Filler: Let smoking laws protect kids, too

Let's think, for a minute, about Jimmy's Bar, Jimmy's car, and smoking.

Imagine Jimmy's Bar is on a Long Island village Main Street, nestled among the other tap rooms, latte shops and gourmet dog treat emporiums.

Jimmy loves smoking. Jimmy's waitress, Madge, enjoys her Virginia Slims. Jimmy's busboy, Frank, keeps a Lucky Strike in the corner of his mouth so consistently that it is basically a facial feature, and Jimmy's regulars agree 21 great tobaccos make 20 great cigarettes and a beer should taste as smoky as a Virginia ham.

Jimmy isn't trying to fool nonsmokers into frequenting his joint. In fact, he's willing to hang a sign out front with 6-foot-high letters proclaiming, "SERIOUSLY, DO NOT COME IN IF YOU DON'T LOVE TOBACCO FUMES. THE SMOKE CLOUD IS SO THICK THAT WHEN A WARM FRONT MOVES IN, IT RAINS TOBACCO JUICE."

Yet it is not legal to smoke in Jimmy's Bar.

Jimmy also has a car, and a son, Ernie. Jimmy drives Ernie to school because he doesn't want his boy riding the bus with the legendarily deranged Talley triplets. Jimmy likes to puff Pall Malls as he drives.

Unlike the folks in Jimmy's Bar, Ernie has no way to free himself from his dad's fume cloud. He can't control whether he goes to school or how he gets there.

Recently, laws have been proposed on both the state level and in Nassau County to ban smoking in cars with children. That's not a new idea, but it's also not a prevalent one.

Twenty-seven states, including New York, prohibit smoking in enclosed public spaces. Six of those states have outlawed smoking in cars with children present.

How could 21 states care more about protecting adults in bars who desperately want to light up than children trapped in cars, who are yearning to breathe free? It's simple. Most people support smoking bans not, as they claim, to better the public health, but because they hate the smell and wish to go wherever they want without being exposed to it. The argument can be made that smoking is banned in bars to protect employees, but adults can make reasonable decisions about what conditions they work in, whether in taverns, coal mines or on "Deadliest Catch"-type fishing boats.

Jimmy believes it should be legal to smoke in his bar because he owns it, everyone there is an adult, attendance (and employment) is voluntary, and he has that "My business causes cancer" sign. Anti-smoking advocates think, "But I might want to have a few beers in Jimmy's someday. Smoking should be illegal anywhere I might venture."

But these same people know they aren't going to be riding in Jimmy's car (unless that stop-off for a couple of brews gets totally out of hand). Letting him smoke in his vehicle, with his kid, might make the child ill, but it won't stink up their hair or clothes, so who cares?

The state -- and if not the state, then Nassau County -- should pass this ban. The right to blow smoke in a tiny vehicle with a captive child shouldn't exist. There are things that are legal that are not legal to expose children to, and smoking in cars should be one of them.

At the same time, if Jimmy hangs his sign, it should be legal to smoke in his bar. He owns it, and there are plenty of other taverns that wouldn't follow his lead, leaving many places for smoke-haters and health-conscious staffers to go.

We're denying adults the right to do as they wish while, refusing to protect children from poison they can't escape.

Sensible laws, in a free society, would reverse that.