I have previously written about the criminalization of America as politicians turn every objectionable act into a crime. I have criticized this trend in columns (here and here) and numerous blogs on the criminalization of using artificial turf to growing vegetable gardens to eating french fries in the subway. Now owners of an old-fashioned soda shop in St. Paul, Minn. were threatened with fines and a misdemeanor citation unless they stopped selling novelty candy cigarettes. Lynden’s Soda Fountain was unaware that it was committing a crime by selling the long-common items.
City inspectors warned Lynden’s Soda Fountain that it was in flagrant violation of an ordinance barring the sale of candy cigarettes and cartoon character lighters. The ban also applies to items like Big League Chew chewing gum. The store sells most of the vintage candy cigarettes to adults in their 40s and 50s but the city has barred the right of adults to buy such items in another example, in my view, of a nanny state mentality.
Making the law even less logical is that fact that Minneapolis allows such sales. The owner said “We have to send them over to our sister city – Minneapolis – to get their candy smokes.”
The ordinance was enacted to discourage youngsters from eventually using real cigarettes. I understand that good motivation. However, even if such items should not be sold to children, I fail to see why they cannot be sold to adults.
Source: IBT
I find other’ writings far better than mine. Surprise?
So here an excerpt from a subject that will not go away. Why? ´The previous commenter touched on, but spoke in own cause. Do we want the NRA to control the Republican party? See link above for more.
Excerpt: NYTimes
“Well, a cataclysm just occurred, a few dozen miles from my office at Yale Law School. (My late father-in-law was born on a farm in the Sandy Hook neighborhood of Newtown.) There will be legislative proposals, and members of the Senate and House will debate them, maybe even enact a few, and people back home can decide what they think. How to get a handle on the gun problem is not my point. Rather, I want to offer the judicial nomination story as a canary in the mine, a warning about the depths to which the power of the gun lobby has brought the political system.
My point is this: It is totally unacceptable for the N.R.A., desperate to hang on to its mission and its members after achieving its Second Amendment triumph at the Supreme Court four years ago, to be calling the tune on judicial nominations for an entire political party. Free the Republican caucus. Follow Lisa Murkowski’s lead. Recognize a naked power play for what it is. Voters who think they care about the crisis of gun violence in America are part of the problem, not the solution – they are enablers if they aren’t willing to help their elected representatives cast off the N.R.A.’s chains. Call for an end to the cowardly filibuster against Caitlin Halligan, whose nomination the president resubmitted in September. The next time a senator announces opposition to a judicial nominee, demand something other than incoherent mumbo-jumbo. Tell the senator to fill in the blank: “I oppose this nominee because ____.” If there’s an answer of substance, fine. That’s advise-and-consent democracy. But if, upon inspection, the real answer is “because the N.R.A. told me to,” we have a problem. Based on these last few years, I think we do.”
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http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/the-n-r-a-at-the-bench/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121227
OK, to get back on topic, “Nanny Laws” need not be taken to a criminal level. I currently have a felony conviction as a direct result of back child support issues in a case that was decided under a bought and paid for judge. So is there a remedy when a financially strapped individual is harmed by the state and made further impoverished through laws which can not possibly aid the child? Commen sence dictates that a law must not harm the party that it is intending to protect? Legislatures do not look past the “Amber Alert” emotions at the time they vote on quickly developed and exceptionally faulty bills which become law. In Florida, over only twenty years, the number of volumes of statutes has risen from two manageable books to five oversized tomes. Should the conservative movement really decide to shrink government it would sunshine laws with short term limits and if the fault is adequately shown then the law would then join the dinosaurs by default. Again, I say, do not criminalize civility. Bad behavior is going to be around as long as parents, teachers and the media encourage that behavior.
About guns and control of weapons; ignorance is fed by greed and paranoia, America was built by these components, Those that wish to change this dynamic will fail as now at least five generations have thrived on those components. Today our basic instincts are being threatened and to civilize our very core these tenants will need to be softened which is not the macho tendency of the US. Two cents hell I gave you a dollar today.
OTOTOTOTOT
We don’t have an active thread on gun control just now. Has the “extremism and hysteria” deplored by some ended now.
We know that NRA scores politicians re gun rights. And actively fights the election of those who don’t score A’s.
Did you know that they are reportedly cooperating in their “symbiosis” with the Republican party nationally to oppose Sct candidates, not on real gun scores, but because the party asks them to do so.
Their reach is down to the lower levels of the federal system. Where will it end?
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/the-n-r-a-at-the-bench/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121227
Petty, petty, petty.
OTOTOTOT
I posted a link and an excerpt from Alan Grayson’s recipe for politics.
He said in one case, that we should break out that we can agree on, and leave the rest for quarreling over later.
Here’s Harry Reid’s attempt. And the Rep-dominated House won’t buy it.
And what are you doing to help NOT raise your taxes on Jan.1st?
Sitting on your hands?.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/us/politics/senate-leader-fears-not-enough-time-for-fiscal-deal.html?nl=us&emc=edit_cn_20121227&_r=0
Senate Leader Says Deal Is Unlikely Before Fiscal Deadline
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, criticized House Republicans for not approving a Senate-passed measure to extend lower tax rates on some households and said a compromise seemed to be out of reach.
Anonymously Yours 1, December 28, 2012 at 8:55 am
Dredd,
That’s the edible kind….
==============================
Edible ciggies or edible panties?
