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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (22382)	5/29/1998 1:02:00 AM
From: Father Terrence	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Christine: To this latest weak argument of yours I politely say, bllsht! No employee of a bar is forced to work there if they do not want to be exposed to smoke. This is another Sacramento shell game designed to fool the rubes and confuse the stooges. Surprising how many rubes and stooges there seem to be in California. Don't you know this is setting a precedent? What about the next unhealthy thing the government decides to crack down on? How long before foods are taxed or even banned because of possible long term health problems (there are a huge quantity that fall into this category, as you know!). Here's the bottom line: I'm a bar owner. I smoke. I risked my capital and my labor to create the bar. I work long hours to make my bar profitable. I let the government rob me for years because everybody else does. Most of my employees smoke, the ones who don't, don't mind it. Most of my customers smoke, the ones who don't must not mind or they wouldn't come to my bar. Now the government tells me no more smoking is allowed in my bar. MY BAR! The government doesn't own it. They didn't take the risk to start it. They don't maintain it. They just come by like clockwork looking for some vigorish (what they used to call the Mafia business of collecting protection money, except this is government vigorish). So I ignore the law. Then I'm slapped with a fine. I refuse to pay. They fine me some more. I throw out the threatening letters. We hold a party and there's plenty of smoking, drinking and laughing going on until two unsmiling cops burst in with arrest warrants and drags yours truly off to jail. Now a "judge" tells me if I don't pay the fine and end smoking in the establishment (MY BAR THAT I CREATED!!) the government's going to close me down, strip me of my liquor license and sell the properties to pay off the fines. Plus I face a possible jail sentence. I refuse to pay and state my reasons why. The judge answers that it is immaterial. He then goes on to explain how, in essence, I don't really run the business I started, how the state can shut me down at any time they choose, how I don't have any rights in this matter even though it is my property, and how I can't even smoke in my own bar! I adamantly refuse. I am taken away in chains by men with guns. My bar is closed. I am financially ruined. Later I am sentenced to 5 years in the State penitentiary and share my jail cell with a marijuana dealer. It strikes me THAT used to be legal too until sometime in the 1920s. I finally realize something. I AM NOT A CRIMINAL -- I'M A POLITICAL PRISONER! Glumly I wait for the long five years ahead of me. . . Father Terrence