StonyStandoff gets funnier

The whole carry on at Stony Stratford viz Councillor Bartlet's attempted smoking ban now gets preposterous.

he is trying to have tomorrow's meeting postponed to September out of his fears that his opponenets (that means us) are not ready for the debate. According to the MK News,

Councillor Paul Bartlett was planning to postpone his motion as he believes his opponents' arguments are 'flimsy' and they need more time to prepare.

Stony Stratford Town Council has now confirmed the discussion will not take place at tomorrow night's meeting, and has been moved to September 20.

That'll be the reason Councillor Bartlett. But don't act all shy, don't be nice, if we are unprepared, wghy not strike home your advantage?

Or are you having a fit of the wobbles knowing as surely you must now know that your proposals are deeply unpopular with both the residents of Stony and its buisness community?

Given the wild range of extremely iffy claims you have made,

Stony Stratford Town Council does not condone smoking and the health risks associated with it. This Council seeks to reduce the amount of litter in our streets and to protect our historic town from germs, general nuisance and the possibility of young people in particular being burnt by cigarettes.
Stony Stratford Town Council wishes to encourage all businesses in the town and, in doing so, to recognize the leading role they and residents can play in preventing the spread of disease, injury, litter, smoke, illnesses such as asthma, lung cancer and the narrowing of arteries, heart disease and its unpleasant other side effects and including the impact discarded cigarettes have on residents of Market Sq and High St in particular and children who have to put up with this 24hrs a day.

I suspect that it is not us who are unprepared.

Kate Moss: The Face of Freedom

With one sashay down a Parisian catwalk, Kate Moss, with the backing of Louis Vuitton has destroyed all the professional miserabalists of National No Smoking day.

Way to go Kate.

Is that the police? Daddy is smoking in the study. Can you arrest him?

Thanks to Mark Wadsworth for bringing this to my attention,

The last refuge is vanishing for besieged smokers — at least in Honduras. A new law that took effect Monday says family members can call in the police on people who smoke at home.
...
A clause, however, expressly says relatives or visitors can summon police to deal with smokers at home: "Families or individuals may complain to law enforcement authorities when smokers expose them to secondhand smoke in private places and family homes."

Which be an interesting law to implement.

Rony Portillo, director of the Institute to Prevent Alcoholism and Drug Addiction, said those who violate the law will first receive a verbal warning and after the second offense could be arrested. To be released they would have to pay a $311 fine, the equivalent of a monthly minimum wage salary in Honduras.

"The law is clear and we will comply with it," Portillo said. "Authorities will intervene (at a home) when someone makes a complaint."

Tis is just geting silly. The level of state interference is beyond compare. What is instructive is the pressure that will be put on the police. As Mark underlines,

That police-to-public ratio of 1:667 is impressive, that's about half European levels.

And they are not busy enough already without rounding up locals who smoke in their own houses. After all as the US state department puts it,

Crime is endemic in Honduras and requires a high degree of caution by U.S. visitors and residents alike. U.S. citizens have been the victims of a wide range of crimes, including murder, kidnapping, rape, assault, and property crimes. Eighty-five U.S. citizens have been reported murdered in Honduras since 1995; only twenty-four cases have been resolved. Sixteen U.S. citizens were reported murdered in Honduras in 2009, nine in 2008, four in 2007 six in 2006, and ten in 2005. Kidnappings of U.S. citizens have also occurred in Honduras. Five U.S. citizens were reported kidnapped in 2009, four in 2008, and two in 2007. Poverty, gangs, and low apprehension and conviction rates of criminals contribute to a critical crime rate, including acts of mass murder. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reported 4,473 murders in Honduras in 2008 giving Honduras, with a population of approximately 7.3 million people, one of the world’s highest per capita murder rates.

The UNDP report can be found here. I guess harrasing people in their own homes is easier than sorting out the real problems.

The law of unintended consequences - Article 577 (Smoking Ban)

I spotted this corker in the Richmond Times last night,

Richmond College smoking ban criticised for sending puffing students into streets

You must read it, it is priceless, but my favourite two lines are,

Mr Rowles added: “The only solution as we see it is to lift the smoking ban in the college grounds.”

and,

Mr Ansell said he was keen to meet with residents and confirmed the smoking ban would be reviewed.

