Hermosa Beach Smoking Ban and Pension Updates

So now Hermosa Beach is banning smoking pretty much everywhere in its environs.

How much more nanny-state liberalism will the South Bay have to suffer through?

Smoking kills: no doubt about it. The researched effects of second-hand smoke have yielded mixed results at best. Now there are allegations of third-hand smoke creeping up unawares on residents and visitors alike. For my part, I cannot think of one instance when cigarette butts or tar residue every influence my daily walks or breathing.

What else will municipal governments feel compelled to protect their residents from? Why not outlaw automobiles, since the number of accidents every year far outweighs the damage done by smokers to themselves? Should we outlaw tag and recess, too, as some "progressive" pre-schools have done in the past? With budget deficits, pension liabilities, and public sector unions more set on keeping the public money flowing intop their limited coffers, one would think that Hermosa Beach would forgo micromanaging the questionable habits of individual citizens.

Despite the slow killing of our individual liberties (including the right to do wrong to our own bodies), I am glad to read that Hermosa Beach has tackled some of the city's pension pressures. Still, the burdens placed on taxpayers to furnish the retirement of peace officers over the long haul is an appalling demand, one which deserves greater scrutiny than a two-tier plan and a hiring freeze. Who authorized such overgenerous handouts in the first place? Since when did serving and protecting the community automatically put the citizens on the hook for funding these employees for the rest of their lives? And why does a community with so little crime contribute so much to public pensions? Whoever voted for such generous contributions, perhaps they would like to explain or expand their own investment in these public expenditures.

Instead of focusing on private deviance, the residents of the South Bay ought to focus on public dysfunction, i.e. the growing liability weighing on wealthy communities to pick up the tab on public employee retirement.