Commentary - Dan Gainor: A cigar is a smoke, and a politician is a pain

Dixon comes from a long line of busybody politicians who want to limit legal products. (I’m ignoring the mayor’s own obvious legal problems for now.) This time it’s individual and inexpensive cigars. Dixon and Health Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein want to force retailers to sell cigars in packs of five, not separately. The two want government to be the big Puff Daddy controlling tobacco because some kids smoke.

 It’s unclear what other legal products Dixon wants to limit or eliminate because teens abuse them illegally. Alcohol, prescription medication, food, cars and a host of other things come to mind.

 OK, to your mind and mine, not to Commandant Dixon. She is focused on saving the children, and rights and logic have nothing to do with it.

Unfortunately teens tend to experiment with things we’d rather they left alone. I’m not advocating it. But it’s a fact, a direct consequence of other laws. According to the Attorney General’s Office Web site, teens aren’t supposed to buy tobacco anyhow. But the major focus is cigarettes. What was the old movie line? “Cigars? Cigarettes?” Limit one, and teens pursue the other.

 Besides, another law isn’t needed. The Tobacco Retailer’s Guide put out by the Attorney General’s Office states, “Your license may be suspended or revoked if law enforcement or health officials find that tobacco products are being sold to minors at your establishment.”

The penalties for store owners are no joke. The first offense includes a fine of up to $300. But repeat offenders can get stuck for fines of up to $3,000. Even at today’s prices, you have to sell a lot of cigars and cigarettes to justify such risk.

First government cracked down on cigarettes, then smoking. Now even selling a legal product is hindered by more regulation that would make life harder on city businesses and easier on their competitors just over the county line.

My defense of smoking is no joke. I defend a lot of things I don’t like. There’s some things said on the Internet about me that couldn’t make it into a family paper. I defend the authors’ rights to bash me, though I wish they were more literate.

Just as I defend the right of bar and restaurant owners to allow smoking. They wouldn’t see me very often, but they would see other customers. Even a well-known cigar spot like The Havana Club had to work at getting an exemption to the law though smoking is the very basis for its existence.

We’ve come a long way from the days when you were allowed to smoke. Gone are the great statesmen like Churchill or the great writers like Mencken, Kipling and Twain who worshipped at the altar of a good cigar. And gone are the freedoms that made such great men — up in smoke one puff at a time.