FYI it is REPUBLICANS supporting the smoking ban legislation in *gulp* Virginia

[underpants]

http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193041755&path=!business&s=1045855934855

State Senate approves smoking ban
House likely to kill bill; it has approved a less-restrictive plan

Smoking would be prohibited in restaurants and most other public, indoor places in Virginia under legislation the state Senate passed yesterday.

The Senate voted 23-16 for a bill, sponsored by Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, that would make smoking illegal in restaurants, theaters, retail stores and other indoor places frequented by the public, with few exceptions such as specialty tobacco stores.

The House of Delegates passed far less restrictive legislation last week that would require restaurants that allow smoking to post signs saying so at public entrances. That bill, sponsored by Del. H. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, is awaiting assignment to a Senate committee.

The bill would eliminate the legal requirement that restaurants with more than 50 seats provide nonsmoking sections.

The Senate passed the smoking-ban legislation by a wider margin than the 21-18 vote by which it approved a nearly identical bill by Bell last year.

[fasttense]

1. Well. of course it is. Republicons love nothing better than restricting

people, forcing their own opinions and values on others. Not that I can get all excited about smoking bans. But when their self-righteousness moves on to things like restricting who can get married my ire is seriously provoked.

Smoking bans are just a more benign form of social control Republicons would like to impose on everyone.

[Bandit]

2. Amazing to see common sense on the Republican side of the aisle..

Smoking in Public should be highly restricted. A smoker does not have more rights than a non smoker. The right to breath clean air in Public is every bit as valid as the right to pollute the Public air by smoking. A person wants to pollute their own air in the privacy of their home or on their own property fine and dandy. They do not have the right to pollute air I need to sustain life....