He said: “The college’s security manager has personally visited a number of residents to listen to their concerns and we will be reviewing our smoking policy.

An idiotic policy, that does nobody any favours.

Greeks propose a way forward for smokers

In the frst four months of teh Greek blanket smoking ban pover 450 penalty notices have been handed out to bars in the Athens area alone. It is obviously not running as smoothly as it has done in the UK with widespread disobiedience.

So the Greek government, which is cash strapped remember, has had a  collective head-scratching about this and has come up with a nice idea. After all they are pretty well hated amongst the population, and this EU driven legislation is just pissing off the populace. So they are proposing this,

The Greek government is planning to introduce smoking licences for wet-led venues so that customers can smoke.


The cost will be decided based on the size of the establishments and any venue that allows smoking without the licence will be closed.

There is of course the fiscal incentive...

The government believes it could bring in “at least” €50m (around £42m) from issuing the smoking licences.

So Mr Cameron. You can be liberal, big society, and raise cash for the exchequer? What do you think?

Norwich Council Terror Threat

The egregious numbnuts who populate Norwich City Council have launched a anti-terror investigation into an unnamed pub.

Using the Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act - designed to prevent us from chaps with bomb-belts they have been spying on the pub.

Why, because we are told the publican allowed people to smoke there. It used the,

Surveillance to find out if a city pub was allowing customers to flout the no-smoking ban – in return for them putting money into a fund to pay any fine which resulted if they did get caught.

Quick! Get 50 armed coppers surrounding the Old Bull and Bush, cigarettes might be lit!!! Deadly threat to drinkers.

Interestingly the system that the unnamed pub has introduced is one that worked very well in Holland where thousands of small bars and clubs did the same. Now of course with the mass civil disobedience the Dutch authorities have seen sense and changed the law.

But (Ref previous article) Britain is a law abiding society and we haven't seen similar mass silent protest here, so those few people who do flout the draconian anti-smoking legislation are low hanging fruit for the anti-terror police to target.

Of coursde the Council is unrepentant in this gross misuse of RIPA,

“We only use these powers when absolutely necessary," a council spokesman said.

Yeah right. Why not just walk in? No, pf course not, they silly numpkins just want to play Spooks and go all covert and smoke and dagger.

I bet some Council official sidled in there, bought a pint (on expense of course) and dropped his coin in the kitty, lit up a cigarette. Noting that the publican turned a blind eye to this outrageous insult to public decency, he twisted off the hot end and, in the style of tabloid writers everywhere, made his excuses and left.

Pathetic.

Naughty Naughty Spaniards...People might be watching

If there is something that our betters hate is people just doing what they think is right, despite the certain knowledge that it will annoy. To this end Spain is taking the role of the little boy and the WHO the Red Queen,

And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a vio lent shake at the end of every line: -- --

"Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes;
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases."

Armando Peruga,the boss of the WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative had a hissy fit in Barcelona last week,

He said Spain's 2006 anti-smoking law - which allows bars and restaurants of less than 100 square metres to decide whether or not to allow smoking and lets larger establishments create separate smoking and non-smoking areas - has been latched onto by the tobacco industry as a tool for lobbying against the creation of stricter bans in other countries. Big Tobacco holds up the Spanish model as "an example to follow," he said.

The tobacco industry's use of the Spanish example has been effective in softening anti-smoking laws being developed in countries such as Turkey, Croatia, Uruguay and Peru, which were "close to adopting 100 per cent bans" but then opted for partial bans like Spain's, said Sr Peruga.

He called on Spain to immediately approve a complete ban on smoking in all indoor public places, saying the only effective model is a full prohibition with no exceptions.

We all love self determination and pluralism don't we? Unless of course it disagrees with us.

There again Sr Peruga needn't worry too much, Spain's democracy will be overuled by the EU when it gets its latest anti smoking Directive through.

(I am amused to note that Afganistan has been inveigled to sign up to the FCTC - after al tobacco is a treal threat to the health in that benighted land. Can you imagine the level of enforcement?)

Quixotic act by Nuttall

BUt welcome for all that, The Morning Advertiser, that pub bible writes today,

Bury North MP David Nuttall wants to give pubs the right to choose whether they allow smoking in the premises or not.
“This Bill isn’t about completely reversing the smoking ban, it is simply about giving pubs and private members clubs the right to choose whether to allow customers to smoke in their premises,”

Of course he doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance of getting it through, but the more you tilt at windmills the better chance you have of finding the needle.

