A Winter of Discontent

The smoking bans in Champaign and Bloomington continue to provide some entertaining fallout. First there was this absurd story in the Daily Illini which tried to paint bar business as being down due to the smoking ban, even though this one week period coincided with the coldest part of the year. Then today a News-Gazette story details a confrontation between a bar owner and a patron who was a known advocate for the smoking ban. If his business was not hurting before, it might have a few less patrons now. What's funny is that he denied most of it, but admitted taking the woman's picture. Well, gee, as long as he only harassed her a little bit, that's fine.