UnSimplifying Kansas City's Smoking Ban

published: January 31, 2008

When you think smoking ban, you envision jacked-up rules about what times you can smoke and how much food the place sells, right? Yeah, that's what the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council apparently thought, too, because the smoking ban it passed last Thursday is full of restrictions that look straight out of IRS tax code. For example, in bars that also are restaurants, you can smoke only until 9 p.m. After that, smoking is allowed as long as no one younger than 21 is present. So eat up, junior, because daddy wants to make like the Marlboro man.

Why stop there? Below is a list of other dumb-ass rules the Department of Burnt Ends dreamed up for Kansas City's smoking ban.

• Smoking in public spaces will no longer confer "coolness" on underage tobacco users.

• Passports must be presented before crossing the border into "Flavor Country."

• Persons referring to cigarettes as "smoky treats" in any public space will henceforth be guilty of creating a public nuisance and be subject to a fine.

• "Hotboxing" of lit cigarettes shared between persons in any public space is now a misdemeanor punishable by a fine.

• Anyone approaching a smoker and using any variation of the phrase "those are bad for you" will be subject to 24 hours of social re-education in a smoke-filled police holding tank.

• Workplace smokers must keep their nonexercised asses at least 15 feet from entrances and exits.

• Tobacconists must shave all gray-yellow beards.

• Nonsmoking establishments will be required to provide spit cups for users of Skoal Bandits.

• Post-coital smoking is now prohibited to persons in Erotic City's back room.

• Fines will be subject to double if violators are determined to be weekend smokers who rely on handouts from full-timers.