Smoke-Free Dallas Nazis

Once again free enterprise faces government oppression. Remember when some Johnny-come-do-gooders wanted to tax patrons of topless bars $5 each with receipts going to a fund to aid sexual assualt victims? Rational people failed to see the correlation and that idea was deep sixed.

The Bronx Cheer Army has been attacking smoking (and smokers) since at least the 1960s. Most early battles were easily won and many victories were noble. (Smoking was once allowed on airplanes? Get real.)

But now the Crusade of the Pompousness is surrounding the castle of the last bastion of adult-only public Nemea where the world's problems are truly solved — the neighborhood bar.

Their argument is simple. Secondhand smoke kills. Frightening isn't it? Yet no one is forced to go into a bar. They're not grocery stores. Generally children are not allowed. No one is forced to work in a bar. The job requirements fit many other venues of employment. And most important of all, if there was a vast market for smoke-free bars, don't you think it would have been tapped?

Between the Nazis of Smoke-Free Dallas and the righteous indignation vigorously expressed by MADD, is the neighborhood bar on life support?