The Hennepin County Board has voted to ban smoking on all county-owned property including parking lots. This is an example of another lower level government's enactment of half-baked legislation.
Currently, Hennepin County, which includes the cities of Minneapolis and Bloomington, prohibits smoking in and within forty-five feet of buildings that are county-owned or in which the county is the sole tenant. As an anti-smoker, I am happy that I can enter a county-owned building without having to "smoke" someone else's cigarettes. However, the new ban includes county-owned parking lots, even when in your own vehicle.
Smokers who feel the need to light up will now have to get in their cars and drive around and around the block until their nicotine compulsion is satisfied. This does not seem like a well thought-out piece of legislation. I wish everyone in the world would find a vice less damaging than voluntarily inhaling carcinogens. I don't wish that government would make their choice for them, and giving people a reason to burn gasoline unnecessarily is not good policy.
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