Old Morris Tobacconists

Sometimes I think the human busybody is the lowest form of life in the world. One of Victoria's most prominent busybodies is named John Stanwyck. He is the public health officer for the Capital Regional District and has been in the vanguard of the local anti-smoking brigade since I came here. And don't ask me what the CRD is. I've never figured that out. All I know is that nobody gets to vote directly for the people who sit on it but they have a lot of control over things in our neck of the woods.
I don't really have a dog in this fight. I quit smoking 20 years ago and like a lot of ex smokers I now abhor the smell of cigarette smoke. I quit smoking because it was damaging my health, it was expensive, and I didn't like being enslaved to an addiction. And besides, I hate paying taxes. So I stopped smoking. It wasn't easy to stop but it wasn't that hard, either, and I was a heavy smoker. It was like having a mild case of the flu for a few weeks and for a few years afterward a vague sense of unease persisted that was only slightly more annoying than the poorly healed fracture in my little finger that I got from punching out a marine in an Olangapo bar forty years ago. (Is that how you spell Olangapo?) It's still a little stiff. So as someone who detests the smell of cigarette smoke I rather like it that bars and restaurants now have breathable air. But I was perfectly content with non smoking areas which usually meant I could always find a place to sit. Because I think if somebody chooses to smoke it's their business, not mine.
As the years rolled by, the taxes became more punitive and the smoking regulations got stiffer. A few years ago smoking in bars was banned altogether. Now here's the problem with the busybody mentality: Sometimes their initiatives cause harm. It just so happens that drinking beer and smoking cigarettes go together. It's what you call conviviality, where people get to be friendly and sociable in a public place. That's a good thing. Smoking has a wealth of hospitality rituals, like the offering of a cigarette to a new acquaintance. In many parts of the world a pack of smokes is the most reliable local currency. Some years ago a terrific jazz festival in Montreal had to shut down because the cigarette company that sponsored it was no longer allowed to use its name in the promotions.
We have a very lovely little smoke shop in downtown Victoria that may have to shut down because of the latest set of anti smoking rules which require that tobacco products not be visible to the tender under nineteen youths smoking pot outside the doors. It's one of those shops that you want to patronize just because you like it so much, so I started smoking a pipe a few years ago, and still do once in a while. That's what they sell: pipes, cigars, accessories, all in a store from a bygone era.
But of course it didn't mean anything to the busybodies that those iconic Canadian beer halls went broke, putting their employees out of work, and it won't matter that a 120 year old tobacconist might have to close its doors. Busybodies, you might notice, while deeply concerned for your welfare in the abstractcare nothing at all for individual people. We are merely little pieces on the board of the games they like to play to be moved around or tossed aside according to whatever the latest enthusiasm might be.
I agree that it would be a good thing to reduce smoking. But is it up to an unelected bureaucrat to tell me whether I can smoke or not? That bureaucrat has no compunction about charging exorbitant taxes for the privilege of allowing us to do something he disapproves of. Sounds like a shakedown racket to me, paid for mostly by the poor cigarette butt pickers who can't pay seven bucks for a deck of smokes. And while cigarette smokers (and pipe smokers- the same pouch of pipe tobacco that cost me $10 a few years ago now costs $22) are treated like garbage, junkies get free needles. Go figure.