I'm pretty much just here to push a button

I can't help it if sometimes I get confused about which button they want me to push.

Minutes after Ramsey had joined her colleagues last week in unanimously passing a new anti-smoking ordinance, she offered a new ordinance that would have given Harrah's a 50-percent exemption. Her proposal would also remove "places of employment" from the list of locales that banned smoking and added "tobacco retailers" to the list of places exempted from the ban.

Such changes likely would have gutted the new law by allowing any establishment selling tobacco products or operating as a legal casino to dodge the ban.

Johnson said Ramsey had thought Mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration had asked her to offer the changes. The mayor, through his spokesman, disavowed any such request Monday and said he supported the ban that passed last week.