A Landmark Weed Lawsuit, Sticker Shock At Restaurants, And Southwest’s New Boarding Rules Explained

A quiet weekend winds into a not-so-quiet question: what happens when your neighbor’s choices flood your home? We unpack a striking D.C. case where a 76-year-old resident won a court order stopping secondhand cannabis smoke from seeping into her space. She wasn’t chasing a payout; she wanted breathable air. The ruling affirms a growing legal view that your right to enjoy your home can trump your neighbor’s right to light up, and it offers a blueprint for anyone dealing with odor, smoke, or other nuisances in apartments and townhomes.

Then we pivot to the sticker shock sitting on your plate. From $17 egg sandwiches to $23 for seven tacos, we break down the why behind restaurant prices without drowning you in jargon. Think simple margin math, rising labor and input costs, and a tightrope operators walk to keep the doors open. You’ll come away with a clearer sense of how menus are priced, why some items feel steep, and how to spot value without being overwhelmed by percentages.

Finally, we taxi to the gate with Southwest’s big change: assigned seats and a Wilma-style boarding flow that brings windows first, then middles, then aisles, layered with elite and priority groups. We look at what this means for overhead bin space, mid-cabin seats, and your pre-boarding strategy. If bin anxiety is real for you, we’ve got practical tips to keep your sanity intact and your essentials within reach.

Hit play, trade your own shared-space stories, and tell us where your carry-on lives: overhead bin or under the seat? If this breakdown helped, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find us.

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Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Weekend Banter And Setup
• 0:53 Landmark Weed-Smoke Lawsuit
• 3:49 Living With Neighbors And Smell Spillover
• 5:12 Restaurant Prices And Inflation Math
• 7:00 Southwest Shifts To Assigned Seats
• 10:06 Boarding Perks, Bins, And Tradeoffs
• 10:46 Personal Packing Habits And Question

