July 16, 2008
Cough, Cough, Says Daly: New Cigarette Ban Introduced
The entertaining/controversial Chris Daly, who seems a bit quiet as of late, has a new target now: wafts of cigarette smoke. We're told that his latest push of legislation "calls for a smoking ban outside of restaurants, in waiting areas, within 20 feet of nonresidential buildings," and in common areas of apartment buildings. That is to say, you might have to look elsewhere to spark up that Capri or Virgina Slim while eating out. The Board of Supervisors will vote on the measure come Thursday.
Oh, and we're also told that this is the 59th piece of restaurant-related legislation pushed in 2008.
Also, yes, it's commendable of Daly to introduce yet another ban on rich, smooth, satisfying cigarettes. It's great. And keeps us healthy. Or whatever. If it passes, cool; if not, meh. Are you as chock-full of chic insouciance when it comes to this proposed ban as well? Or do you demand to get your fix in between bites at Orson? [Curbed, via ABC7]
Image of the "pathology of lung showing centrilobular emphysema characteristic of smoking. Closeup of fixed, cut surface shows multiple cavities lined by heavy black carbon deposits. (CDC/Dr. Edwin P. Ewing, Jr., 1973)": Wikicommons
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Another fucking retarded, unenforcible piece of nannying by everyone's favorite smurfhole. Please die soon.
Well, I would ask Mr. Daly to go to Jameth's flickr page and see all the pooping on the streets going on in his district, and mayyyybe he should work on that one first...?
Would have been the first post but it took me an extra 5 minutes to walk the 20 feet back to the coffee shop door. Damned emphysema.
who cares
The TL's got the best deal for crack, and that aint going away on any vote yall.
That cake looks yummers. Are those sultanas? But Chris Daly still deserves to be grudge-fucked round the back of Safeway for this.
Chris Daly and Gavin Newsom should stop legislating for headlines and start doing the things that make a city run the way it ought to. What a circus.
If we replace the word "smoking" with "shitting" I'd be with this in a nicotine-induced-skipping heartbeat.
Amen appetite! There are much better things for them to worry about. But w/ board of supes that also has Alioto-Pier (who banned smoking in parks, I believe) this will likely pass... and it will kill Amber.
Amen SUpervisor Daly ... all of the public open spaces near office buildings in the Rincon Hill neighborhood seem to be smoker galleries instead of park-like spaces for folks to have a seat, read a book and otherwise enjoy the space. I'd like the building owners to be charged with having their security folks to keep smokers out of those public areas .... the public didn't allow the building developers to add more square footage to pocket more cash for nothing.
I read that the Mayor wants to maybe ban sales of cigarettes at drug stores - I totally disagree with that one. Safeway can sell Marlboro but Walgreens cannot? That's B.S. ... sorry, but I don't see the benefit to San Franciscans in general there. That's just limiting freedoms of businesses for no good outcome really.
A+ for Daly, F for Newsom on their respective smoking proposals.
Every single square foot of public space in Rincon Hill is occupied by someone smoking? All the time? You soundeth like an exaggerator.
because the fumes produced by the cars and buses even fewer feet away are perfectly healthy ... never mind the albeit nontoxic but decidedly less pleasant odor of human urine. I live in Oakland, and while Oakland has more people killed, San Francisco's got a lot more public peeing going on, as far as my reduced-sense-of-smell-due-to-smoking-cigarettes can tell.
re: Newsom's proposal:
For shame! Walgreen's got the best retail deal on American Spirits in the area! 2 packs for $8.39.
Unenforceable much?
So basically if you smoke you have to walk in the street, which is also illegal. In SOMA, Financial District, and a few other areas you are pretty much ALWAYS within 20 feet of a commercial building.
I don't like to break the law, but I love smoking more than just about anything. So this law basically makes me a criminal for walking down the street.
How can this be enforced? Will homeless be held to the same law?
Baahhhh, frustration with civilization growwwing.
When I say "all of the public open space," I'm referring to the outdoor spots on this map:
http://www.sfgate.com/maps/cityspaces/
Not exagerrating ... just not writing academic journals on here... :)
Get a hobby that doesn't forcefully negatively impact the health of others
They want to make it the responsibility of the restaurant owners and workers to enforce this. Apparently if you are smoking outside a restaurant, they are supposed to remind you of the law and request that you move. That's the laughable part.
They attack an easy target (smokers) then pick on another easy target (businesses who are held to ransom by the city) and expect them to enforce their stupid rules. It's rule without responsibility. I just what to kick Daily as hard as I can in the balls every time something like this comes out of his ugly little mouth.
