If South Carolina law prevents localities from passing laws regulating smoking, as some legal experts say, then the law is bad and ought to be changed. There's no sensible reason for the state to squash what ought to be a home rule issue. It's despotic and unnecessary. Local curbs on smoking neither threaten nor serve a state interest.

To the contrary, tough smoking regulations advance the state's interest because they're good for public health. This is why the state itself ought to regulate smoking; preventing localities, such as Aiken County, from doing it is an outrage.

A typical reaction to proposed cigarette bans is that of Sam Erb, a downtown Aiken bar and restaurant owner and president of the Restaurant Association of South Carolina, who asks "when is the government going to stop regulating us and telling us how to run our business?"

The answer is, never. Nor should it.

The government regulates a lot of things, including restaurants to make sure they are clean and sanitary and the food safe to eat. Government also regulates water to ensure it's safe to drink and has a huge hand in regulating the quality of air we breathe outdoors.

They're called clean air laws and nobody in their right mind would strike them down. All these rules and regs are designed to benefit public health. So why shouldn't the government be interested in cleaning up indoor air for the benefit of public health? And to ensure people allergic to, or made sick by, smoke get to eat in a healthy environment.

Erb understands this because he made the restaurant section of his business smoke-free years ago without the government twisting his arm. His opposition to government regulations is ideological, not sensible. Would he buy meat or fish for his customers to eat if it wasn't government inspected? Of course not.

Aiken County Council should not be intimidated by silly arguments - or bad state laws - from doing the right thing: Ban smoking in public buildings county-wide.