It rather depends on what impact you assess

The European Commission has just launched its public consultation on a review of the EU's pan European Smoking ban legislation. If you want to get involved the place to go is here, and you need to have done it by the 19th November.

With it comes the Impact Assessment that they Commissioned from the Rand Corporation. It weighs in at 345 pages and I cannot pretend to have read it all. (Which I suspect is the purpose of the document - nobody, not even the reports joint authors will have read it all).

I did however do a few words searches in it. After all if we are looking at the impacts one would expect that Health impacts would be taken into account. Economic impacts also.

Another key impact is on choice, liberty and lifestyle - society to use a phrase.

So lets look at the results of my most unscientific study.

Health:
Before even reaching Page 1 of the document proper there were over 50 references to health.

Economic:
Again, before reaching page 1 we have more than 50 references to 'Economic'

Social:
I got to page 174 before I reached 50 (of course the use of the word social is interesting in itself but I digress)

So I tried Freedom
1 reference found on page 66. It was referring to Freedom of entry in the market - the cigarette market is largely an oligopoly with 5 major players. This is seen to be a bad thing - but of course the impact of smoking restrictions at point of sale will make the appearance new entrants into the market and will ossify competition - one of the key reasons that big tobacco is largely sanguine about much anti-smoking legislation. It drives out competition).

Liberty:
None references to Liberty.

Choice:
7 references to choice. Mostly talking about choices that the Rand corporation made in running the study and in the questionnaires sent out to interested parties, something that deserves highlighting as it rather frames the whole approach.

there are no questions on wider impacts of regulations on, for example, consumer choice, property rights, or illicit tobacco trade.

They claim that they will be looking into these matters later.

I checked Rights in the light of this, and we have 7 again, including the above, but otherwise merely a very dismissive approach to whether having plain packaging mandatory would impinge on Tobacco companies property rights over their own packages, happily for the anti-smoking enthusiasts, this isn't a problem.

it should be noted that some governments have been reluctant to consider seriously the introduction of plain packaging owing to concerns about intellectual property rights and trade issues that have been brought to the fore by the tobacco industry.
(For a summary of the arguments and state-of-play, see: Physicians for Smoke-Free
Canada, 2008) Nevertheless, various trademark attorneys have been presenting their views on the legal side of the debate and have come to the conclusion that plain packaging would not violate the tobacco industry’s intellectual property rights (see, e.g., (Gordon, 2010) and (Davison, 2010).

Oh by the way there are 2 references to pubs, none to restaurants, bars or licensed premises.

So go on then, consult away.

I love Paris in the Springtime

Or well, I did. It appears that our snail-guzzling chums across the channel have succumed to the worst of Anglo-Saxon excess.

Paris move to ban outdoor heaters at cafés in fresh blow to smokers

And who is behind this classic piece of autocracy?

But now the Socialist and Green-run town hall has declared war on the heaters, calling them an ecological disaster. "Warming the little birds in winter is not very useful," said Lyne Cohen-Solal, the Socialist deputy mayor in charge of trade.

She is spearheading the push for new regulations, to come into force by January next year, which would also forbid the use of plastic partitions to keep in the heat on terraces. They are deemed unsightly and a fire hazard. Glass partitions would be allowed. Cafés that have already purchased the heaters will have two years to phase them out.

So which is it?
Libertie (Nope), Egalitie (not for smokers) or Fraternity (nope not that either).
Po-faced sanctimonious nitwits the lot of them. What is more it seems deeply dodgy as well, as she is up in court for fraud in December.

Happily I can report that earlier this week in a little bar in a little village I know is rural France the locals saw me coming and moved outside. So they could tell I was English? I asked the barowner,
"Non mon ami, ils fument dans mon bar, mais vous etes un visiteur. They wish to be polite".

I waved them back in.

The Elephant that slipped between the Craics

The Publican is flagging up an article in the The Irish Times from Monday which will send shudders through the British pub trade.

The pub trade is experiencing a “meltdown” with sales down by more than 14 per cent in the first seven months of the year, the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland claimed today.

And that includes the period of good weather. So what are the reasons for this?

