Smoke out

Is there a reason the mayor didn't want to talk about his smoking ban?

Only six weeks ago, Mayor Menino made a proposal sweeping enough to change the character of the city: a ban on smoking, with a few exceptions, in all of Boston's restaurants. And just last week, after little chance for public debate, the mayor's handpicked Public Health Commission passed an even harsher version of the measure. The ban -- no smoking in any restaurant eating areas -- is set to take effect this fall.

The Phoenix has argued that a smoking ban doesn't make sense. The plan unfairly targets smaller businesses, and it threatens an industry that is a vital part of the city. More fundamentally, the ban aims to fix a problem that does not exist. The current system, a sensible compromise that divides restaurants into smoking and nonsmoking sections, works just fine.

But whatever one's feelings about the ban, it's hard to sympathize with the way it's been rushed through. The issue is complex, with broad implications. This is a measure that affects some 4500 businesses and the majority of the people who live in the city. It makes Boston a different kind of destination, which has implications for the $9.2 billion tourist industry. It could sink smaller neighborhood establishments that cater to smokers. The ban is nothing short of a cultural turning point.

Yet the mayor did not let the city decide as a whole. There were just a few grudgingly convened hearings. The public had only a handful of weeks to consider the measure. And in the end, the city council was cut out entirely. Even a city councilor who wanted a stricter ban complained about the mayor's "end run" around the political process. On this divisive issue, the mayor chose to govern by fiat.

Certainly, many on the mayor's team are genuinely concerned about the public's health. But there is extremism in the air. Now that the antismoking crusaders have made the leap from the idea that tobacco is dangerous to the idea that secondhand smoke can kill, the logic of government paternalism could take them strange places. Why not, as Jeff Jacoby asked in the Globe, prosecute parents who smoke in their homes as child abusers? If a smoker passes a nonsmoker on the street, why not charge him or her with a hit-and-run assault? Indeed, why not ban cigarettes entirely (that is the idea, isn't it?) and prosecute those who smoke with possession of a deadly weapon? Or as drug users? Let government forgo the taxes it collects from tobacco. Let society confront the significant job losses that would result from a total ban.

And don't stop there. Secondhand-smoke logic has widespread application. Take cars, for example. People who choose to drive endanger those around them. Statistics show that prolonged exposure to traffic increases the risk of death. By this reasoning, cars should be banned.

With the smoking issue, the hypocrisy is hidden behind a thick veil of sanctimony. Instead of focusing on public policy -- how best to balance the legitimate needs of smokers and nonsmokers -- the debate becomes an exercise in ethical superiority. There seems to be no need to take a little time -- to open the issue up for a broader discussion, to find a workable middle ground -- when there is a moral evil at stake.

This is the darker side of the New England spirit -- smug, exclusive, and punitive. And that is not the kind of city that anyone, smoker or nonsmoker, should want.

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.