Sheriff Sherman Block had considered his proposal...

Sheriff Sherman Block had considered his proposal to ban smoking in county jails as a healthful measure--one that even the ACLU didn’t oppose. So he was unprepared for the scathing denunciation from KCOP-TV commentator Bill Press, who said on Thursday night that “Commissar” Block’s proposal was the work of the “fascism of the left” that mistakes a jail for “the Betty Ford Clinic.”

The angry sheriff resumed the debate Friday when he ran into a KCOP reporter at a press conference. Block was gleeful to learn that the TV station bans smoking within its walls.

But, the reporter, pointed out, employees “can still go out in the parking lot” to smoke.

Well, Block answered triumphantly, the prisoners “can go out to the parking lot, too--when they’re released.”

In L.A., every hotel has a Bible and every automobile has a map book.

And does the street guide take a beating--especially as you madly turn pages while you’re wedging the book against the steering wheel and speeding along at 70 m.p.h.

That no doubt explains why Thomas Bros. Maps, whose standard L.A./Orange County guide costs a steep $23.95, has come out with a sturdier version containing laminated pages. The cost?

If you’re driving as you read this, pull over to the side of the road.

It’s $84.95.

Bankers are often pictured in the movies as avaricious creatures bent on getting their hands on everyone else’s money. We’re happy to point out at least one exception.

Monika Young Moulin of L.A. sent along a notice that she received from First Federal Bank (see photo), notifying her that she had deposited more money than her records indicated.

Let’s see, with 29 cents postage, plus computer and administrative costs . . . no wonder the banking system’s in trouble.

Before the last gubernatorial campaign, state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles) appealed to actor James Garner to run on the Democratic ticket, explaining that the party didn’t have any exciting candidates. Garner declined and the rest is history. The Democrats, going with San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, lost.

Now, the actor has relented, in a fashion. He’s set to star in a new TV series in which he plays a con man appointed to fill his late wife’s City Council seat. A con man on the City Council? Who’d ever believe that?

miscelLAny:

The official state song, first performed in public in 1913, was written by F.B. Silverwood, a Los Angeles merchant. It had the distinction of being played aboard the first ship to go through the Panama Canal. Its title is, not “California, Here I Come,” but “I Love You, California.”