Gaffney City Councilman Dennis Ramsey was correct when he told his fellow councilmen that "It's not our place to decide if they smoke (city employees) or not."

We need more elected officials to quit 'babysitting' the public with well-intentioned, but intrusive, laws designed to protect us from ourselves.

Ramsey made the statement during the discussion of a proposal to ban smoking in city-owned vehicles.

That's where Ramsey was dead wrong. City council has EVERY right to tell its employees they cannot smoke in vehicles owned by the city.

Using Ramsey's reasoning, it would be OK for city employees to drink alcoholic beverages while in cityowned vehicles. After all, it's not their (city council's) place to decide if employees can drink or not.

Further, using that line of reasoning, city employees would be free to do almost anything they desired while in city-owned vehicles.

Ramsey and the other councilman who voted against the proposed smoking ban missed the boat on several counts.

First of all, these employees are driving vehicles that the taxpayers of the City of Gaffney own. It's not their (the employees') own personal vehicles. It belongs to someone else and if that 'someone else' doesn't want them to smoke in their vehicle, then they have the right to prohibit them from doing so.

It's different with privately-owned businesses. I allow smoking in Ledger-owned vehicles. For one thing, they're so old, a little cigarette smoke and burn holes in the upholstery isn't going to harm the value.

But I guarantee you that when the time comes to buy new ones, there will be a no-smoking policy.

That's one big issue the city should have considered. Would you buy a used car that had years of smoke odor absorbed into the interior? Once, when looking at a used car for my oldest daughter, we didn't even take a test drive in one we were interested in because of the smoke odor and holes in the seats and carpet.

I don't want to go into all of the reasons the city should implement a smoking ban in its vehicles, but want to urge ALL elected officials to remember this when making decisions: It's not your money or your property being used. It belongs to the taxpayers you represent.

In most cases, decisions should not be made based on your individual likes and dislikes, but rather what's best for the whole.

In this case, a no-smoking policy in city-owned vehicles — for that matter, all government vehicles — clearly is in the best interests of the owners of those vehicles: The taxpayers.

Don't take this as a rant by some anti-smoking fanatic. I smoke a few cigars myself. I oppose all of these smoking bans that cities everywhere have imposed on restaurants and bars. Like Ramsey said, "It's not our place to decide if they smoke or not."

Small business owners have enough laws and rules and regulations to contend with without being told they can't allow their customers to do something perfectly legal.

Now, if a restaurant owner decides not to allow smoking in his establishment, that's OK. If he wants to allow it, that should be OK too.

If someone doesn't like to breath second-hand smoke, then they can choose not to frequent establishments which allow smoking. It's as simple as that.

If an employee doesn't like working in a smoke-filled atmosphere, he can find another job.

Since the ban on smoking in city-owned cars was being pushed by Mayor Henry Jolly, there are some who believe that's the reason it failed. There is a school of thought around town, that no matter what the issue, if Henry's for it, certain councilmen will be against it.

I don't subscribe to that belief because I don't think any of our elected officials could be that petty.

Or could they?

Cody Sossamon (cody@gaffneyledger.com) is publisher of The Gaffney Ledger.