Do As I Say, Not Do As I Do
Two-Faced Government
Our Federal government makes a fortune from taxing tobacco products. Our Provincial government cries out that they are losing money since they forbade the smokers from their casinos.
Ontario OKs smoking rooms in gov't casinos
Canadian Press
TORONTO — After vowing to have no exemptions to Ontario's smoking ban, the government has quietly given provincially owned casinos the OK to build smoking rooms.
The Smoke Free Ontario Act, which became law last June, doesn't allow bars and restaurants to provide covered areas to protect smoking patrons from the weather.
But provincially owned casinos in Niagara Falls and Windsor have been building shelters for gamblers who like to smoke, and the Liberal government says that's OK.
A similar covered smoking area has also been approved for gamblers who play the slot machines at Windsor Raceway.
The tobacco-industry funded lobby group Mychoice.ca says there should be no exemptions for the law banning smoking in all indoor public places in Ontario.
It says the government exempted the casinos from parts of the smoking ban because of a big drop in revenues after the ban came into effect.
Take a walk down any street and look around. What do you see? You see employees, shoppers and visitors huddled around
building entrances having a smoke.
The anti-smoking brigade would love to push these smokers even further away from the fronts of these businesses. It looks like hell and the non-smokers trying to get in are breathing their secondhand smoke.
The next bit of strategy they will come up with will require these smokers to go 1000 feet away from these doorways to ensure safe entry - pretty hard to do on a city block, but that's not their problem.
If I owned a business and I wanted to have a productive staff, I'd be looking at ways to keep them at their desks or work stations, not have them running to the backdoor stoop every thirty minutes or so. But that's just me. Sometimes using common sense just isn't allowed to happen when 'political correctness' is the order of the day.
