Delegate Dan Bowling(D) - Smoking Ban Bill, The GOP made me do it

"Bowling was one of six members of the House Alcoholic Beverage Control and Gaming Subcommittee who voted down eight separate smoking-ban proposals."LINK

That is fine and I commend Delegate Dan Bowling for his vote. I would like to believe he made his choice based on the fact that any business owner can make their establishment smoke free at any time they choose. No legislation or laws needed, just post the no smoking sign and begin reaping all the benefits of a nonsmoking establishment. You know, support the free market and let patrons decide, a freedom of choice type of thing..Something Bowling could be proud of. Instead we read the real reason Bowling voted the way he did was those republicans made him.

Virginia Delegate Dan Bowling offered a unique defense of his vote to kill smoking-ban legislation. The Republican leadership made him do it.

Bowling’s defense is particularly problematic because he’s a Democrat. He owes no allegiance to the Republican House leadership.

And yet, Bowling told The Voice, an alternative newspaper in Buchanan County, that he was compelled to vote as the Republicans desired.

"We were told that we were expected to vote that way because they wanted a 5-0 vote" against the bills, Bowling told The Voice.

The strong democratic leadership in Richmond. The editorial page of the Bristol Herald Courier takes his statement to the woodshed in this article. The BHC must still be mad the readers rejected their endorsements at election time. Or they could still be mad because the majority of SWVA residents want a new coal fired power plant. The BHC was for the plant before they were against it. Bowling and others went against the BHC and their wishes on this smoking ban. The BHC issued this anti smoking rant - One last shot to clear the smoky air in Virginia restaurants by Andrea (the birds aren't singing) Hopkins.

She writes at length about what a good thing this smoking ban is. Sorry Ms Hopkins, but property owners loosing rights is not a good thing. She whines that "Tennessee did it" and that the Virginia Beach Restaurant Association wants it too. She never mentions that every restaurant in Virginia can become smoke free today with the posting of a no smoking sign. No new laws are needed.

Technorati Tags: Virginia, Virginia Politics, Smoking