Secondhand Rage Over Smoking

Re “Haze Makes O.C. Smokers’ Position Clear,” Jan. 17:

I’m quite sure the picture and reporting of hundreds of smokers lighting up at Lucky John’s Too bar in Westminster provoked second-hand rage and hatred for the “smoking Nazis” and other “lifestyle police” zealots, basking in their recent statewide smoking ban victory.

Bar owner John Johnson is a rare and true American hero indeed--in this age of wimpy, yuppyfied, reared-on-bottled-water whiners--to declare and demand his constitutional rights.

His bar is akin to smokers having an American Embassy in a barren desert of smokeless morons, or perhaps a welcome and comfortable oasis of pure tobacco pleasure for intelligent, mature adults to enjoy.

There is no reported incident of any nonsmokers being dragged physically against their will into any bar or restaurant occupied by smokers.

And I do truly doubt there will be a smoker forcibly ejected from a bar by a nonsmoker, regardless of how desperately they want to force their lifestyle on all others. That mistake could cause a return to the real California-American days, when a dispute inside led to an invitation to “step outside.” And, back then, it was not to have a smoke.

MAX ST. YVES

Newport Beach

* In the light of recent history, it is very interesting to find the tobacco industry trying to interject into the national dialogue on tobacco the term “health Nazis.”

Health care professionals are desperately trying to get people to read the literature, not burn it. Didn’t history books mention something about “the big lie,” and now what’s this about the tobacco industry refusing to disclose their records?

Wasn’t it the tobacco industry that, for the first time, effectively suppressed freedom of the press when they sued ABC News for $10 billion and then stopped a CBS “60 Minutes” story from being aired? And exactly who is killing millions of people every year?

Tobacco’s “global settlement” and the “final solution” seem to have some scary similarities. Regarding the No. 1 cause of horrible and preventable deaths today, who again will history compare to Nazis?

JIM WALKER

Santa Ana