Rapture gets ahead of the smoke-free curve.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Even before the General Assembly banned smoking in restaurants and bars effective December 1, longtime smokers’ paradise Rapture decided to pull the plug on puffing.

“We had made the decision before we heard about the legislation,” says co-owner Mike Rodi.

Last August, the restaurant went smoke-free at lunch. “We were losing business,” says Rodi. “We’d have maybe one smoking table, and people waiting for non-smoking. And we had a lot of smoke drift.”

In January, smoking in the bar and Club R2 was limited to between 11pm and 2am, and on June 15, smoking was fini at Rapture.

The restaurant has a new chef, new items on the menu, and the owners are ready to freshen up the decor, paint and upholstery. It seemed pointless to do that in a smoky environment, says Rodi.

He points out (more)

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Accidents on May 22 and 29 caused 39 injuries. PHOTO BY KATIV

It’s a risk nearly all parents take when they send their children off to school, but on the morning of Friday May 29, risk became unhappy reality for the entire fifth grade of Baker-Butler Elementary School, as they became the second group of area school kids ensnarled in an injury-causing accident. In this case, the bus company involved has seen one of its vehicles, a motorcoach, fail its last three federal inspections and get pulled from service. Could this trip-spoiling incident have been prevented?

Police charged the driver of one of the buses, Samuel Hilton Richard, with following too closely. Richard, 62, a 37-year industry veteran, tells a reporter he’s not at liberty to discuss the accident.

However, another industry player, Dan Goff of A. Goff Limo, calls the bus company involved, Lynchburg Bus Service Inc., the “low-cost carrier for this area.” And SAFER, a website run by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, notes that 75 percent (more)

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 The new food guides are here! The new food guides are here! That’s right. Piedmont Environmental Council’s local food guide is out and its more extensive than ever. Who knew there was such a bounty of local food sources and sympathies? Well, we did, of course. This year, the guide includes 11 grocers, 8 farmer’s markets, 23 produce farms, 9 orchards, 15 meat, poultry, and dairy producers, 8 CSAs, 2 cheese makers, 4 caterers, and 15 restaurant (they list 16, but OXO has long since closed) that support local growing and eating. And all of it’s available online at the PEC’s Buy Fresh, Buy Local website.

There’s also a new Farmer-Chef Express directory designed to bring folks needing food together with those growing and raising it. Restaurants and shops, even the Harrisonburg City School systems, supply information about what food they need and how much, and food producers says what they produce and how much. 

Of course, the local food movement is about more than just eating well–it’s about saving our small farms!

“As the local food movement grows, it can help change the trend we are facing across Virginia that farmland is being lost,” says Melissa Wiley, director of our local Buy Fresh, Buy Local chapter. “Statewide, between 2002 and 2007, 500,000 acres of farmland were lost. Buy Fresh Buy Local can improve the economic outlook for small farms, which ultimately preserves farmland and the potential for people to grow food here in the future.”

Ah, remember just going to the grocery store?

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Timberlake Drugs pharmacist John Plantz says he still has masks. According to health organizations, they’re best for those already infected.
PHOTO BY COURTENEY STUART

Forget the economy, forget Iraq, forget gay marriage or any other hot news topics. For the last several weeks, swine flu has been the headline hog— especially with up to three cases reported in Virginia. Even as the latest reports from health organizations suggest the bug, now known by the pork industry-favored moniker H1N1, may actually be less virulent than basic seasonal flu, masks are “totally sold out,” says Meadowbrook Pharmacy pharmacist Janet Chrismore.

“It’s been nuts,” says Chrismore, noting that reports suggest the masks aren’t particularly effective protection against viruses, so those who are unable to acquire them shouldn’t be concerned. Indeed, according to the CDC, the masks are most useful at preventing someone already infected with swine flu from spreading the virus through the community– not the other way around.

That message doesn’t seem to have reached customers of several other local pharmacies, which report a booming mask business.

At CVS pharmacy on the Downtown Mall, the masks were (more)

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Nelson County native Laura Burns snaps a photo of herself in the taxi that takes her to the airport.
PHOTO BY LAURA BURNS

Laura Burns didn’t realize how bad the swine flu epidemic was until her classes in Mexico City were canceled Friday, April 24. Even then, she thought it was just for one day.

“They canceled classes in all schools,” recounts Burns, a former Hook intern who’s doing graduate work in international relations at La Universidad Iberoamericana and who describes her adventure on her blog. “On Saturday, they announced they were canceled until May 6.”

She began hearing more on the news about the swine flu outbreak in the city of 8.8 million, and the news was getting more dramatic.

“The mayor started talking about canceling public transportation and suspending all activity,” she says. “I went out on Saturday night, and all the bars were closed. It was like a ghost town.”

By Sunday, April 26, Burns decided to return home to Charlottesville. She already (more)

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The latest increase in prices could push Bill Huppert to stub out the habit.
PHOTO BY LISA PROVENCE

Already reeling from Governor Tim Kaine’s signature on a law that bans puffing in their favorite watering holes, Virginia cigarette users got hit with another shocker this week: The price of a pack of Marlboros, the flagship smoke of homegrown tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris, leaped 71 cents a pack March 9, pushing prices over $5 in most stores.

At Bellair Market, cigarettes that had been less than $4 last week rang up at $5.03 this week. At Lucky Seven, those Marlboro Lights cost $5.79 a pack, and at the Shell on Preston Avenue, the price was $5.83 a pack.

“At $4.09, I am the cheapest around,” says Frazier Breeden at Tobacco Express on Rio Road, whose customer reactions are  “a lot of fussing and complaining.”

The basis for the increase is a 62-cent federal excise tax that goes into effect April 1. “Everybody knew the price was going up April 1,” says Breeden. “When Marlboro called me Thursday morning [March 5], they said they were going up Monday [March 9].” (more)

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