Manteca, believe it or not, at one time was at the forefront of the war on smoking.

It started when Trena Kelley noticed teens on the way to and from Manteca High ducking into the restaurant on East Yosemite Avenue that is known today as Johnny’s.

They never went all the way inside, per se.

Instead, they made a quick visit to the foyer.

It was accessible via two outside doors.

A third door separated the foyer from the dining room.

Inside the foyer against the window opposite of the dining room door was a cigarette machine.

It was the mid-1970s.

It was illegal for anyone under 21 to buy cigarettes, from a machine or otherwise.

But there was no law against cigarette vending machines being accessible to children.

Needless to say, more than a few parents weren’t thrilled their kids were buying cigarettes with their allowance from the vending machine.

Long story short, Kelley organized PTA parents.

Petitions were circulated.

Pressure was applied at council meetings.

The woman that elected leaders essentially scoffed at when she approached them to adopt a city ordinance to make it illegal for cigarette machines to be placed where children could access them before she executed a Grassroots 101 campaign, capitulated under pressure.

Manteca, a full 20 years before the State of California adopted the first statewide ban on smoking in specific places in 1995, took a stance against cigarettes.

A few years later, Kelley made her first run for public office — mayor of Manteca — and ended up as the first directly elected mayor in city history.

Twelve years after that — and five years before the state stepped up — Manteca’s City Council banned smoking at council meetings.

What prompted this trip down memory lane, marked by cigarettes butts, was a story out of West Virginia.

A lung doctor by the name of Tom Takubo, who has been a state lawmaker since 2017, has been trying to outlaw smoking in cars when children under 17 are present for the past five years.

This prompted West Virginia Republican State Senator Mike Azinger to declare, “This is a cut at the fundamental rights of parents making a decision over their children in their vehicle. This is a state going where it has no business going.”

Huh?

Do parents have the right to subject their children to second-hand smoke in a confined space?

Before you start going “that sounds like a typical Republican rant” and a knee-jerk woke response, you may want to know that the state senator named Takubo that authored the proposed law outlawing smoking in a car with kids is also a Republican.

Shocked?

Don’t be.

There are — and were Republicans — that don’t toe the canned cultural lines. The same is true of Democrats.

When California finally outlawed smoking in most public places including restaurants in 1995, Pete Wilson was the governor.

In 2007 when California became the third state to outlaw smoking in a car when there are  children 18 and under present, Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor.

Both were moderate Republicans.

If you think that is shocking, consider this: There are only 11 states that do not allow smoking in cars when minors are present.

In each case, including California, such a violation can’t be the reason a motorist is pulled over by a police officer. But if they observe it in conjunction with another violation, it can lead to a $100 citation in the Golden State.

Do not misunderstand.

Smokers should not be treated like how society once treated lepers.

What we have come to in California seems to be real middle ground.

It may not be what smokers want if they were made king nor what non-smokers would decree if they were in charge for that matter.

That said, we seem to be light years away — at least in California — from where we were in 1990.

It was back in the days I would cover council meetings in Rocklin, one of the few cities in the Sacramento area that allowed smoking in their chambers.

The room had hideous ventilation. It was small. It was cramped.

Meetings would go on for more than four hours.

Typically, there were at least six or so people smoking throughout the meeting, including three that were hardcore chain smokers. And they smoked cheap cigarettes.

You know the ones. They have a hideous acidly smell, more so than brand name ones.

The Press-Tribune at the time required all their reporters covering meetings to wear suits.

By the time the meetings ended, I was literally nauseous and stank of smoke.

The fortunate thing was that The Press-Tribune was an afternoon daily.

That meant I could go directly home and take a shower.

To say the least, I was spending a small fortune on dry cleaning bills.

The twilight zone era wasn’t much better.

That’s when California had its smoking purgatory period.

Non-smoking sections started popping up in restaurants.

How bad was it?

Absurdly bad.

Typical was an encounter I had with a date in 1989 in a coffee shop in Sacramento.

The only available table in the non-smoking section was next to the smoking section.

The cigarette smoke floating our way was bad enough.

But the acidly smoky icing on the cake was the man in the next table kept hanging his cigarette over the back of the booth.

Finally, we had enough.

I got up and walked to the next table.

After excusing myself, I politely asked the man if he would mind not hanging his cigarette behind him when he wasn’t smoking it.

His response?

He said his wife didn’t appreciate cigarette smoke.

That is the same wonderful logic espoused by West Virginia State Senator Mike Azinger.

Second hand smoke is OK as long as it doesn’t impact them.

As for those 18 and under, they are not chattel — at least in California.

Not so in 39 other states that have no problem with kids being in a small enclosed space inhaling cigarette smoke.

There are 26 states that outlaw 100 percent ban smoking in workplaces or enclosed public places. That includes deep red states such as Iowa, Kansas, Utah, North Dakota, Montana, and South Dakota.

It is clearly not a woke thing or a freedom thing.

Blue states resist laws that would infringe on personal freedom regardless of other people’s rights and states that bleed red put a high value on health and common courtesy when it comes to smoking laws.

Maybe the world really isn’t painted in absolute blue and absolute red.

You really can’t tell with all of the billowing political smoke that passes as governance these days.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com