The group said publicans were also facing ongoing “cost pressure” which was being generated by Government related costs such as commercial rates and regulation.

Of course we have to look at the bigger picture, wonder what these regulations are. Well apart from the home grown stuff there is of course a whole tranche of EU regulation such as the Working Time Directive and all sorts of Health and Saftey regulations that bedevil small businesses. But this problem is one that has been growing for a while it seems.

It said the weak economic environment and lower consumer demand were causing further problems for the sector, which says it has experienced a 25 per cent reduction in sales since 2000.

That is a terrifying drop in 10 years. What has happened, are the Irish becomeing the new Temperance Seven?

Well according to recent figures that is part of it,

Pubs have been closing at a rate of one a day, and 15,000 jobs have been lost over the last 18 months
1,500 pubs closed in the past five years
the 9.6% per capita decrease in 2009 is on top of a 7.7% decrease in 2008
By volume, consumption decreased 8.9% in 2009, and 5.9% in 2008
Foley predicts another 5% drop in volume for this year
Consumption is now 21% below its peak “during the drunken haze that was 2001,” when Ireland was at the height of its economic boom
2009 alcohol consumption levels are the lowest since 1996

However the figures for pub closures are significantly greater than the figures for drop in consumption. And hikes in prices might have had an impact,

because while the Irish are drinking less, the amount they are spending on their drinking is not declining at the same rate.

It is worth noting that in 2004 the drinks industry commissioned a study into the hopes and fears of the pub industry.

Respondents to the survey were invited to raise any current issues which they felt were very important to the licensed trade. Of the total responses, 15.9% identified no issue, while the remainder were spread over a number of issues.
The most common were the smoking ban (66.1%) and the right to refuse issue (14.5%). There were different issues identified by public houses, and by other licensed premises. 72.4% of pubs and 48.0% of other premises were concerned with the smoking ban. 27.9% of other premises and 11.7% of pubs had no issues.

Well, given that the smoking ban was introduced in 2004 it is not surprising that the trade was frit about the effects.

This is confirmed by the source document for the declining figures above,

Based on industry and market research information it is estimated that the volume decline in alcohol sales in bars was approximately 12% in 2009.

Whereas,

Excluding the impact of cross border off licence sales the off licence share of total alcohol consumption in 2009 was 49% compared to 47% in 2008.

UK spirit taxes in particular are significantly lower than in the Republic.

Nowhere, except in the the 2004 study is the spectre of the smoking ban raised, and then only by the publicans themselves. The industry tries to gloss by talking translucently of 'regulations' and describing the figures as broadly spread, when the smoking ban worried 61% and the next isssue was down at 14.5%.

So whither the British pub? The year on year impact of the Irish smoking ban is obvious, coupled with increased regulations, and pressure on prices the trade is in what looks like terminal decline. Of course Ireland introduced its ban before the UK, so the problem is bigger, and in part more diluted over time, but the impact is there for all to see.

Yehay.. Scottish Government to help small shops and post offices

Lies all lies, it's not true of course. They wouldn't consider it. Dammit even the EU is coming up with stuff that is better.

No the Scots are putting together their plans to ban fag machines and cigarette displays.

According to the Scottish Grocers Federation this will cost,

"between £5,000 and £10,000 for each shop to comply with the new regulations".

Which of course they can all afford easily can't they. No it will bethe small corner shops and the Post Offices that will be hammered by this illiberal, foolish legislation. The big supermarkets nmust be rubbing their hands with glee as more competition is put out of business by the idiotic Scottish Government.


Oh and though I was nice about Charlie MaCreevy's plans to lighten the burden on small businesses up there, please don't get me wrong. UKIP belives that businesses like those should be exempt from the whole gamut of pettifogging rules, but credit where credit is due.

So Hookah's aren't bad for you

Or at least for your next door neighbour.

