The Linear Canvas

I was living in the Toledo, Ohio area when the city council there approved the smoking ban in 2003. I heard and saw the same debate that I now see in the Columbus area news. There were threats that bars and restaurants would close and those customers were being forced to drive or move to other areas so they could smoke. One Toledo bar owner complained in a front-page newspaper story that yes, maybe, more non-smokers would start coming to her bar, but non-smokers would leave by midnight to go home. Only smokers would stay until the bar closed at 2:30AM. Just a few days later a bar customer, said that since he couldn’t smoke in a Toledo bar, he and his friends would start frequenting bars in surrounding communities more often that did allow smoking. When a bar went out of business within days of the ban, smoking advocates pointed to it as an example of this law’s devastating effect.

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When I was a little boy, there weren’t as many things for people to get into trouble doing. The only thing a person could really do that was at least somewhat naughty was to drink heavily or go to Las Vegas and gamble. There were no lotteries then and there was no gambling anywhere else either, that was legal. There were many things different at that time. On Sundays almost every business was closed. There were few gas stations open. If you found yourself needing anything other than spending the day at church, you were pretty much out of luck.

I can remember when Ohio first began its lottery. I was young, so I did not know what it really meant. We had been told by the gambling advocates, that the lottery proceeds would help schools buy the things that they needed. I am not sure, but I doubt that there was ever much truth to that then or now. At the time, I did not realize that the difference between a lottery and gambling in Ohio, was that the lottery was legal.

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