UNINTENDED CONSQUENCES OF B-VILLE SMOKING BAN

By Juan Montoya
While some smoker are enjoying the last 50 or 60 days that they can light up in bars, others have resigned themselves to the fact that they can no longer burn ciggies in their favorite drinking establishment.
This was made plain over the weekend when patrons of El Callejon Bar on 10th Street near Adams when they told that the management had implemented the no-smoking ban effective January 1 instead of waiting for the 60-day grace period.
"I'm from Brownsville but I live in Austin," said the chastised patron. "There has been a no-smoking policy in place there for along time. I always thought that I could come to Brownsville and light up. But now I found out that the city has bought up the real estate in Market Square and closed all the bars there. Now they also outlawed smoking."
of the lounge lizards sat about thinking what life will be like now that the Healthier-Than-Thou crowd is running the city commission. For one, if the smoker wants to puff on one, he will probably have to walk outside (to the real callejon) and puff away with his fellows. This weekend, with temperatures outside hovering in the 40s and a stiff cold wind coming in from the north they looked simply miserable. Down the callejon a ways was another group smoking, but from the smell of it, one could tell it wasn't Marlboros.
When the smokers were done, the cigarette butts were simply flung into the curb or put out on the sidewalk with their feet. That triggered another round of speculation on where the cigarette butts that used to go into ashtrays and then into the garbage would end up.
"We don't even have ashtrays anymore," said one of the women running the bar. "If they want to smoke they have to go outside, or in the parking lot."
It could be viewed as a sort of poetic justice that the ban on smoking will result in more cigarette butts thrown on sidewalks, roads, or in the city parking lots. There is another group (Healthy Communities?) which periodically displays newspaper ads discouraging the disposal of the "toxic" butts into the public thoroughfares. And from the look of the smokers, it can be easily assumed that they are not going to wrap up the offending butts in a paper towel and then throw it into the nearest garbage can.
"You can't put them in a plastic bags because they outlawed them, too," said the smoker. "Let the smoking ban fanatics pick them up. "Serves them right."
Another piped in that since some people smoke to keep from eating (and therefore run the risk of becoming obese) the no-smoking ban would drive them to mindless gluttony. So while  the health nuts on one hand moved to protect you from second-hand smoke, they were inadvertently driving people to pig out.
"You're going to end up with a bunch of fat drunks," said one of the assembled wits who was well in the process of getting there. "Forget about having a six-pack abdomen. It'll be more like a keg."
That comment in turn led to another to pipe in that since people couldn't smoke in public anymore, they would take to chewing gum to fight the urge. And with yet another health group (Healthy Communities?) leading the campaign to stamp out gum giving our sidewalks an unsightly blotched appearance, the consequence of having even more gum chewers loosed upon the populace made him shudder.

"I can just imagine what our sidewalks will be like," he imagined. "Toddlers stuck at the corners, birds tugging on the asphalt trying to escape the chicle pitch. It's a horrible future that awaits us as a result of all these new rules. It's enough to drive a body to drink."