Hookah (narghile, shisha, “water-pipe”) smoking is now seen by public health officials as a global tobacco epidemic. Cigarette Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) is classically understood as a combination of Side-Stream Smoke (SSS) and Exhaled Main-Stream Smoke (EMSS), both diluted and aged. Some of the corresponding cigarette studies have served as the scientific basis for stringent legislation on indoor smoking across the world. Interestingly, one of the distinctive traits of the hookah device is that it generates almost no SSS. Indeed, its ETS is made up almost exclusively by the smoke exhaled by the smoker (EMSS), i.e. which has been filtered by the hookah at the level of the bowl, inside the water, along the hose and then by the smoker’s respiratory tract itself. The present paper reviews the sparse and scattered scientific evidence available about hookah EMSS and the corresponding inferences that can be drawn from the composition of cigarette EMSS. The reviewed literature shows that most of hookah ETS is made up of EMSS and that the latter qualitatively differs from MSS. Keeping in mind that the first victim of passive smoking is the active smoker her/himself, the toxicity of hookah ETS for non-smokers should not be overestimated and hyped in an unscientific way.

Good, good, so that is a defence of Shish bars, now can we look at all bars please.
Interestingly the study also points out the falacious use of health statistics by the Scottish Government who had claimed that within a year of bringing in the smoking ban heart attacks had dropped significantly. Really?

However, it was also criticised. In particular, one researcher noted that “the drop in heart attacks is based on very few cases” and that “the reported difference could easily be due to chance or to some uncontrolled factor”. In 2008, and in a similar situation to that analysed in the Helena study, the Scottish government declared that the smoking ban enforced one year before in that country had also led to a dramatic fall in hospital admissions for acute coronary syndrome. However, "the latest figures suggest a rise of 7.8 per cent in the second year of the ban, cancelling out the earlier drop […] This seems to be backed up by hospital data from England and Wales, which have failed to show a significant reduction in incidence of acute coronary syndrome since these two countries followed Scotland and went 'smoke free' in 2007 .

Murderers

Well sort of,

Those sad sacks at the subsidised wing of the anti smoking lobby ASH have demanded the death of some much loved characters,

ANTI-smoking campaigners want soap chiefs to kill off cig-puffing characters Deirdre Barlow and Dot Cotton.
They claim the shows “advertise” cigarettes without warning viewers of the danger of cancer.

Even better is the whining tone of he complaints,

“For Dot and Deirdre to get something like lung cancer would have a massive effect on the audience. The Government should be leaning on shows like this.”

And the Roy Castle charity’s chief executive Dr Rosemary Gillespie criticised producers for making well-liked characters smoke when ciggies used to be reserved for dodgy types.

Dr Gillespie said: “Soaps used to depict characters that were shady, or the annoying gossip types, as the ones that smoked.

God they are a miserable bunch of puritans.

"Somebody who does not fit our ideal of perfection was seen smiling... We will have to put a stop to that".

Hat tip Mr Puddlecote

Hairy Moneyball and free speech

Meet Mary Honeyball, Labour MEP for London and blogger. (To be fair to her she allows comments and sometimes responds to them). She posted a constituent email about the TICAP - now Ind/Dem conference on prohibition.

Her own comments were rude and dismissive, even suggesting that her correspondent was paid.

This diatribe comes to you courtesy of a Ms Brenda Orsler, a delegate to the
conference against prohibition who apparently paid to attend out of her own
resources.

As far as I can make out, it is a pro-smoking event. What is even more
interesting is that has been sponsored by the appalling Godfrey Bloom, UKIP MEP.

And then her comments box caught fire, go take a look, it is quite fun.

Smoking makes you go mad!!!

This is from the Scottish Executive's consultation on,

"Achieving smoke-free mental health services in Scotland"

It is always good I think to have your desired result in the title of the consultation document, don't you? It saves us the bother of thinking for ourselves. Anyhow here are some of the findings. I have highlighted the bit that has made my eyes pop out.

Links between smoking and mental health problems
• People with mental health problems are more likely to smoke, and to smoke more heavily.
• This is true of people living in the community, but the trend is much more marked among people living in mental health units.
• Studies have shown significantly higher levels of heart disease and breathing conditions among people with mental health problems, likely to be caused by their
smoking.
• It is not yet clear why people with mental health problems smoke more. For some, smoking may play a role in the development of the illness. It is also possible that some people smoke to self-medicate, or to help counter side-effects of their medication.

That is one of the more mendacious findings. Go on, read the whole thing. Methinks it is likely to cause huge problems in the short to medium term. Anything up to the tragic death of a psychaitric worker. I pray this does not happen, but I would give prety short odds on trouble.

