Infinitive Splitter

A friend back in Pittsburgh shares this surprising bit of news:

Allegheny County Council last night voted overwhelmingly to prohibit smoking in restaurants, bars and other workplaces, moving the legislation into the hands of the chief executive for approval.

“We’re going to go from the smoky city to a smoke-free city,” council President Rich Fitzgerald said when he introduced the legislation.

The ordinance passed on a 14-to-1 vote.

Mr. Fitzgerald said that county Chief Executive Dan Onorato will get the bill by Friday and will have a week to make a decision. Council appears to have enough votes to override a veto.

Mr. Onorato said he plans to approve the no-smoking ordinance as long as it didn’t contain “too many exemptions.”

I always figured Pittsburgh would be among the last of the northern cities to do this. The city boasts some of the nation’s best health-care options, but has the highest rate of maternal smoking in the country — in 2000, nearly a quarter of Pittsburgh’s infants were born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy — and ranks consistently near the top in overall prevalence of smokers.

That’s a lot of smoke. Good for the county for cleaning itself up.

A recent trip to New York — I spent about six hours there on Sunday evening — reminded me of how nice it is to stand in an enclosed space that isn’t filled with toxic fumes when watching a musical performance.

Hypocrisy alert! This only lasted for a couple of months, so now I’m just one of those insufferable people who selfishly welcome smoking bans because we’d like a more immediate reason not to smoke in bars (yes, “more immediate” than certain death).

Today: Pittsburgh; next year: Washington!

(Arlington: probably never, but if you have learned one thing from this website, it might be that I am always wrong.)