“Tobacco Gets Smoked in N.C.” or “Cigarettes Burned”

North Carolina’s state legislature approved a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants this week. Bars are worried about losses in revenue, but restaurants will save money on hostesses whose only job was to greet patrons with, “Smoking on non?”

32 other states already have such bans or have voted to enact them by next year, but North Carolina’s vote is significant because that state is the top tobacco grower in the country. So this is ban is a big step forward in “Do as I say, not as I do” governing.