About time SF caught up with the more enlightened parts of the Bay Area. Hey fizzandpop - go have another smoke and try to relax - the veins on your forehead look like they're about ready to pop.
If stupidity doesn't make you angry, then....
Word Fizzandpop.
Holy crap. I just quit smoking, but I have nothing against the smoke. Where the hell are smokers supposed to go smoke now?
"I just what to kick Daily as hard as I can in the balls every time something like this comes out of his ugly little mouth."
Me too. I guess it's fortunate for us both that we can't, because our legs would be very, very tired.
Come now. Overall, Daly is a good guy, a great aesthetic for SF.
largo01:
Clearly you should smoke at home...oh wait, most people rent here, so you can't. Uhm...obviously you need to go to the Sunset to smoke. Until, of course, smoking is banned in front of residential buildings as well, which is fine, because it's bad for your health and therefore the government should be able to keep you from doing it.
Calling entrepreneurs .... create a fishbowly head decoration for the smokers to keep their smoke out of everybody else's lungs.
I will have respect for smoking bans when they start banning car exhaust, loud talking, and smelling like pee in public. The first is actually worse to breath than second hand cigarette smoke, the 2nd caused inordinate stress to ambient bystanders, and as for the 3rd... really which is worse for you - second hand smoke or second hand scuzz? You decide.
Man, I only smoke on my porch and in the smoking place at Hemlock, but this (and some of the comments here) make me want to smoke in every public place I can. A lot. with lots of people nearby.
OrangeDrink: just wait until bluecanary comments....
Thanks for the ink, SFist.
Just for some of your commenter's information, I do advocate decreased vehicle emmissions. I authored 2004 Proposition I to get the heaviest polluting MUNI buses off our streets. I have served for 7 years at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District -- pushing stronger regulation of stationary sources of pollution (mobile sources are regulated by State government).
Oh, and I ride a bike.
@JimBobJoe: nothing much to add that RinconHill hasn't already addressed. There is nothing I hate worse than being forced inside the coffee shop because some asshole insists on sitting down next to me and lighting up his fucking stink stick. Well, okay, I hate walking behind these inconsiderate fucks on my way to work.
Smokers want to get angry about being forced to keep their fucking stink to themselves? They've got nothing on my pissed-offness when it comes to this subject. Guess what? Your freedom ends when it begins to impinge on the freedom of others around you.
So stick a pack of smokes up your ass, all you filthy bastards, and die, die painfully of lung cancer and heart disease.
I fully support this. Frankly it mainly just seems like angry smokers who tend to oppose this sort of thing. Face it, you're hurting everyone else and being amazingly inconsiderate. If smokers had the slightest respect for others to smoke where it didn't impact everyone else (e.g. standing right outside the doors of a building just makes everyone walk past you and get a good second-hand puff) this sort of thing wouldn't even come up.
You want the real solution? Have some common courtesy and realize that the majority of people don't smoke, don't want to be around it, and shouldn't have to be.
Belgand:You want the real solution? Have some common courtesy and realize that the majority of people don't smoke, don't want to be around it, and shouldn't have to be
Well, maybe that hypothesis of yours should be tested. Put it to a vote. I certainly can't say for a fact what the majority of people want, and I doubt you do either. I'd honestly prefer to see these nanny laws passed via a popular vote, than supervisorial (or in Oakland's case, city council) fiat.
And I'm glad that Mr. Daly is hard at work trying to reduce emissions. However, I'm sure there are plenty of SF voters that would love to see him address the public urination (and defecation) problem as well ... as per that other thread.
Mr Daly, thank you for dropping by. Do you have any reply to our second commenter, binky?
I typically don't respond to the more gratuitous stuff, but I am comfortable saying that I have put a great deal of energy into making more resources available to homeless people -- whether that be affordable housing opportunities, mental health and substance abuse services, basic health care, as well as places to get of the street and use the bathroom.
Maybe "binky" doesn't realize that it is already illegal to defecate within 20 feet of an entrance to a commercial building (not to mention anywhere else in public).
Yeah Chris is cool and doing good and all, but nobody cleans up the feces on my block, we have to pick it up; also clean up blood needles junkie outfits and cum filled condoms. focus on feces not smoking bans
thanks
jlantsberger: Exactly. You said what I was going to say but didn't. There are plenty of people who smoke, and given that statistic, I think laws need to be equitable to both smokers and non-smokers. We did away with indoor smoking. What more do you want? We live in a city. so... please explain to me where I can smoke that isn't in front of a restaurant/non-residential building. We live in a city that has quite a mass of restaurants. Honestly, if you are at work in downtown, and you have to take a smoke break, where will you do it? Where?! I don't think it is feasible to drive or ride a bike all the way out to the Sunset where it is just residential buildings. For you bar goers: I think this is just asking for people in the lower haight to take their smoke breaks to the middle of the street. That's about 20 feet, right?
