Smoking Ban Resurfaces at City Council

Tonight's city council meeting was quite interesting. Around 60 opponents of the smoking ban, including several bar owners, showed up to voice their displeasure about the new smoking ordinance. At the end of the meeting they had their spokesman, Mikeal Vaughn, a state representative with the Indiana Niteclub Association, make their case that the ban was putting bars out of business.

Now I'm going to try and avoid rehashing this debate because I'm already on record. But I feel compelled to point out that Vaughn is a terrible spokesman. He rambled on for what must've been 25 minutes saying the same thing over and over. He made his point in the first 5 minutes and should've just went on his way. He was so bad that his own supporters were mumbling that he should just shut up.

He also threw out several threats about re-election that just rang hollow. Does he not think that people were energized in the primary? I'm pretty sure that the councilmen know that many people are upset - they don't need some outsider that probably doesn't know the first thing about local politics making threats.

Any bar owner or employee could've done a better job than Vaughn - they are personally vested and are the ones with the most to lose. I would strongly suggest that they ditch Vaughn and take up their own cause - he might be doing more harm than good...