Laws, Man Laws and Damned Smoking Laws

Journal

California and San Diego have added scores of toothless laws to their books. Let the enforcement pretend to begin.

KUDOS TO the creative minds behind the Miller Lite “man law” commercials. The witty ads feature Burt Reynolds and an eclectic assortment of male jurors. The Men of the Square Table devise rules aimed at keeping men manly. Thinking of putting a lime in your beer? Man law: Don’t fruit the beer. Wondering if it’s okay to carry multiple beers back from the bar by inserting your fingers inside the bottles? Man law: No. You poke it, you own it.

These laws are obviously fictional. Masculinity isn’t derived by clinking beer bottles at the bottom (man law: Clinking bottle tops qualifies as kissing). It’s not really against the law to deliver a finger-poked beer or jam a lime wedge into one.

The same cannot be said for California law. This year, more than 900 new statutes go into effect. Some of them are funnier than Burt Reynolds explaining men shouldn’t hide beers from each other, because—man law: Sharing is caring.

In California, it’s now illegal for anyone to take more than 25 copies of a freebie newspaper for any purpose other than to read them. Go ahead and pull 26 copies out of a Beach & Bay Press rack. Then don’t even scan the “Wild Dogs Attack Man in La Jolla Pool” front-page headline. You’ve just committed an offense punishable by a fine of up to $250, under AB 2612, sponsored by San Diego Assemblyman George Plescia.

Wow. How did it come to be that common sense and courtesy had to be so legislated?

Under new California law, parents must now provide proof that their children have seen a dentist within the previous year of enrolling in kindergarten. What’s next, proving to the principal your kid’s braces were done by a board-approved orthodontist?

New California law says dangerous college hazing has been elevated to the felony level. No more spank nights punctuated by “Thank you sir, may I have another!” Fraternity boys are reduced to forcing pledges to stay up all night watching The View marathons.

There’s more. Owners can now be fined $100 for leaving dogs unattended in cars on hot days. Dogs also may not be tethered outside for more than three hours. Nor can you tie your pup’s leash to a pole while you dash into Seven-11 for some cat litter. Oh, and that cat litter will carry a new mandated warning asking you not to flush it down the toilet. Why? Sea otters are getting sick from parasites traced to flushed cat litter. To further help out the otters, a California law was created to put a new box on our tax returns. Check the box and donate to otter rescue.

It’s not that some of the new laws aren’t well-intentioned. It’s certainly a good idea to get cellular phones out of the hands of drivers, defibrillators into health clubs and junk food out of school cafeterias.

But where does it end?

If left to my legislative devices, I’d lobby to make corporate automated-voice systems against the law. How about a $1,000 fine if a credit card company’s phone operator asks for the account number you just typed into the system? And I’d make it illegal to wear spandex if you’re shorter than 5-foot-4 and weigh more than 200 pounds. Wearing a belly shirt at that proportion would get you community service, in my book.

It’s a society in decline that must legislate, as per new California law, how to safely remodel a pool, get birth control from pro-life pharmacists and know when to eat an apple instead of a Twinkie.

THIS BRINGS US to smoking laws. I’m not a smoker. Back before lighting up in bars was outlawed, it never occurred to me that someday I might wake up after a night out and not smell like an ashtray. The smoking ban in bars was serendipitous. I neither sought it nor fought it. Still, it works to my benefit.

2007 California law lights into smokers, again. No more puffing in common areas like parking garages. And the cigarette companies are being asked to introduce “fire-safe” cigarettes. This means they snuff themselves out if not actively puffed.

Smoking bans are an international craze. In the United States, nine statewide bans were passed in 2006, bringing the total to 22 states (including 16 that ban smoking in bars). The Associated Press ran a story with this fun headline: “Hawaii Bans Smoking—Except from Volcanoes.” Hong Kong is also getting onboard the smoke-free rickshaw, joining the pack with locales in Ireland, Italy, Spain and other countries.

In San Diego County, it’s now illegal to smoke in parks, campgrounds and open spaces. The San Diego Port Commission also just adopted an ordinance outlawing cigarettes and cigars at beaches, parks and fishing piers along San Diego Bay. Mesa College and the Westin Horton Plaza are smoke-free. Qualcomm Stadium is supposedly so—but tell that to the Chargers fans standing under no-smoking signs and inhaling Miller Lite and tobacco fumes with equal fervor.

I’ve no pity for the artery-rusting fools who risk heart and lung disease, burn down forests with wayward butt flicks and/or sodomize our beaches with their smoked-out filters. But the latest round of smoking bans seems like so much heavy breathing from politicians pandering to those of us not addicted to our Marlboros. Will there be enforcement of the new bans? That would be Kool, and have some Merit. But there’s no Lucky Strike. No money has been earmarked to keep beaches and parks un-Cameled. There’s not even enough cash available to arm lifeguards with squirt guns to douse beach-blanket billowers.

Now, smokers are free to argue they deserve to have rights, too. A smoker (who will remain anonymous, lest his hideous habit be made widely public) tells a tale of not being able to smoke inside an office building he himself owned. What’s next, he wonders—will the government tell him he can’t stink up the couch in his own home?

That hazy logic is worth a wary look. This year, California law weighed in on how to drop off kids at day-care facilities, terminate rental leases, dispense retail receipts, oversee nail salons, submit domestic-partner tax returns and print the news in college newspapers. And don’t forget that free newspapers are safer than ever from sticky-fingered nonreaders.

Would this be a better world if governed not by city councils and state assemblies but by would-be regular guys like Burt Reynolds and friends? What would a common-sense man law say about smoking? How about this man law: Beer and smoking go hand in hand. Smoking man and non-smoking pretty girl, not so much.

I think that’d send the right smoke signal.

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