New Jersey’s Smoking Ban, which outlaws smoking indoors in public places, including bars and restaurants (except, of course, in Atlantic City’s Casinos), takes effect on April 15^th.  No longer will the owner of an establishment be able to choose to permit smoking or not; the state had made that choice for him.

Which means that smokers have been relegated to the great outdoors if they wish to smoke.  Freezing cold, driving snow, pouring rain – it doesn’t matter, “Outside with you, filthy swine!”

Today, just three days before the law takes effect, the Department of Health and Senior Services issued a regulation stating that smokers cannot be within twenty-five feet of the door of the establishment.  The feces head who wrote the regulation must have had large office buildings in mind, because he/she obviously has not spent much time visiting about a gazillion Jersey saloons and restaurants that have a frontage of about twenty-five feet.

I suppose that means that smokers have to go onto someone else’s property to stay far enough away from the door to legally smoke.  Perhaps they should stand in the street in order to satisfy the twenty-five feet rule?  But wait, there are other laws that would prevent that.

This Nanny State Crap is consistent with the recent hike in the cigarette tax that was proposed as part of the state budget..  Enlighten New Jersey ferreted out the real deal on the cigarette tax hike.  It’s purpose is not to increase revenues to combat the scandalously high deficit in this state, which has resulted from corruption, governmental inefficiency, and profligate spending, but rather its unspoken purpose is to tax smokers out of their habits.  Indeed the budget forecasted a net revenue loss of $149 million as a result of the tax hike.

This is yet more social engineering brought to you by the Beautiful People, many of whom, by the way, enjoy a good cigar and made damned sure that “cigar bars” remained legal.  (Please spare me the increased-healthcare-costs-resulting-from-smoking crapola unless Corzine is also willing to tax hell out of potato chips, ice cream and Twinkies.)