Just when you think it cannot get any worse, the anti-smoking Gestapo advances to the next level of assault.

What could be more polically incorrect than discrimination?

More importantly, what could simply be more wrong?

Yet despite the obvious lessons of history and morality against discrimination, the European Union has now clearly established the legality of discrimination under their regime.

Companies in the European Union may legally refuse to hire smokers because EU anti-discrimination laws do not protect them, the European Commission has said. And it doesn’t end there.

This one surprised me. I think it will surprise you too, because the implications and explicit statements of EU officials did not stop with discrimination against smokers.

The full story unfolds below the fold.

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“If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”
Sir Winston Churchill

As he had promised, Mel Smith became the first performer at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival to openly defy Scotland’s draconian smoking ban yesterday.

The defiance was short-lived.

The comedian, who is playing Winston Churchill in the play Allegiance, ostentatiously lit and puffed on a cigar onstage while In full Winston Churchill costume at a photocall in Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms. He ignored calls from his producer not to light up and vented his fury at the Smoking, Health and Social Care (Scotland) Act of 2005, which came into force in March.

He suggested that the audience could be warned before the show: “A third of a Romeo y Julieta will be smoked during this performance. If you find that offensive, f*** off.”

That is the good news in the global war against the New Prohibition movement. I wish that I could simply stop there and allow you to bask in the warm glow of victory.

That is not how things ended, unfortunately.

More details from sources at BBC News, the Sunday Times, and other sources below the fold.

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British actor, comedian and director Mel Smith, set to portray Sir Winston Churchill at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, has raised two fingers firmly against Scotland’s ban of smoking onstage in dramatic performances.

As reported last month, Scotland’s draconian anti-smoking legislation makes it the only nation in the Western world where creativity and art must take a back-seat to political correctness and junk science. Sir Winston Churchill, so associated with cigar smoking that a size and shape of cigar was named after him, cannot be portrayed onstage in Scotland with a cigar in his hand.

Personally, I’d like to know which way Smith’s hand was facing at the time he made that gesture, and whether he was signalling victory or the Vicky.

I’m betting on the latter.

More from Anna Millar in Scotland after the jump.

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From Peter Vincent at the Sydney Morning Herald:

In an era where cigarette smoking is in decline for its health effects and faces increasing social censure, there has been quiet growth in the popularity of the cigar.

The theory goes that cigars are about more than just smoking. Sure, aficionados will praise the complex taste of the world’s best cigars, which are made around the Caribbean. But it’s also about how and where you smoke them.

“For me, a cigar is not an everyday thing, it’s something I spoil myself with,” says Spiro Ellul, a Melbourne collector and cigar smoker.

“I spend up to two hours smoking one, with a nice glass of red or a port and I’ll drift off and reflect on my daily life and organise my thoughts.”

Ellul spent about $15,000 last year collecting cigars. He has about 50 boxes in storage. True aficionados leave cigars to age for at least a year in a controlled humidity of between 65 and 75 per cent.

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From Rich at CigarCyclopedia comes this news:

Another draconian smoking ban goes into effect today in the Canadian province of Ontario, including the formerly cosmopolitan city of Toronto.

“There is a cigar culture in Toronto,” noted Stephen Hajtun, speaking to The Globe and Mail, Canada’s most respected newspaper in an interview last week. Not any more, Stephen.

The ban covers smoking in all enclosed spaces, including retail tobacco stores!

“The impact will be disastrous” was the comment from well-known tobacconist Thomas Hinds, whose store in the Yorkville section of Toronto has been a destination for smokers for 35 years.

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From Rich at Cigar Cyclopedia:

Los Angeles, November 23 – Just when you think the Cigar Renaissance will slow down, it keeps chugging along.

Figures for U.S. imports of premium cigars for the nine months ending September 30 were released by the Cigar Association of America showed that imports kept pace with the hot 2004 totals and then did just a bit more.

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