March 13, 2007
Thank You For Smoking
If you ever find yourself in Belmont and want to light up a cigarette, here's a word of advice: don't. Thanks to a new resolution being considered to fight second-hand smoke, the city will be the toughest on smoking anywhere. Smoking in company cars? Nope. Smoking on the sidewalk? Fuhgeddaboutit. Same with your apartment and even your home if one of your neighbors complains. If you do get caught, the anti-Smoking SWAT Team will come and get you and send you to a smoking reeducation camp where they will forcibly keep your eyes open Clockwork Orange style and make you watch the movie about the Marlboro Man until you see the evils of smoking.
The ordinance, however, isn't going down easily. Many people, including non-smokers, are thinking the measure is a little too harsh. Says a flak for the California Apartment Association, “we are in no way advocates of smoking, but we don't feel the government should be telling individuals what they should do in their homes or telling landlords ... what should be going on in their units.'' The mayor, Coralin Feierbach, says she's been receiving death threats and the occasional picture of Nazis in her e-mail.
Tonight, the Belmont City Council will have a hearing on all this, something that is expected to be a hoot and a half. Not all of the parameters have been set up so it could be as draconian as no smoking anywhere outdoors to just no smoking during certain events. The whole no smoking in your home thing could also be voted down.
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How many Nazi's other than that dumb broad live there? Commie old bag!
I support banning smoking in front of doors of buildings, etc, because those of us who are nonsmokers and allergic to the smoke often have to walk through a cloud of smoke to get into restaurants, stores, and public buildings. And besides that, every time a door opens and closes, a gust of cigarette-smoke-laden air is blown into those businesses, making the interior suddenly smokey, too.
The same goes for smoking in apartment buildings, etc. While I respect that everyone should be able to make their own decisions about smoking in their own apartments, when it starts to effect the hallways and apartments around them, that's not okay. Many landlords refuse to get involved in those situations, and so those of us who don't want to breathe in smoke are left without recourse, since we can't leave our lease, and can't control the leases of those around us. Sure, we could move...but at the end of the lease. And why should we have to live with someone else's bad health choice affecting our own health?! So, I think that it'd be good to ban smoking in public areas outside within 20 feet of a door.
And inside apartment buildings, it'd be nice if the city fined people who refuse to smoke-proof their apartments in a way that doesn't allow smoke into general-use hallways and other apartments (maybe a system where people get a warning, then a small fine, then escalating fines).
The bottom line is that nonsmokers shouldn't be subjected to other people's health hazards without their consent. I would even go so far as to say that smoking inside the home should be considered child abuse. A responsible smoker would go outside to smoke so as not to subject his/her kids to 2nd hand smoke...and yet I know plenty of people who still smoke indoors, exposing their kids to it!
I'll keep that in mind RhinestoneGrrl the next time I take in a huge lungful of your car's exhaust while I ride my bike to work.
It's a slippery slope. What's next? No cooking with transfat allowed in apartment buildings?
This whole BS about public smoking in private vehicles, residences, and large open outdoor spaces like beaches is completely hypocritical and silly as long as there are 200 million vehicles belching out toxic exhaust in this country AND as long as cigs are legal.
Instead of further restricting individual liberties, how about advocating for greater government regulation of the manufacturers of these products? Nah, it's just easier to limit the people's rights rather than corporate rights, eh?
Why do governments play games like these?
The state or the feds should just ban tobacco and be done with it.
(and legalize pot, too, since everyone seems to want that)
I reject anti-smoking hysteria. There is a common belief emerging lately that smelling or even seeing smoke constitutes a danger. No one -literally- has gotten cancer from secondhand smoke by waiting for a bus or walking by smoke on the sidewalk or having smoke blow in to a restaurant. Those instances, while annoying, should not be illegal. If someone smokes in those instances or you have a neighbor whose smoke blows into your house, let them know. If they don't care to move away from you, then they a jerk- not a criminal. Not everything needs to be the object of legislation.
funny, dennis leary had a bit about this exact kind of scenario way back on his "no cure for cancer" cd. more or less that eventually smoking in private residences would be banned. i'm a non-smoker and not at all libertarian, more a progressive dem. but this strikes me as overreaching.
I'd also like to propose a ban on alcohol, teenagers, cars, meat, loud stereos, cell phones, soft drinks, fried foods of any kind, any sort of nuts, pets, or other things that anybody could be allergic too, and everything else that could even remotely annoy or harm anyone such as sharp objects like sewing needles. In fact, putting everyone in the country into isolated plastic pods that allow them no contact with anyone else would work really well, it would also cut down on crime and littering. Ahh, nothing like living in a utopia of freedom and happiness.
i lived in an apartment once where the people next door sat out on their porch and smoke, they didn't want to fill up their own place with smoke. instead, they filled up mine. i couldn't open my bathroom window because my bathroom (and bedroom to which it was attached) would fill up with smoke every time they went outside to smoke - which included a 6am wake up smoke, a 10pm before bed smoke and the more than occasional middle of the night smoke. i wished at the time there was something i could do but i had no rights. had to keep my back sliding glass door (off the kitchen) and my bathroom window shut at all times. it sucked when the weather was warm, it sucked when i wanted some fresh air, it just sucked. so, i know it sounds crazy, but i support non-smokers having some rights to fresh air in their own apartments. imho, smoke in your apartment but keep the damn doors/windows shut and fill your own place with smoke.
An alternative to smoking bans
If the public was honestly and truthfully informed about the effects of second-hand smoke, there would be fewer no-smoking laws in this country.
There has never been a single study showing that exposure to the low levels of smoke found in bars and restaurants with decent modern ventilation and filtration systems kills or harms anyone.
As to the annoyance of smoking, a compromise between smokers and non-smokers can be reached, through setting a quality standard and the use of modern ventilation technology.
Air ventilation can easily create a comfortable environment that removes not just passive smoke, but also and especially the potentially serious contaminants that are independent from smoking.
Thomas Laprade
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Smokers are just "f------" that it's p.c. to discriminate against.
To paraphrase Patti Smith, I'm a smoking n-----.
edited for language