobacco in a tobacco shop but now the government is telling you, you can not smoke there?
November 30th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Spot on, Varan.
But here's the deal: when he ran, until very late in that campaign, no one expected Ballard to even be close, yet alone win.
I can remember multiple campaign platforms espoused by long-shot candidates Ed Mahern, RV Welch, Mae Jimison, et al. To be fair to Ballard, it's easy to take controversial positions when you're not expected to win.
Except this one was easy to avoid. All he had to do was chime in, early on. “I've changed my mind…I can't tell a disabled vet he can't smoke at a Legion Hall.” Cheesy as that sounds, it would've sufficed for most of us.
He picked a fight needlessly.
And whenever a mayor makes a bad move like this, which everyone can see, it invites the question: what about the things we can't see?
I shudder to think what he's promised to folks on these overseas missions he seems to love so much. In some cultures, particularly Asian, if you make a promise, or even bump up against one, you'd better follow through.
Come to think of it, that's what we should require too.
November 30th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Think Again….Ed Mahern never ran for mayor…your memory is slipping.
November 30th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
We already have a ban. What you anti-smoking zealots want is total prohibition — but are too fracking cowardly to come out and say so.
I FINALLY saw ONE person on the news this evening — a cocktail hostess — say that working in a nightclub where adults chose to smoke, bothered her. Ergo, she was happy with the efforts of the SFI pukes.
Why didn't this so-called adult exercise her option to work at a smoke-free nightclub? Certainly there are some of them around.
Or, did the evil pro-Liberty folks hold her at gunpoint and force her to work in servitude at the evil smoking establishment?
Last time I checked, becoming a cocktail waitress didn't require a college degree, and there is no waiting list that I'm aware of.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
It was Louie Mahern that ran for Mayor.
November 30th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
“She got out because every damned one of those ethical complaints had teeth.”-TA declaring a fact that wasn't a fact but a falsehood. It is not just that his memory is failing but as is typical of liberals, it is also very selective. Interesting that he cannot bring himself to a public retraction when he “effed up” but the longer it takes him to fess up the more the suspicion grows that he is incapable of recognizing truth and is just another liberal hack liar. What is it? Man or woosie?
November 30th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
I question whether TA is a man at all. (He) usually posts like a bitchy woman. (His) visceral hatred for Palin reinforces that belief.
December 1st, 2009 at 4:32 am
Fact Checker–you're right. It was Louie. A colorful campaign, too.
Pascal–you might want to revisit the State of Alaska's records. I was right.
December 1st, 2009 at 4:40 am
It will never go away. There are councilors there who want to be able to have a night out with friends at a neighborhood bar/pub and they don't want there to be smoking there. They also know their kids visit, or will likely visit, smoking places in Broad Ripple. They want these places to be smoke free as well.
This has nothing to do with protecting the health of a handful of folks, none of whom are having a gun pointed at their head forced to work in these businesses. It is all about a few folks with power who are pissed off because some of the neighborhood pubs they want to go and mingle at aren't smoke free. They hate smoke and have power, so why not strip the rights away from others.
This country is following the same path as every other empire in the past. History will repeat itself, and we are stripping away so many rights from individuals, in addition taxing them to the point where they won't be able to live…eventually more and more people will decide it is better to join the welfare layabout, do nothing class.
December 1st, 2009 at 5:54 am
Gosh, Rico. What would that make you?
December 1st, 2009 at 8:00 am
“She got out because every damned one of those ethical complaints had teeth.”-TA declaring a fact that wasn't a fact but a falsehood. Uh, Palin's book, being currently fact checked by media buzzards, says you are not telling the truth. You did read the book but mouthed off before you got to the real story about the Chicago Way and how one uses ethics complaints? The buzzards haven't found any examples such as you describe in ANY records so why the wild goose chase that I should trek up to Alaska to re check records when it is just a whole lot easier for you to retract what is becoming a long running lie on your part?
December 1st, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Where is fact checker when he could be of use?
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:56 am
Where is fact checker when he could be of use?