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Well, hello and good morning. Uh did y'all have a good weekend? I had a pretty decent weekend. It wasn't bad at all. Saturday was a good weekend. Georgia Bulldogs won. I did some shopping, bought the grand cam some new toys to play with, and boy was he thrilled when he saw them on Sunday. And he had a blast. We had a blast with him on Sunday too. Let's see. Oh, let's go to the stories. I only have two so far. It was hard for me to find anything. But we're gonna go with um, I woke up late too. So this lady, I don't know, let's see where it tells us where it was. This lady, this older lady, I guess she lives in an older community, in an apartment, townhomes or something. I don't know. Uh but she sued her neighbor because he was smoking pot and weed in his apartment, and I guess it stunk up her apartment, so she sued him and won. Let's go to the story. An elderly woman just scored a landmark court win against her neighbor that forces him to stop smoking weed in his own home. You go, girl, good for you. Uh Josepha Ippolito Shepherd, who is 76 years old of Washington, D.C., said the feces and skunk smell emanating from the 73-year-old next door resident Thomas Cackett's doorway made her dread coming home. She said she even once vomited when her neighbor, who lives in the on the ground level of an adjoining home, lit up. So she sued. I was not interested in money. I was interested in getting fresh air in my home. After five years of representing herself, Ippolito Shepherd finally won her case in the D.C. Court of Appeals. A lower court judge had already ruled in her favor in 2023, but Cackett, the stoner neighbor, appealed. The higher court ended up siding with Ippolito Shepherd, too, saying her use of enjoyment of her own property was more important than Kackett's use and enjoyment of his marijuana. Ha ha ha ha good. I don't know. I don't know what I would do. See, I live in a town home, so we're next to each other. And I know our next I know our neighbor next to us. He he has got to smoke pot. But we don't smell it. If he does, we don't smell it. So thank God. But I've often wondered what would happen, you know, because sometimes we'll go to tunica and we'll stay, you know, in the hotel room, and you can smell it. Sometimes it's not it's not loud, but sometimes you can get a whiff of it if you're in the bathroom, you know, the ventilation system or whatever. Um, it doesn't happen a lot, but sometimes it does. But I've often wondered what would happen if you're living in an apartment and your neighbor does that and it's just stinking up your own apartment. What would you do? That is not the question of the day. But good for her. I'm sorry, but uh, I just don't like the smell of it. I'm sorry if you smoke it, but whatever. Uh Kackett tried arguing that he only smoked once a day and never for longer than five minutes, all to cope with his many health conditions, including skin cancer, chronic hepatitis, arthritis, and sciatica. He says, I am not Snoop Dogg, Cakut insisted to the court. Uh but the panel said I found it hard, doubtful, and hard to believe that CAC smoked for just a couple of minutes a day. The man has now been banned from smoking within 25 feet of Ippolito Shepherd's home, including on his own property. Good. Good, good, good. Good for her. I mean, now she has ooh, but we don't what kind of replic repercussions is this gonna have on her with those two? Alright, moving on to the next story. Let's see. Okay. This kind of caught my attention. Oh, here's the ad. Let's get through the ad. Okay. The headline is restaurant owners say inflation is forcing$17 for egg sandwich. Here's the math behind it. Are we still in the are we still in an inflation era? I sometimes, you know, I went through Taco Bell the other day and we got seven tacos. Now they were the Supreme ones, but when he told me the total on that, I about had a heart attack.$23 for seven tacos. What in the world? Okay, so let's move on here. Uh diners already concerned about the cost of eating out may be disappointed to learn that many restaurants are considering raising prices to keep up with inflated food and drink costs. I thought we were not doing this anymore. I thought the costs have come down. Restaurant management software company, Toast, recently released in 2025 voice of the rest. Okay, well, whatever. Let's get on to the story, shall we? Uh blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh my god, I should have read this first, y'all. Okay, here we go. The basic math is whatever product you have, you divide it by 0.3, and that's what the product should cost to the consumer to operate at that healthy margin. Do I need to go back up here and read some more? Raising men raising menu prices is typically a last resort for restaurant operators, but with the rising cost of food and labor, their operating math still has to work. Okay. Uh the National Restaurant Association estimates that to maintain a 5% profit margin, the average restaurant needs to raise prices by 31%, according to data compiled by the DC based industry trade group earlier this year. Okay, whatever. Uh there's a lot of percentages and numbers in here. Operators whatever. I just okay. I I'm sorry, that was a dumb story. I should have not brought that to you. I just don't understand. I first of all it's math. And I don't like math. All right. So what else we got going on? Well, it appears Southwest Airlines has a new boarding process for you. Southwest Airlines surprises flyers with its new and unusual boarding process. Here's who gets on the plane first. I've never flown Southwest. I think maybe one time I did fly Southwest, and it wasn't of my choice. I was flying with a friend of mine who booked the tickets and whatever. We flew to Texas for something, and it was okay. It wasn't it was alright. Okay, so let's see. Let's see, let's see, let's see. Southwest Airlines has been making a range of changes with the carrier now charging for checked luggage and eliminating its famous open seating policy in favor of assigned seats. From January 27th, 2026. So starting next year, passengers will now have assigned seats, but they'll be boarding differently than most other carriers. Per the Wall Street Journal, Southwest Flyers will have a boarding pass that contains a boarding group and a number from one to eight, unless they booked uh priority boarding. After priority boarding, Southwest will mostly follow the Wilma method, window, middle, and aisle for boarding. Passengers in the window seats will board first, followed by those middle seats and aisle seats starting at the back of the plane. If queuing isn't okay, if queuing isn't good, if queuing isn't good, boarding isn't good, Lisa Hingson, managing director of innovation, told WSJ, so we spend a lot of time studying and queuing. The method isn't new. United Airlines switched to this kind of method a couple of years ago, saying it was more efficient. But flyers with perks, I think didn't Jeffy and Pat Gray have an argument argument about this, how the plane should be loaded. And somebody said the reason they don't start with loading at the back first is because it gets too heavy. And the plane will the plane will tip upwards. I don't think that's true. But I think I remember them having an argument about that. I think Jeffy wanted them to load the back first, or maybe it was I can't remember. All right, but flyers with perks will automatically get an earlier boarding group no matter where their seat is. Perks can include frequent flyer status, ticket type, seat type, or credit card, and these people will be in group one and two regardless of their seat. This means that those sitting toward the front of the plane that aren't in first class or priority boarding could have trouble with overhead bend space for a carry-on bag. They also they'll also be in later boarding groups. The journal noted that they saw a boarding pass for a passenger seated 12C, which is considered to be a good economy seat on the airline, and the passenger was put in group 7. Okay, whatever. Um, well, I don't know how this is any different. I guess so I guess it's different because they used to load from the front first and now they're loading from the back first. I don't know. If you want to, if you care to get into all that, it's over on the New York Post. And as far as the overhead bins carry on things, I never use them. I make sure that I pack a bag that I can put under the seat in front of me. I am not putting my shit up there on the overhead bins with everybody else's. I'm not doing it. I don't know why I don't like to do it. I just don't want it up there in case I need something out of it. I just know how to pack better. Okay. Alright, so we need to do the question of the day. Alright, let's do the question of the day. When you board on the plane, do you use the overhead bin or do you put your bag in the space below you in the seat in front of you? That's the question of the day. Alright, I gotta go. Thanks for listening. Bye.