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According to Business First of Columbus the
Ohio smoking ban may be enforced as early as the end of April 2007. The big news a clarification that an anonymous complaint can not be the sole basis for a violation…

The law was voted in last November, went into effect on December 6, 2006 but has not been enforced. According to the Business First of Columbus article:

“The department (the Ohio Department of Health) also said private clubs, which are nonprofit organizations with no employees, that are located in freestanding buildings and do not share the space with any other entities, are exempt from the indoor smoking ban. Organizations, such as the Veterans of Foreign War, requested clarification from the state on the no-smoking policy.

“Private club representatives have consistently asked (the Health Department) to fashion rules reflecting the exemption they believed they had under the law passed in November,” Anne R. Harnish, acting director of the department, said in a release. To be exempt from the law, the clubs can’t have members under the age of 18 present while others are smoking. “

The the Ohio Department of Health website has a press release and other info on new law and the timing of enforcement as well:

“Among the changes in the rules filed were: a change that provides some private clubs an exemption to the indoor smoking ban, and a clarification that an anonymous complaint alone cannot form the basis for a violation. Another change points out signs could be posted by means other than affixing to real property such as a sign on a stake in a mulch bed adjacent to an entrance. Also, a definition of smoking device was added to the rules, clarifying that wood-burning ovens are cooking devices and are not regulated under the law. “

Columbus and most Central Ohio suburbs have had smoking bans for over a year now.

crocuses
for sale signs….
daffodils
orange barrels on the roads
pot hole work
tulips
more for sale signs…

Saturday March 24, 2007 celebrate the vernal equinox at Sargents Ohio (Pike County, about 1 1/2 hours from Columbus) Sargent’s Ohio is where the last passenger known pigeon was killed on March 22 (or March 24, 1900….according to Wikipedia - Passenger Pigeons) The event is at an Indian mound…

I called the extinct species a homing pigeon on Discover Columbus, but I thought I called it a carrier pigeon… homing pigeons and carrier pigeons still exist. Passenger pigeons Ectopistes migratorius are also known as wild pigeons…are extinct, have been since the early 1900s according to Wikipedia… I don’t know my pigeons…

Discover Ohio about the vernal equinox 2007 event… says of the history:

“The last passenger pigeon ever seen in the wild was shot by a boy in Sargents on March 22, 1900.

Historically, at vernal equinox, flocks a billion strong or more would return to the lower Scioto Valley, to begin the search for nesting sites.”

The image is a Real Living e-card… Happy Spring!

This is Columbus Best Blogh… just for a day or two!

1. Four leaf clovers… look at the top of my March E-Newsletter. The shamrock is an Irish symbol, a shamrock has three leaves. Yes… there could be a mutant shamrock just like any other clover but a four leaf clover for St. Patrick’s Day makes me #@^&*% angry.

Most of the HER Real Living e-postcards also feature four leaf clovers rather than shamrocks. Marketing people!

2. Drunken Irish jokes…. unless they are really, really funny.

3. Shamrocks (this is a friend’s actually… she is 100% Irish… I’m not.. she is I believe 2nd generation from Ireland I am 5th or 6th? ) She does not like the shamrock… she says that is American, that the harp is Irish…she’s lives in Hilliard.

4. Central Ohio Irish food… I have to say I have really only tried one restaurant that is Irish here…. waited and waited for a table on St. Patrick’s Day and the corned beef and cabbage was slop. I’m cooking corned beef and colcannon today.

5. That there are only 17 days to wear green in March before St. Patrick’s Day and that everyone I run into in Central Ohio feels the need to say “You should have saved it to wear on St. Patrick’s Day…”

6. That I don’t drink Guiness or Irish whiskey…

7. That the Columbus Irish neighborhood, Flytown is gone. It was south of Goodale Park (there is a marker) where 670 comes through…

8. That Irish history in Central Ohio has nothing to do with my people….

9. Getting kicked out of St. Patrick Church on St. Patrick’s Day….because the mass is for the Columbus Irish organizations… mass is at Holy Cross now not St. Patrick Church.

10. Having to choose between St. Patrick’s Day in downtown Columbus and St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin Ohio….

I tried to post an Irish flag to decorate this list but the green, white and orange Irish flag looks really, really ugly on this red blog. I read leprechauns originally wore red not green so if I had a leprechaun in red it would look great on the blog… but I don’t….. Mid month… February 2007 sales are out so there’s lots of green on Discover Columbus where I post market reports for Central Ohio.

Edit Red Leprechaun comploiments of Toby and Sadie! Thanks