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And last year, he finished 18th, out of 32 candidates, in the Ward 12 byelection.

And with each electoral loss, he lost more and more credibility. At this point, it’s getting harder and harder to tell him apart from city council’s perennial fringe candidates.

Koziak’s views have always been pro-business. That’s no surprise. But he’s long had a tendency to want to revisit and reopen long-settled issues, whether that was the City Centre Airport closure or the building of LRT.

So here we are in 2017. Koziak is running again, this time for mayor, the most plausible challenger to Don Iveson.

Thursday morning, he issued a perplexing news release, calling for a change to Edmonton’s smoking bylaws.

Koziak wants to return us to the days when people could smoke in bars and restaurants.

“The City should consult with Mechanical Engineers to determine what level of Ventilation is required in order to mitigate the smoke in some indoor areas,” his news release reads. (I’ve retained his capitalization.)

“Business owners who are prepared to spend the money in order to meet those ventilation requirements could then be certified and have the option of allowing smoking in designated areas.”

Koziak would also like to allow smoking in the upper rows of Commonwealth Stadium.

Koziak called Edmonton’s smoking bylaws a “failed experiment” and likened them to America’s Prohibition era.

Well. I guess it’s not entirely surprising that someone who owns and operates a bar might feel that way. But it’s a step backward that is so absurd, it’s almost laughable.