O O Ø O O O O
Her
Imagine my delight yesterday when the newspaper box next to my bus stop proclaimed:
HAVE A PINT
Finally, it appeared Kjell’s and my message was getting through, if admittedly on the incorrect day.
Not so.
A brief scan of the headline in its entirety made the message clear:
Anti-smoking advocates urge Calgarians to reward bars… HAVE A PINT.
I’m all for rewarding bars. They’re great places, cleverly arranged so that servers can bring you tasty beer in exchange for money. They’re proven and wholesome concepts.
Readers of this space however, will know I have a problem with anti-smoking advocates. It’s not that I disapprove of people disapproving of smoking. That’s their regard. I simply resent their recent actions in successfully campaigning for a Calgary-wide ban of smoking in private drinking establishments.
What makes this particular headline particularly galling is the picture next to it: the maliciously smiling mug of anti-smoking zealot Robyn Hauck.
Her.
She cannot urge Calgarians what to do. She has already conspired to use the force of law to tell Calgarians what they cannot do.
More than anyone else in this city, she has been the face of the campaign to remove the free will of consenting patrons to conduct transactions as they see fit, in the environment they see fit, on private property.
She needs to crawl back into her sterile box and return to her damp, barren dreams of an antiseptic society, programmed for approved behaviour by a spiritless cognoscenti.
Robyn Hauck needs to put down that pint glass, wipe the smarm off her face, and never condescend to tell me what to do, ever again.
Calgarians were having pints, until she came along.
And thank you, no. I don’t smoke.
Evan Spence
January 16, 2007
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