According to legend, a Viking monarch of England, King Canute, set up his throne on a seashore in front of an incoming tide and commanded the waves not to touch him. Inevitably, he got wet. Fast forward to present-day Pennsylvania, where this week Commonwealth Court in its majesty played King Canute.

If only this were myth.

In a stunning blow to public health and good sense, a three-judge panel of Commonwealth Court struck down the smoking ban passed by Allegheny County last October, overruling a Common Pleas Court judge who had allowed the ban but had stayed it temporarily with an injunction. At least King Canute performed his seaside stunt to prove his flatterers wrong about the extent of his powers. Commonwealth Court's powers -- and their capacity for mischief -- are not to be doubted.

Still, and perhaps we are reading too much into it, a hint of shame appears in the opinion written by Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer explaining the legal rationale (the italics are ours): "Regardless of our own sense as to whether local communities should be permitted to impose stricter regulations in this area, we may only interpret and apply the law as set forth by the general assembly. We, therefore, are constrained to find the county was without authority to enact the ordinance."

The court's opinion cited wording of the state's Clean Indoor Air Act of 1988. This act "shall pre-empt and supersede any local ordinance or rule," concerning smoking in public places such as bars and restaurants.

However, it is not quite as simple as that, as the opinion explained. The act was repealed but with conditions specifying that regulations had to be published before the repeal went into effect. The regulations were eventually published but not before the repeal was itself repealed. Whether a basis for an appeal to the state Supreme Court exists in this legal thicket is a question for Allegheny County's attorneys.

While we hope that an appeal might proceed, the court's ruling does return the issue squarely back into the lap of the Legislature. Clearly, if its members acted decisively in the public interest to ban smoking in public places, these legal arguments would be rendered moot.

As it is, we are left with a decision that is to be lamented by anyone with a sense that this is the 21st century, where the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke are well-documented. For Pennsylvania to remain a smoking stronghold is a certain prescription for adding to the cost of business and killing jobs.

As County Council President Rich Fitzgerald observed, this decision is also an affront to the Home Rule Charter and a rebuff to the idea that the Pittsburgh region -- not Harrisburg -- can set good policies for its own citizens.

If ever there was an occasion that made the argument that Pennsylvanians should have the right to plebiscites to change laws, this Commonwealth Court ruling was it. Will the discredited state Legislature rise to the challenge? Will its members be struck by the shamelessness of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco in bankrolling the legal challenge of the two restaurants that sought to overturn the county ban? Will they listen to Pennsylvanians who are tired of having other people's cigarette smoke in their lungs?

Don't bet on it immediately -- after all, this commonwealth is a graveyard of many progressive reforms -- but a statewide smoking ban is inevitable. Pennsylvania's neighbors are the proof: Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Ohio all have smoking bans. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley signed a smoking ban into law just last week. Even West Virginia, which does not have a statewide ban, allows counties to have bans -- and many do.

Members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly who think of themselves as progressive should take note. This is the tide that the King Canutes of our time vainly set their faces against.