Posted on 07/31/2002 12:01:40 PM PDT by SheLion
Perhaps you know Charlie Mendelman.
He's an affable, congenial man, who for 18 years ran a top-notch Volkswagen/Audi/Porsche dealership on Macleod Tr.
Then, at the age of 56, Charlie got up one day and decided he wanted to do something different in life. So he sold his dealership and opened up The Garage Billiards Bar and Restaurant at Eau Claire Market.
"I'm a people-type person," he says. "I like to meet people and chat with them. That's why I went into the automobile business, and it's why I went into the hospitality business."
If you've been to The Garage, you'll know it's a big, spacious place -- 8,000 sq. ft. with high ceilings -- and with 18 pool tables neatly placed throughout. The younger jean-clad crowd go to Charlie's place to play pool, and business executives and lawyers come in their three-piece suits to talk about the market, the latest ramifications of some case, or politics.
There are lots of well-known faces there.
It's a family business. Charlie's there just about every hour of the day and his always-cheerful daughter Melissa happily works behind the bar.
But these days, when you catch a glimpse of Charlie unawares, you see the occasional expression of strain on his face. It's as if there's a touch of worry behind his affable manner.
There is -- because as vivacious as his business is today -- he fears it won't last.
City hall's stern-faced, anti-smoking zealots are moving in.
This past Jan. 1, our puritanical aldermen forced Charlie to put a dividing line down the centre of his enterprise. One side is for smokers, the other for customers under the age of 18.
Next July 1, Mendelman will be forced to erect a solid wall reaching up to the ceiling, dividing his bar and restaurant into two. On one side, smokers, on the other non-smokers and those under 18.
Come 2005 -- and this is really crazy considering Mendelman will have had to spend about $50,000 to build that wall -- the city's anti-smoking committee has recommended smoking be banned entirely from city bars and restaurants.
A pool hall where you can't smoke?
Give me a break.
Charlie wonders what will happen to his business when these draconian moves are forced on him, and at the age when he is about to start collecting his OAP and CPP, he's too old to start another venture in another field.
In Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver where similar authoritarian laws have been enacted, customers have left in droves. True, the bars and restaurants now do have "clean air" -- they just don't have many customers to breathe it.
In Calgary, the city aldermen and mandarins -- who are planning to wreck everyone's fun -- claim smoking is going out of style in any case, and they are just giving it a little push.
What supercilious, sanctimonious individuals they are.
They may be right in declaring in Calgary only about 25% of residents smoke, but other statistics show 80% of people who go to bars and pool halls smoke.
Add to that, even non-smokers who go to bars and pool halls don't object to other customers who do smoke. It's part of the ambience, so to speak.
In reality, once anti-smoking zealots force Charlie to slam a wall down the middle of his room, there won't be much ambience left. Everything Charlie has tried to accomplish in his huge, spacious bar will be slashed in half.
One of the many aspects of all of this that frustrates Mendelman is that even as all parties were actually agreeing on the 50/50% split on smoking and non-smoking space -- with owners believing that was it -- the city was already surreptitiously forming another committee to draw up and impose the other measures.
That was dishonest. The owners thought they had a mutual long term deal, but the city knifed them in the back.
Now, Mendelman is just one of hundreds of bar and restaurant owners in our city facing these drastic measures and facing huge losses on their investments.
Thousands of young waiters and waitresses risk losing their jobs.
Says Charlie: "If you don't want to go to a place where people smoke, you surely have a right to go elsewhere. But surely it should be freedom of choice for everyone. Isn't that fair? Doesn't that make sense?"
Sure it should be.
And sure it would be.
But this is Calgary --- governed by mean-spirited, petty busybodies who want to regiment society to their Orwellian dreams.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jackson, associate editor of the Sun, can be reached at paul.jackson@calgarysun.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to
callet@sunpub.com.
People who abort babies are dumb.
People who drink and drive are dumb.
People who abuse children or their spouse are dumb.
People who do not believe in freedom of choice are dumb.
The list goes on and on. What's good for you is bad for me and what is good for me is bad for you.
Got that right, and it includes all the NGO's also.(particularly the anti-smokers and the gay agenda nazis).
FMCDH
You KNOW it doesn't make sense. The government raises the taxes through the roof, to "balance their budgets." But, they want a "smoke free everything." Which side of their mouth do you want to believe?
I think the people are waking up to this gluttony greed.
And especially when the Nanny's are dictating to a business how to run it, it's really going way over the top.
Hi metesky!
And your right!
Here in Maine, they are making way for gays, but smokers are out. I can't get over it. And Maine is $itching about health care.
I thought at first that this article was going to be about Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt.
What makes you think you have the right to tell the bar owner/pool hall owner what he can do with his business? If you want a smoke free bar/poolhall, start one or find one that is already voluntarily smoke free. You have that right, but not the right to tell someone else they have to accomodate your preferences.
With condolences on your loss let me say that the evil cigarettes didn't jump out of the pack light themselves on fire and force your dad and sister to inhale. People are responsible for the consequences of their own actions.
Maybe then I could go out to a bar or a pool hall without being assaulted by unwanted and unhealthy tobacco smoke and made ill.
Guess what, if you don't like the smoke (or can't tolerate it) find a bar that's less smokey or don't go. If the bar owner decides he wants to permit smoking then he has the right to do that. It's his property and you are their under his rules. Stop whining. No one is forcing you to go there
As conservatives you have to realize that your right to the pursuit of happiness ends when it endangers someone else's health - and smoking in public or in the presence of nonsmokers does exactly that.
Depends where they are. In a privately owned building the owner makes the rules. If the smoke bother you, don't go there.
And that is why legislation like this is happening.
No legislation like this is happening because some people are trying to erode our property rights. It is an evil usurption of our rights
Now let me add that I am an anti-smoker. I figure that a smoker gets what he deserves. I even have a button that says "Cancer cures smoking". But they have the right to do it if they so decide and I cannot steal someone's property by supporting rules for his property that he doesn't agree with.
P.S. Be braced for severe flaming from the smoking lobby here
God Save America (Please)
Right between 'Socialist' and 'Syphillis'... ;0)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.