Our new smoking ban that is not. Is there a purpose?

The Indy Star has details of the exemption-riddled smoking "ban" now being hailed by Indiana legislators as supreme evidence of their constructive abilities -- think of Neville Chamberlain's "peace" in our time for the current, non-achieving age -- when in reality, a group collectively huddling somewhere beneath baseball's "Mendoza Line" seems a far better analogy, at least to me.

I'd been speculating as to how the new "ban" would finesse existing statutes, and the answer is here:

Bars or taverns that aren't located in restaurants and don't employ anyone younger than 18

Yep. Because there frequently is a designated bar area within the same building as a restaurant with family seating, with an approved separation to delineate them, defining language like this is necessary. At the same time, to my knowledge there isn't a single type of alcohol permit available in Indiana for licensing a bar that does not require a food component to accompany beverage alcohol service. In short, to serve alcoholic beverages in this state, one must have food available at all times. Why is this condition not viewed as being that of a restaurant? Restaurants serve food, right? Isn't every bar a restaurant (although, to be sure, every restaurant is not a bar)?

It's entirely senseless, and that's the whole point. In the end, trying to use logic to analyze Indiana legislative activities is like deploying a slotted spoon to slurp clam broth, as in the following, in which it isn't easy to tell which Republican, Gard or Leising, is more absurdly out of touch with the world of ideas.

Bill sponsor Sen. Beverly Gard, R-Greenfield, said she had hoped for broader smoking restrictions, but knew that the exemptions were needed in order for it to clear the Legislature.

“It will result in the protection of the health of hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers from secondhand smoke,” Gard said in urging senators to support the bill ...

... “I can’t think of anything that pleases me more because this bill really will save lives,” Gard said.

Except, of course, for all the lives that it does not save (casino employees, anyone?), seeing as Gard and her colleagues have now ruled with finite wisdom on which humans are deserving of protection and which are not, which means they're playing God, ineptly, which renders this whole discussion even more useless than before -- but it could be worse, as with Leising's baleful lament:

“If we really don’t want people to smoke there must be a better way,” said Sen. Jean Leising, R-Oldenburg. “There must be a way without infringing upon the rights of individuals.”

Does a worker have a right to a safe workplace, Jean? Yes or no? It's a simple question, so please try to answer it for us. Would a little drinkee help to clear the fog? If memory serves, Leising was the geriatric legislator who voted yes to the mandatory all-age ID checks, then became outraged when she was asked to produce her license to buy a bottle of Riunite at Wal-Mart.