Our friends at the Stogie Guys send word that the Washington Nationals baseball team has officially rejected a proposal they came up with to designate a number of seats in the upper level of RFK Stadium for an upcoming home game as “cigar friendly.”

For now.

Empty seats for Washington Nationals baseball games at RFK stadium in Washington, DC

The light at the end of the tunnel is that Carleen Martin, director of marketing and promotions for the Washington Nationals, said that the franchise would reconsider the proposal next year. Perhaps Martin also should consider how successful other major league baseball teams have been with cigar promotions at their stadiums.

I’m not sure how much of a light the statement about “reconsidering the proposal” is, coming as it does in a town where being “sent back to committee” usually means that nothing is ever done. However, it is better than a complete rejection and maybe there is something Cigar Envy readers can do to help the Nats make a different decision.

More on that — and the freebies the Nats passed up to promote the cigar event — below the fold.

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Related Link: Washington Car Insurance Quote free quotes

Recreation and Park Department officials in San Francisco are wondering if anyone is going to be able to see the park’s trees in the forest of signs they’ve been forced to put up.

So many restrictive laws and regulations have been passed in the California city, ironically noted for its free spirit in the counterculture heyday of the 1960’s, that they failed to add more than 1,000 “No Smoking” signs to the burden already marring the view of nature in hundreds of locations throughout the parks.

I wonder what would happen if some San Francisco residents brought suit against the County for visual pollution of the parks? What about all the energy wasted to make all of those signs, transport them, and put them up?

Heck, the signs might even be cutting down on available sunlight getting to the trees and plants, doing them serious injury. Or perhaps they are destroying the habit of some priceless insect or bird, and hurrying yet another species along the road to extinction.

More on the San Francisco outdoor smoking ban that is even being ignored by parts of San Francisco’s govenment as excessive is below the fold.

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From Karin Goodwin at The Sunday Times, Scotland:

He may have saved the country from Nazi occupation but even Winston Churchill is not exempt from the tentacles of political correctness.

Because of the ban on smoking in public places, Britain’s greatest wartime prime minister will be without his trademark cigar when he is portrayed on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe festival later this year.

Mel Smith, the comedian and actor who will play him in a production of Allegiance, a play about a little-known meeting between Churchill and Michael Collins, the Irish revolutionary, could be forced to use a plastic replacement.

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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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If you have not been living in a cave for the last thirty years of so, you have been exposed to a lot of talk about the dangers of “second-hand” smoke.

Everyone knows that second-hand smoke is dangerous. We hear it constantly — especially in this time when smoking bans are commonplace and that proverbial cave looks like the last place that smokers will be allowed to hide in to light up.

Until, of course, someone complains that the bats and other cave wildlife will be harmed by tobacco.

One important statistic on the dangers of second-hand smoke comes from a definitive, careful study showing a clear-cut link between second-hand smoke and cancer in humans. The findings of the study, undertaken by the World Health Organization, were published in 1998. Their multi-year investigation found an unquestionable 22% relationship between cancer in adults and whether or not they had been exposed to “second-hand” smoke as a child.

A 22% relationship between second-hand smoke and cancer is much too clear to dispute. It is not a statistical anomaly. It is a proven fact.

The only problem is that the WHO study found a 22% decrease in the chances of adults getting cancer who had been exposed to smoke as a child.

More below the fold…

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Under the heading of “stop the insanity,” here’s the latest craziness on the myth of second-hand smoke.

The assault on smoking is moving into its next phase. Not satisfied with outlawing smoking in public buildings, and even near public buildings in many places, the True Believers continue to mount pressure to prevent smoking in private homes.

The press release which follows on the dangers of second-hand smoke does not come from the American Heart Association. It does not come from the American Cancer Society. It does not come from the Lung Association.

No, my friends, this warning of how second-hand smoke is a silent killer of the innocent comes from…

(drumroll, please)…

PETA.

That’s right. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The group that brings you naked models, naked actresses, and naked celebrities promoting how evil it is to wear furs by their “I’d rather go naked” ads.

That, PETA.

Hang on to your hats. This one is…

…well, I’d call this a shaggy dog story, but it is really more of a fluffy kitty.

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