Let's be honest, this law is not very equitable. It is quite one-sided. And talk all you want about the health of non-smokers, but this isn't really about health. It is about living in a perfect aesthetic world. Now that all those smokers have to congregate outside of buildings, you want to take away that space too. This is the type of thinking I've come to despise from the suburbs, who bus their homeless to the city instead of trying to help them. I was rather pleased with the indoor ban, but I don't see how spreading the zone of non-smoking is going to make the situation better. There is only a marginal marginal benefit to banning smoking in front of non-residential buildings, and contrasted with the negative effects on a large populous of smokers, this law is not equitable and just.
@Chris Daly -
I contend that public filth is not at all a gratuitous topic. When people shit right in front of your residence door, as has happened to me more than once, it's serious business.
You are so concerned about the slight chance that my smoking might cause cancer in someone else when they are 80. I am more concerned about the squalid conditions of the inner Mission, with gangs, drugs, rampant homelessness and the associated trash and human waste, and, oh yeah, two incidents of extreme violence within a block of my residence in the past week.
First things first, sir. If you think that people complaining about human shit on the streets is gratuitous, I urge you to reassess the issues in front of San Francisco government. We need more cops and better social services, and less ink on what ultimately is a comfort issue with a small public health hook (in proportion to the number of drug addicts going insane & dying on the streets?).
/I'm sorry if the word 'shit' offends as non-PC. "Colonic by-product" just doesn't have the same ring though.
I'm not worried about getting cancer. It just stinks and makes my food taste like shit. And the butts are LITTER (which no smoker seems to understand at all) that wind up polluting our environment.
I highly doubt I'm going to get cancer by sitting next to some douchebag at an outdoor cafe for 20 minutes. It's the smell that's offensive. Maybe you don't care that you reek, but I prefer not to smell nasty.
Where can a poor smoker smoke? How about nowhere?
Chris Daly:Maybe "binky" doesn't realize that it is already illegal to defecate within 20 feet of an entrance to a commercial building (not to mention anywhere else in public)
Brock, please let your pals at the SF Weekly, or ex-pals, or whatever, know, that Chris Daly does indeed have a sense of humor.
@bluecanary
you are confusing 'smoker' with 'inconsiderate jerk'. I don't smoke where it's not wanted, like in a restaurant or in your living room.
If legislating considerate behavior is your issue, then let's widen the frame. Is it considerate for us to let other city residents sleep on the street when there's plenty of money in the community to give them beds? Is it considerate to allow sections of town be dominated by violent gangs and hampered by poor educational services? What do we do about that?
Stuff your sanctimony in a sock, stop painting all smokers with the same brush, and stop putting your comfort (or encouraging the city government to do so) on a higher level than other people's much more dire circumstances.
(ex-pals? oh no, what have you head?!)
i'm sure they know that already.
Personally I don't mind congregations of smokers outside of buildings...I can see them and avoid them. My problem is people smoking as they walk along sidewalks. Nothing worse than walking somewhere and the douchewhistle in front of you tilts his head slightly behind him and blows a big cloud of nasty fucking P-funk smoke in your face. Sup. Daly, will you pardon me when I eventually sucker-punch one of these assholes in the back of the neck?
"focus on feces"
You should start an organization to combat public filth, and I think that should be its name. Or maybe Focus on the Feces. The newsletter could be called Feces Focus.
i'd buy a copy of Feces Focus for sure.
How about "Feces in Focus", since it dovetails into Jameth's project? And it's acronym would be FiF (as in, "I take the fif'").
Obviously someone who is "so considerate" (and frankly I find "considerate smoker" to be a complete oxymoron) that they would NEVER smoke anywhere it would offend people will not be affected by this legislation.
Would it make you feel better to call it "Ban on inconsiderate assholes?" rather than a ban on smoking?
And it's "not wanted" far more places than my living room or "in" a restaurant. Hence the legislation.
Doesn't Daly smoke cigars at the same residence he bought below market rate prior to voting himself an enormous -- and BMR-disqualifying -- raise? It stands to reason that he'd smoke cigars, given that he met his foulmouthed wife at a rally in Cuba.
If it pisses him off, fuck it. I'm going to start smoking. And goddamn, do I love that he's both termed out and unelectable.