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The mystical element guiding the adventurous drivers on Redwood Retreat Road may be the call of the oak barrels inside the gorgeously designed winery of Martin Ranch near the end of the lane. Last Saturday afternoon, Thèrese and Dan Martin hosted a wine tasting and barbecue on the patio of the barrel room overlooking the California-style change-in-season colors of the withering vines. The harvest is over and the press of juice on the cap is near complete; time to celebrate and clink the glasses of previous year's product.

Oh, yeah, that's what should be on Gilroy's priority list – a new tobacco ordinance that forbids smoking in our parks, at the designated areas at the Garlic Festival, on our golf courses and, what's next, on our back porch? I get it - smoking is bad for you. But I believe that government believing it has an unlimited right to socially engineer everyone's life is just as bad, and perhaps worse. Gilroy has an obesity problem, so let's outlaw potato salad and the selling of Carl's Jr. bacon burgers within the city limits. It's amazing the things that make the priority list just because some advocacy organization, probably slyly funded by taxpayer dollars, received money so that bureaucrats can claim a "purposeful" livelihood. Who's going to enforce this ordinance? The police do nothing about all the hooch smokers at Las Animas Veterans Park and Christmas Hill Park near the amphitheater now. The Council should send Breathe America and its social engineering lobbying effort packing. Enough already. Educate, but do not dictate.

If what happened at the U.S. Olympic trials is any indication, the London Olympics will be pulsing with splendid drama.

The lovely Karen Anderson used the highly regarded highsociety@

Celebrate a Victorian X-mas: