Street Sticking To His, Uh, Libertarianism

Way back in June, City Council finally passed a smoking ban. The bill had exemptions, of course, but the city’s anti-smoking lobby was excited, City Council was excited, even some bar owners were down with it. It wasn’t so hot for Joe Camel, but, c’mon.

Mayor Street had until early September to sign the bill, City Council went on vacation and the whole thing was promptly forgotten, except for conversations with smokers in bars. (”Oh, you know we won’t be able to do that in a few months!” “Wow.” “Hey, want to come home with me?” “No.”) Everyone figured it’d be signed in a few months, would go into effect in January and we’d all come home smelling a lot less shitty.

Except, uh, right. In a clever and oh-so-predictable display of John Streetedness, John Street is probably not going to sign the bill.

It’s fairly simple, of course: Michael Nutter spearheaded the bill, and Street doesn’t like Nutter and doesn’t want him to be the next mayor. Street could probably come up with a good fake reason to oppose the bill, but he’s come up with, by far, the stupidest reason in the history of Philadelphia politics (And, remember, this is a city that bombed a block of rowhomes and let it burn.)

Street’s reasoning is, of course, that the smoking ban is “defective” because… it allows patrons to smoke outdoors. That’s right! Ol’ Johnny boy says he’s not going to sign the bill because you can smoke at sidewalk cafes. “A smoking ban that doesn’t include sidewalk cafes isn’t much of a ban.” Now, Street coulda said something about the exemptions for taverns — especially the clash between state and local laws, which force bars to choose between going smoke-free or closing on Sundays — or private clubs. Or he could have put on a chicken suit and clucked at cars for four hours yesterday in opposition to the bill because it uses the letter “e” too much.

Either of those would have been better, more reasonable reasons to dislike the smoking ban. But instead Street goes with the most random fake reason to dislike the bill he can come up with. In the smoking bans across this great nation of ours, where is the one place where you’re usually allowed to smoke? That’s right: Sidewalk cafes.

Oh, Street has another good money quote, too: “We are all for a ban, but the way it happened isn’t a model of the legislative process.” Okay, I’ll give you a minute to stop laughing before moving on.

Done? Good. So what’s going to happen now? As usual, who knows. All we know is: Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, and even if you don’t, well, somebody next to you might.

Street balking on smoke-ban bill [Daily News]
June 16: Q&A On The Smoking Bill