by Travis Mateer

Instead of writing about the professional wrestling match in DC today featuring the satanic pedos squaring off against the white-hat patriots, I’m going to focus on the showdown between our local braintrust and dastardly flavored vaping products.

I was going to ignore this battle of brains against vaping to write about Lin Wood tweets and Qanon, but then I read how our local superheroes were putting on their cape of extraterritorial powers to fight their enemy and I thought to myself, this could be serious. From the link:

Missoula County will consider using its extraterritorial powers to extend the City of Missoula’s ban on the sale of flavored vaping products and their display five miles outside city limits next week.

After reading this quote a few times, I started getting confused. Are they putting on a cape, or is it actually a dog collar hooked to a leash leading to the Mayor’s office?

I read on, seeking clarity, but, alas, got this:

The Missoula City Council adopted its ban on all flavored electronic tobacco products in November. The City-County Health Board followed suit the following month.

If approved, it would be the first time Missoula County applied its extraterritorial powers in four years. The last time it did was related to the city’s smoking ordinance.

I looked elsewhere for understanding. Perhaps The Nooge (Jim Nugent) could help out. A PDF from an email from 12 years ago put it this way:

Pursuant to section 7-4-4306 MCA pertaining to municipal mayoral powers provides that “the mayor has power to exercise the power as may be vested in the mayor by ordinance of the city . . .in and over all places within 5 miles of the boundaries of the city . . . for the purpose of enforcing the health and quarantine ordinances and regulations of the city

Sure, banning vaping products is all about enforcing health, especially for THE YOUTH:

“This initially started with the health board adopting a resolution and asking both the commission and City Council to do something to stop the epidemic of youth tobacco, especially using vape products,” said Shannon Therriault, county director of environmental health.

Thanks, county director of environmental health, I’m so glad you’re watching out for my kids as they continue to get deprived of contact with their peers and are forced to wear masks because they could be asymptomatic vectors spreading the dreaded Covid.

I can only hope this magic 5 mile extraterritorial power zone, that has sucked me into the city’s anti-vape agenda, doesn’t mean our municipal TIF junkies can somehow put the squeeze on my property taxes.

Is anti-vaping a trojan horse to invert the Couty/City power relationship?

Nah, it’s just good people doing their gosh darn best to help us out.

Yeah right.