For tobacco states, a change is in the air

[Lionel Mandrake]

This article by Faye Fiore showed up in today's Los Angeles Times. Note the double entendre in the title. It's not exactly LBN, but it's well written and talks about North Carolina as well as Virginia. The article continues:

Virginia banned smoking in most restaurants a month ago -- and not all of them mind. North Carolina follows suit.

Reporting from Arlington, Va. - The changing face of the Old Dominion can be seen in the stuff Jimmy Cirrito sweeps up off the floor of his bar every night. It used to be cigarette butts -- now it's gum.

"I got Nicorette and Bubblicious and green and yellow and purple. It looks like a circus down there," said Cirrito, owner of Jimmy's Old Town Tavern in the northern Virginia suburb of Herndon, where patrons once smoked so much they burned holes in the curtains. Now they chew to fight the urge.

It's been one month since Virginia became the first Southern state to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. For about 400 years, that was an unthinkable proposition. George Washington grew tobacco at Mount Vernon. Marlboro-making Philip Morris USA is headquartered in Richmond.

For the rest of the article, browse:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-tobacco3-2010jan03,0,7151562.story

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I was astonished to read that Virginia had banned smoking

In restaurants and bars.

That was about the last place I expected it.

Excellent article.

K&R