Smoking Bans Affect Business, Restrict Rights
Could Montgomery's Ban Seep Into the College Park Scene?

NEWS ANALYSIS

by NATHAN BURCHFIEL

The Terrapin Times Layout Editor

            With Montgomery County businesses seeing the effect of its recent smoking ban, College Park patrons can only estimate how long it will take for a ban to be proposed locally.

            The ban, which prohibits smoking in bars and restaurants in the county – excluding areas like Rockville, Kensington and Gaithersburg – has been blamed for incredible drops in business.

            The trend of banning smoking is picking up speed, seeing victories in markets as large as New York City.  With the threat of bans breathing down the neck of the College Park area, it could only be a matter of time before patrons of bars and restaurants in College Park and the District are prohibited from smoking in private businesses.

            As of recently, College Park’s local establishments are still allowed to permit smoking, and many of them do.  Student opinion, however, is mixed.

            Sophomore Landscape Management major Chase Townshend said, “Being a non-smoker I think it is great and definitely makes things healthier for all involved. But I think non smoking areas are fine.”  Townshend thinks that the bans are too stringent though, and that they, “may end up hurting [the local] economy because people will go to other places where it is legal.”

           Other students take more accepting attitudes towards the bans.  “They are good.  They make me live longer because the evil smokers [can’t] pollute my air,” said one economics major who wished to remain anonymous.

           While no official plans are in the works for a College Park ban, patrons of the area must use the time they have wisely.

            The art of smoking is one often neglected in the world of the college student.  With the easy access to cigarettes for a quick nicotine fix, the more pleasant and enjoyable tobacco products are usually ignored.

            Cigars and pipes offer smokers an intriguing opportunity to enjoy the real flavors and experiences tobacco has to offer.

          Famous historical figures from Mark Twain to Winston Churchill professed love for cigars.  Modern figures of social attention like comedian Bill Cosby, California governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger and former President Bill Clinton are known to enjoy – in one way or another – the occasional stogie.

           Pipes are hallmark in popular literature.  Sherlock Holmes would just be a regular detective without his abnormally large pipe.  The blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies paint a vivid picture of J.R.R. Tolkein’s creation of Middle Earthen “pipe-weed,” smoked in long stemmed pipes.

            Whether you smoke a pipe or cigar for the taste, the look, the feel, or the chance to blow some high quality smoke rings, make sure to enjoy it while you can.  The once treasured right to take pleasure in, “the finer things,” as junior Criminology major Walt Quick describes his pipe, could soon disappear.

            As the People’s Republic of Maryland continues to seek out ways to infringe upon its citizens, we must stand up and make known the fact that smoking – whether it be in a home or privately owned business – should not be restricted by government intervention.