Pittsburgh Dish

Vice Update

Butts and brews for youse

Apparently Pennsylvania courts are following the Dish manifesto. Today in the world of jurisprudence, the smoking ban got the boot and this blessed commonweath is giving thought to allowing its citizens to buy beer in the exciting 12-serving format. Huzzah!

Dish eagerly awaits the ruling mandating Pennsylvanians consume no less than five pounds of grilled bratwurst per month whilst rocking out to Foghat, and  shooting heroin with nude models. The day is coming, people. The day is coming.

Photos by Jeff Glagowski; Model: Kristen Sizer; Foot belongs to Jamie Arabolos. Click photos for larger views.

Update: State spares smokers

All establishments allow der smoking

Appeals court allows smoking in bars, for now

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

By Anita Srikameswaran, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Enforcement of the smoking ordinance in taverns and restaurants is on hold again. An injunction was issued by Commonwealth Court today, prohibiting county officials from implementing the smoking policy in Mitchell's Restaurant and Bar, Smithfield Cafe, and "similar establishments."

The injunction will be in place until the court rules on the appeal filed by the owners of the Downtown restaurants.

It's not known when that will happen, so "we're still in limbo," said Robert Borgoyne, assistant county solicitor.

An Allegheny County Judge yesterday refused to extend his injunction on the ban past last night, when it expired.

Butt ins

These establishments still allow zee smoking

Pittsburgh pink lung law passes

Mike Gillis says don't stop there.

Good morning, and smoke 'em if you got 'em Pittsburgh.  I can't figure a way to defend smoking or subjecting others to second-hand smoke without sounding like an idiot.  I'm in favor of helmet and seat belt laws, so I guess I'm a hypocrite if I say it's a personal choice to smoke so get out of my business.

This is just the beginning, so buckle up your chin straps-here it comes. New York City officials want to tell chefs what they can and can't use in their recipes. My favorite part is this "...trans fats can easily be replaced with substitute oils that taste the same or better..." Now a government is deciding what tastes good? Let's flesh this out a bit. Since we are incapable of making the right choices, let's come up with a list for our governments:

Mandatory stress tests before entering Morton's or Ruth's Chris.

Proof of healthy cholesterol counts to be kept on file at pizza joints, to be updated annually.

A nation-wide ban on all-you-can-eat buffets.

A two-drink maximum at all bars, restaurants, and private clubs.

No hot dogs at ball games.

National standards of portion control.

Grocery stores will be forced to provide information on our purchases, tracked through those discount cards, and customers will be prohibited from buying unhealthy items once their "limit" has been reached.

I wish I owned a bar in Cranberry or Peters.

Big Media sez/Whatever The Heck Dish Is sez

The Post-Gazette wants Pennsylvanians to butt out. Dish sez: Thank you P-G, for your editorial tsk-tsk will rid the state of us dirtbags.

by Colleen Van Tassell

BM sez:

Ages-old tradition met head-on with public health this month in Britain's Parliament and, we are happy to say, the drive for clean air prevailed. A total smoking ban in public places was adopted for England, probably beginning next year.

The ban -- notable in a country where pubs became the cultural locus for lighting up while having a drink -- is more evidence that sensible anti-smoking laws are gaining because the vast majority of the people want them.

The action should encourage those Pennsylvanians who want stricter smoking bans that they are far from alone in demanding to exercise their right not to have tobacco smoke blown in their faces in public. Indeed, nonsmokers are part of a growing majority yearning to breathe free wherever they are, in the United States or around the world. ...

Here at home, smokers are now being required to pay a price for indulging in their deadly habit.

A number of major businesses are adding $25 to $50 a month to the cost of health insurance for employees who smoke. This is a long overdue measure which we have little doubt will become widespread. Nonsmokers should not have to, in effect, subsidize insurance costs for those who choose to endanger their health.

Those costs are enormous, and growing. The Centers for Disease Control estimates the direct health-care cost of smoking in the U.S. is $75 billion a year, plus $92 billion in lost wages annually when workers die prematurely from smoking.

Polls show that 70 percent of the public welcomes the new smoking ban in England, where the number of smokers has been cut in half in the past 30 years.

This is a convincing indication that even the hidebound British tradition of smoky pubs cannot compare with today's growing worldwide desire to be smoke-free.

Dish Sez:

I can't wait. I can't wait for the day my condo board slips a notice under my door telling me I'm no longer allowed to sit at my kitchen table and enjoy a Parliament Light with my coffee because I'm killing my neighbor.

But that's OK. Now that the good state of Pennsylvania is teetering on the brink of banning smoking from the last refuges of public acceptability, bowling alleys and bars, a smoking ban in multi-family units must surely be on the horizon. You won't hear my complaining, or hacking. It will redeem me from my tobacco combusting ways, because I, smoker, am sick of being a dirtbag.

We smokers, every one of us, are society's gypsies, tramps, thieves, thugs, punks, rogues and rats. We kill your kids, give you cancer and stink up your freshly washed hair. We litter sidewalks with our filtered flotsam. We start fights in bars.

We are disgusting. We deserved to be snuffed out.

I don't want to die in shame. I don't want to be buried in Potter's Field with the rest of the smokers.

To quote barfly Barbara Graham on her way to the electric chair: I want to live.

I'm tired of being portrayed as the the killer, the alcoholic, the sexaholic, the gambler, the hard luck or the dopey blue-collar fork lift operator at the neighborhood bar.

We either have low class or no class. The stalker, the streetwalker and the single mother always drag on a fag. They are bad people. I don't want to be bad.

Please, please tell me not to smoke. I want to have class.

Responsible though I try to be, I know I can't contain my smoke. The two air purifiers in my condominium aren't good enough. I don't smoke in restaurants. I don't smoke around kids. But that isn't quite safe enough.

There are no good smokers, only non-smokers.

Therefore, I'm ready to learn from those who know better, who will save me from myself and others from me.

I trust the Republicans--the smaller-government, less-interference-in-individual lives folks--who have eschewed their ballyhoo and only heed the needs of the cashmere set, not dirtbags like me.

It's best, really. For rich people are better educated. The better educated don't smoke. Or if they did, it was a phase, like experimental collegiate lesbianism.

Also tamping out my evil ways--praise be--are liberals whose solar power, bikes and meat-free colons are so exemplary, fellow earthlings, that I should kill myself before the tobacco does. I realize now that my purifier filters are not recyclable. I'm creating needless trash, therefore I am needless trash.

How could I have been so foolish all these years? How could I cling to the romantic notion that numbers are not scribbled on matchbook covers anymore, they are keyed into cell phones?

Was I preferring pack-a-day passages on TCM when I should've be listening to no smoking messages from the Ad Council?

The romance is gone, all of it. I shall avert my eyes from Robert Mitchum, Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck and any Hollywood star who smoked. What did they know? Most of them died of cancer anyway.

My cession is beneficial to all. But especially to me. I will finally fit in with the good, decent, healthy people of Pennsylvania.

I will no longer poison the offended bartender who chose to work in an environment of vice. The vice is gone.

Thank you all for making me different, just like everybody else.