On occasion, a lonely soul, grasping a picket, stages a one-person protest in Dallas City Hall's front plaza.

Friday brought Patty Young to City Hall's front door, where she suggested that Mayor Tom Leppert and the Dallas City Council are "whores for tobacco."

Ms. Young is certainly no fly-by-night agitator, even if she began her activism career in the air. In fact, she's been warring against smoking for the better part of her life.

So what does she want from Dallas?

"I want them to ban smoking in all public and private workplaces, and I'm not going away until they do," Mr. Young said.

Today, Dallas outlaws smoking in most public buildings, including restaurants, but allows barflies to puff away. Locally, cities such as Plano have instituted extremely strict bans that extend to bars and taverns, but others, such as Addison, boast comparatively liberal smoking laws.

Earlier this year, Mr. Leppert expressed interest in pursuing a "regional solution" to smoking bans, noting that all municipalities should operate under similar laws. Incongruent laws could lead to some businesses gaining advantages over others, he said. The state government, Mr. Leppert added, is certainly the best governmental entity to institute a smoking ban, just as numerous other U.S. states, including New York and California, have done.

But Mr. Leppert's regional solution idea appears to be stalled, even though a majority of City Council members say they support an expanded ban, at least in principle. And the state legislature won't meet in regular session until last year.

Looks like Ms. Young as a lot of protesting ahead of her.