‘City inspectors warned Lynden’s Soda Fountain that it was in flagrant violation of an ordinance barring the sale of candy cigarettes and cartoon character lighters.’
———————
So if they were one of the ignorant few, they were given a warning to remove the items. This is not Nanny state behavior, it is enforcement of the current prevailing statutes….maybe Washington could take a lesson!
And being told to comply with the law does not preclude that the silly things aren’t available to adults through a different legal market mechanism.
Also, what P Smith said….
The whole point of “candy cigarettes” was and will always be to entice children into smoking, into seeing it as normal and get them started. The tobacco companies actively promoted and participated in it.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=118074&page=1#.UN26DvnCsy4
It doesn’t matter whether it’s illegal or not, why would anyone want to sell them knowing why they exist? Or are the sellers just that ignorant?
Jude,
Why do you and others try to claim you are the rule. You are statistical exceptions. And no study will confirm your conclusions.
We, holier than thou in Sweden, long ago abandoned guns etc war toys.
Parents would not buy them. There was no law, or regulation, just realizing that it was not healthy teaching kids to solve conflicts by shooting.
For the smallest, it is simply a question of acting out and making noise. They don’t even realize death on a personal plane. But TV films help there.
The last sentence in the article as to why these candy cigarettes can not be sold to adults is a good point. We could house the candy cigarettes over by the real cigarettes.
This way the adults who are on a track of not living to see their grandchildren reach candy age can look back on their own childhood days when everyone was promoting cigarettes to them. Greta Garbo, John Wayne, Walter Cronkite– all the stars in granpa’s world smoked.
And while we are at it selling candy cigarettes to adults, lets sell them candy guns, candy meth pipes, candy joints, candy naked girls, candy weenies. Suck on those thoughts. Smoke em if ya gottem.
When I grew up in the 50’s they made not only candy cigs but fake cigs w/ a fake glow and powder smoke. I guess if you sold those now you would be facing 5-8 years in the joint. Our govt. is out of control and we remain passive.
I ate those things all the time as a kid and have never smoked. Seems like another dumb law that is well-intentioned and not thought about at all.
And on the guns note – it has everything to do with guns. People are proposing poorly thought-out laws which will not be a solution but will restrict the rights of adults who are law-abiding citizens… It’s a lot like this law.
A warning in this case would have been appropriate. The point in stopping the sale of candy cigarettes was to try and change the culture of cigarette smoking and to steer children away from an unhealthy activity. Some tobacco companies were at one time very involved in the candy cigarette market to bring children along.
As to the posting about guns, the sale of guns really needs to be stopped and has nothing to do with candy cigarettes except that toy guns are part of the training we all receive that guns are fun!
Which kills more each year: cancer from smoking or guns. It is smoking, I think we’ve seen the figures, and by a wide margin.
Disable your gun, and it won’t kill, effective directly. You are not addicted to guns in the same way (?) as to nicotine. You might even leave gun use behind you in your future life.
Stop smoking and you will still get cancer statistically linked to smoking.
You will be fighting your nicotine addiction. Breaking the instant gratification habit is hard. Not so with guns, how many carry a gun just to shoot off a round for kicks, just any old where. (Some do, but that is not normal).
And since we know that adults think it is cute when there kids adopt “adult clothing, mannarisms, etc., we know that candy cigs will be used inappropriately. Nothing convinces a kid better than a sweet thing to put in the mouth.
Hope this answers the Professor’s question. We need nannying, and so think all our leaders. Or haven’t you noticed?
“However, even if such items should not be sold to children, I fail to see why they cannot be sold to adults.”
When you walk into the drug stores in that town, or stores with drug departments such as Walmart, observe the tobacco products being sold openly to the humanoid schmucks right next to the Oxycotton sold to the cancer victims of the cigarettes. The candy store owner, like the Walmart owner, ought to be shot– not fined. “Smoke em if ya gottem” was the line uttered by John Wayne in the movie The Green Berets when the troops stopped to rest in the jungle after a hard slog. Two things going on there which kill the ones who “gottem”: the Cong were out there with their noses up locating the troops and the troops who survived to the year 2012 are dying off from cancer. Big tobacco has friends like the Koch Brothers and paid lackeys like John Wayne or Walter Cronkite. Good old Walter, who cut an example on the air by smoking and advising his so called “news audience” that “Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should.”.
If we are to have any laws governing humanoid behavior, one small law which says that candy store owners can not promote cigarette cancer products to children is not so evil. Yeah, I read all the comments about Big Brother and concern for the poor candy store owner. You would not be mouthing this apCray if the candy store owner was promoting pot, heroin, meth or ObamaCare. But I am just a dog talkin and we are not so dumb as to smoke tobacco or buy into all that xmas rush.
Ban candy cigarettes….for kids, but don’t do anything about the easy availability of 300,000,000 guns in this country for those same kids. Is anyone, here, still questioning why the United States is the laughing stock of the world? How do I get a ticket to France… I don’t think I like it here any more………….
Dredd,
That’s the edible kind….
Maybe if they were selling Glocks and semi-automatic weapons, it would be more acceptable to government minions.
I’ve still got a “You’ve Come A Long Way Baby” calendar & other sales items from the 70s that a neighbor gave to me as a kid..should I sue the neighbor for giving it to me or be afraid the government will arrest me for having it in my possession? Be afraid. Be very afraid.
P.S. For some reason, those things never made me smoke…nor did smoking parents or peer pressure. I must be doing something wrong.
“a nanny state mentality”
So, is Big Brother wearing panties now?