Judges...too much power!

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Smoking On Stage Decided By One Man

I’ve often maintained that the most powerful people in this country are judges. That power may be diminished a bit if a court is comprised of a panel of judges, but often times even that situation results in excess power. Say for instance one of the political parties governs a state for several years, it's then the court becomes loaded to one side of the spectrum. This situation may not empower one person alone, but it certainly does empower an ideology.

Decisions by some one judge courts often seem capricious and illogical, and I often wonder if the wind was blowing the other direction on a particular day, if the decision would have been the opposite. For example, Denver District Judge Michael Martinez has ruled that there will be no exception to the smoking ban for on-stage theater performances in Denver. Denver theater owners had challenged the recently passed Colorado smoking ban seeking an exception.

Even though I was against the smoking ban in principal, I supported it for selfish reasons. I work at bars often in an off-duty police capacity, and occasionally enjoy going out. I weighed my belief that government shouldn't regulate private business against my comfort and non-smoking preference (and not having to shower before bed after going to a bar), and my comfort prevailed.

Nevertheless, as one who enjoys the theater, and doesn’t enjoy smoke, I for one am irked that actors and actresses will be relegated to smoking fake or talcum powder cigarettes which don’t look real and will detract from the overall performance. The judge said that the smoking ban serves a public health interest and that smoking is not inherently expressive.

The smoking ban does serve a public health interest for workers and patrons who are cramped in a bar with hundreds of people chain smoking for hours on end. It isn’t a public health risk to have one person out of hundreds or even thousands smoking while on a stage in a ventilated theater. Furthermore, theater is inherently expressive. That includes the entire performance right down to the props. So, there’s a strong argument smoking is expressive when it’s done as part of a plot or for character enhancement in a theater production. Would John Wayne have been regarded as such a stud if he were sucking on a candy cigarette?