Smoking… in PUB-lick

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on May 7th, 2009

This just in from Bismarck’s News Leader, KFYR-TV (Is that pronounced, “KAY-fire?” We hope so.)– Ron White has been busted. For smoking. In public.

Here’s the heart of the story, with a typo:

A plainclothes police officer saw him on smoke a cigar on stage.

The officer went to the show after the department received a letter saying that White commonly smokes while he performs.

Who? We say WHO ratted out Ron White? Which busy body was so concerned that the smoke from White’s cigar would sully the Belle Mehus?

It reminds us of Lenny Bruce being monitored by local law enforcement for obscenity. Officers, sometimes summoned by local judges or church officials or garden variety busybodies, would hunker down in the back of the house with a notepad. Ready to spring and bring the show to an end when just enough offensive evidence had been gathered. It happened only a handful of times. The stories are harder to believe as time passes.

My, how times have changed. Now we have militant anti-smokers assailing popular comedians because they… smoke!

We wonder: What would the producers of a play at that facility do if the script called for one of the characters to smoke? Would insipid no-smoking laws take precedence over art? If so, what sense does that make? What if the script called for fire eaters? A man juggling flaming clubs?

Doesn’t Cosby smoke cigars during his sets? George Burns did, right? We seem to recall that Alan King did as well.

Comics take note: A surefire path to “rebel” status– start smoking cigars onstage.

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