Barbecue ain't a crime

Looks like Austin is having pretty much the same problem with smell that New Orleans is having with sound.

CITY COUNCIL meetings in Austin, Tex., tend to be droning, low-drama affairs, but that wasn’t the case earlier this month when barbecue was on the agenda: specifically, the smell of barbecue and a proposal to control it, in response to some citizen complaints.

The suggestion that a smell some would dab behind their ears if possible should be mitigated by special exhaust systems called smoke-scrubbers provoked local outrage, with opponents accusing the complainers of being from California (in Texas, that’s not a compliment).

But that’s the thing about smells. One person’s putrid is another person’s pleasant, and local governments around the country are having a hard time regulating what’s in the olfaction of the beholder.