|
Even though today is the first time I have met any of you in person I consider you all friends. I can't thank you enough for being there for me as Minnesota started down the road you have all already traveled. You were patient, kind, informative, encouraging and honest. Ok, sometimes brutally honest. Your experiences helped prepare me for this battle and although sometimes I wondered if things could ever get as bad as you said they would, you were right, they did. I would like to apologize to each and every one of you here, and not here, for not being there to help you. I wasn't paying attention; I was busy with my family, my business and my life. I wondered how you could allow such a thing to happen in your cities, counties and states. I was glad it wasn't me. I NEVER thought I would be walking in your shoes. I was very, very wrong. Please accept my heartfelt apologies and my promise that I am awake now and together we can and will take the smoke haters down!! I never realized that no one looks at the facts and the science. I never realized no one would look at the longs lists of closed businesses. I never realized people would think a 30% decrease in business was "acceptable". I never realized bar owners were considered lower than low. I never realized special interest groups wrote ordinances and laws. I never realized they used our tax dollars to do it. I never realized they have billions to spend with absolutely no accountability. I never realized they lie and everyone believes them. We know the smoke haters lie, we know they have billions more of our tax dollars to abuse. We know when that runs out the drug companies will give them more. We know they will continue to run the children up the proverbial flagpole in their quest to eliminate tobacco. We know their intolerance for personal choice. We know their lack of respect for property rights and we know the battle will not be easy. But if ever there is a group out there to stop them, it is us. These well funded fanatical special interest groups betray our trust, abuse our tax dollars and count on our ignorance. They continue to destroy lives, jobs, and businesses and tear our communities apart. The bar owners have proved they lied over and over again yet our elected officials will do nothing to help us. More and more businesses lock their doors for good, thousands of jobs have been lost and millions of dollars in lost revenues. It doesn't matter; the elected officials refuse to admit they made a mistake. But the tide is turning.... thanks to the internet, Samantha, Michael, Maryetta, Norm and many, many others. We organize, we learn, we encourage, we teach, we preach, we spread the truth. We share numbers, names, stories, ideas and the latest scam the smoke haters are trying. We will win because we have fact and science on our side and we won't quit. We will win because we will elect or become elected officials who value property rights and individual choice. Our passion, our friendships and our commitment will keep us strong. We won't quit. The newest group to be discriminated against, right after the smokers, is bar owners. I never realized bar owners would be portrayed as the scum of the earth. I have been called a liar, bizarre, addle minded, a tobacco lackey, a murderer, sexually frustrated and worse. I receive hate mail, hate e-mail and hate phone calls. For 6 months I had my own stalker. I had a "psychic" stop in my bar to warn me of impending death because of my outspoken views. One writer called my strong stance for property rights "quaint". As a bar owner I have been labeled by elected officials naive, unorganized, stupid, an idiot and immoral. My personal favorite was angry. Go figure, angry bar owners after our personal and property rights are trampled on. Not many are saying nice things about Minnesota politicians now after our first government shutdown in 147 years. The proposed (now passed) 75 cent cigarette pack "fee" is now a national joke. Unfortunately Minnesota's Governor Pawlenty only conferred with one other governor during this shutdown...the governor of NY. Rather than stopping the out of control government spending by closing the checkbook, he added a new "fee" to each pack of cigarettes. Any one outside the governors office calls this fee what it is, a tax. But our governor promised not to raise taxes. Minnesota politicians firmly believe the residents of our state are dysfunctional children and are too ignorant and too stupid to make our own choices. A very few elected officials still have common sense, a respect for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and can read a study. Some still remember is you keep the businesses owners fat and happy they can tax the hell out of us. Some still remember the thousands of jobs we provide, the millions in revenues and the unity we can bring to a community. I know I am preaching to the choir, my friends, it's a wonderful thing. I would especially like to thank Samantha for printing so many of my articles and for printing everyone else's so I had the material to write mine. You are awesome Samantha, thank you for all you do. (My Diary of a Disaster should be about 800 pages by now if I wrote each and every heartbreaking story that I hear.) Michael your research has been a Godsend. Norm, I have used almost everything you write. So through it all, (and it ain't over yet) I knew I could count on you. Your encouragement and support have been invaluable. If there is a group of people anywhere that I would trust, respect and want to sit down and have beer and a smoke with (yep, I am willing to risk it) it would be you guys. Thank you my friends. Sue Jeffers Minneapolis, Minnesota Minnesotans Against Smoking Bans |