The Anti Smoking Crusade gets more sinister

I missed this yesterday, and so you have a delayed rant on your hands. Now I am no great whole hearted bveliever that the NHS is the world's greatest health care system, far from it, but until it is reformed properly then it must remain as it is, with equal access judged by a clinical assesment of need.

The statement by Gordon Brown about a proposed NHS Constitution is distinctly scary. (He has a thing about getting constitutions through the Parliament doesn't he, bet we don't get a referendum on this one either).

"We will also examine how all these changes can be enshrined in a new constitution of the NHS, setting out for the first time the rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to NHS care."

Er if a taxpaying subject of Her Majesty has an illness, they, having paid for the service are entitled to it. That's it.

But no, if your lifestyle isn't up to the bureacratic model of morality then you may find treatment withheld. Who the blue-bottomed, endogennous, scrapie-ridden, cycolpean son of the manse does he think he is? First it is smokers and fatties who get written off, then drinkers. Maybe car drivers will find a hike in their tax bills, who knows?

What happens when somebody - like those chaps who fought against their DNA being kept on the national database despite not being found guilty of anything - takes HMG - or more likely their local NHS truist to the ECHR on basic equality grounds? Or does Mr Hauptbefehlsleiter Brown feel that smokers and fatties are indeed lesser beings, not indeed equal in moral terms to the pure ones, those who go to gyms and eat bran flakes.

Meanwhile we discover that, surprise surprise the Government has been loading the dice about its health consultations into - you guessed it, smoking and alcohol. Yes they have been fixing the figures by funding oprganisations to tell it what it wants to hear in order for it to announce that it is doing what the public wants. (and I wonder where it learnt that tactic)

Do they think we are all utterly thick, do they think that we will forever sit on our fat backsides (stuffed to the sphincter with fast food) and not respond. I hope so because they will get one bloody great surprise very soon.

Serious, but silly

Do come along to the Conference on the 27th-28th January to hear some of the simple, and verifiable scientific facts that undermine the Passive Smoking Consensus. This is not a workers health issue - it is a state control issue.

More junk statistics about the smoking rules

Chris Snowdon has rather elegantly debunked the arguements surrounding the Government's plans to make smoking an under the counter experience.

According to the BBC:
'In Iceland, which has the longest experience of any such ban, smoking among 15 year olds fell from 18.6% in 1999 to 13.6% in 2003 - two years after the law was introduced. Rates have continued to drop and in 2007 stood at 11.1%. In Canada, smoking rates among 15 to 19 year olds fell from 29% in 2002 to 19% in 2007 - five years after the first ban was introduced.'

The problem is, as he points out this is bunk. Or it is bunk in isolation,

In Scotland, for example, the smoking rate amongst 15 year old boys fell from 30% in 1996 to 16% in 2002 and amongst 15 year old girls from 30% to 24%. The overall decline is greater than that seen in Iceland, and without a tobacco display ban. (See BBC report)

In the USA, the proportion of high school students who smoked fell from 35% in 2000 to 21.9% in 2003. Again, there was no tobacco display ban and cigarette prices were significantly cheaper than in the UK, Canada or Iceland.

Similarly, the proportion of 15-16 year olds who smoked fell in Ireland from 34% in 1999 to 27% in 2003. In England the rate fell from 26% to 22% in the same period.

Most devastating for the anti's arguements is the news from Iceland,

The Grocer journal has already covered the story behind the story:

"The Icelandic ban, introduced in 2001, has failed to achieve its aim of reducing smoking rates in the country's under 18s. In fact smoking prevalence among 15-19-year-olds actually increased from 14.4% to 17.5% in the year that the ban was introduced, official figures from Statistics Iceland reveal. In 2002, smoking revalence among this age group was the highest it had been for five years at 17.%. Today at 15.2% it still remains higher than it had been before the ban."

Go and read the whole thing and wonder how stupid the Government thinks we really are.

Be thankful for small mercies

The caring, sharing attitude of anti smokers is rather wonderfully illustrated by this letter to a Canadian newspaper,

Culture clash

As a non-smoker, I agree that smokers should be second-class citizens forced to stand isolated in the rain and pay high taxes, but I think the "Dog Relief/Smoking Area" at the airport is a bit over the top.
Visitors from countries where government still alows people to smoke might not
understand our ways and feel degraded.

Mike Pritchard,
Calgary