The great Audrey Silk, founder of C.L.A.S.H. and the 2005 Libertarian candidate for NYC mayor, has been sounding the alarm on Governor Spitzer’s prohibition of the sale of tobacco products on the state fairgrounds. Now Audrey is ready to take action in court, and she needs your help:
After careful consideration, conferencing with a vendor that is directly affected, and consulting with three different attorneys, it’s my determination that this is a challenge we might actually be able to win! Each attorney was baffled as to how they can get away with interfering with commerce and livelihoods this way — based on nothing more than a “I don’t like it so you can’t sell/buy it if I have anything to do with it” attitude. There is little else to back the state up on its policy decision.
Anyone tempted to dismiss it as “just one little place” and/or “just one state” should be forced to sit through the NYC Council hearing tapes as they weighed a smoking ban. NYC Mayor Bloomberg is to blame for bans that now stretch around the world.
Anyone who has been a member of C.L.A.S.H. for any good amount of time knows that I resist ever asking for anything but your time to make a phone call or write a letter. I believe that in seven years C.L.A.S.H. has only asked twice for a financial contribution for a specific effort. But I find this latest act so reprehensible and so frightening that I’ve worked up the nerve to ask you to contribute to this legal fund. It will be an Article 78 proceeding and though not massively expensive it is not cheap either. The total cost is estimated at $10,000. I will be throwing in $1000 of my own (not C.L.A.S.H.) money.
As I put it to someone else: Salt in the wound is reading quotes from anti-smokers in newer news items about OTHER anti-smoking efforts and they’re pointing to the cigar sales ban at the Fair to say how great everything is going for their anti-tobacco efforts! To not challenge this is to let them think they can ride their high horse over anyone anytime because no one does. The arrogance level on their part is so nauseatingly high and demands some cold water.
Audrey has set up a page where you can read more about the suit and make a donation. I’ve contributed, and so should you.