Sarah Palin Quits
Beware of Blind, Gargantuan Cyclists Roaming City Streets
Photo du Jour 448
Happy 4th of July!
SFist Drinks: The Rio Grande Cocktail at 15 Romolo
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.
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.
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?
@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.
The most offensive thing in this thread of comments, however, is clearly the notion that Rincon Hill is a "neighborhood".
Mean!
Remember when smoking was banned from bars and most supporters said, "Quit yer bitching, smokers...you can still smoke outside! No one's making that illegal."?
Well, that option didn't last too long.
@bluecanary - bigotted jackass much?
Please @Chris Daly - can you sponsor some legislation banning sanctimony in places where it's not wanted? Like on my Internets?
kthxbi
not liking smoke in my face = bigot? Um, okay.
@ erielhonan: hyperbole much?
No, attributing the worst stereotypical behavior to an entire class of people (and believing it to be true too!) is bigotry. Saying "that smoker is being a jerk with his smoke" is very different than saying "all smokers are always jerks with their smoke". The 2nd of which you have said, repeatedly.
If I were a black Muslim smoker you'd probably think that I'd steal your bike, blow up your building, AND ruin your dinner (all while being nattily dressed in a dark suit, bowtie, and thick-rimmed glasses, mind you).
/Final Call
Well, bluecanary, perhaps it's not bigotry, per se. But the following is not terribly Christian on your part:
"So stick a pack of smokes up your ass, all you filthy bastards, and die, die painfully of lung cancer and heart disease."
A ban on dogs would clean this town up way more than further smoking bans. The piss smell lingers a lot longer than the smoke smell... like all fucking summer long until it rains.
It's too bad that all dog owners are such inconsiderate assholes. (I find "considerate dog owner" to be an oxymoron.)
..Except of course, bluecanary.. who i'm sure is a paragon of class and cosmopolitan flair, and carefully scrubs down, disinfects, and blow dries each puddle her pups leave about as her easily offended sense of smell would certainly not tolerate such rude and selfish behavior.
"CHRISTIAN" Who in hell EVER said I was Christian? Let me know and I'll hunt them down and choke them with a bible.
"not very Christian."
*snorts, laughs*
And arielhonan, you might want to get yourself a dictionary, because that's not the definition of bigotry that I've heard.
bigotry: stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.
I have complete tolerance for all creeds, beliefs, and opinions. Is "smoking" a creed, belief or opinion? No. It's an action. Believe what you want, have whatever opinion you want, just keep your damn smoke off me.
Bluecanary:
Everything we do affects others and a lot of time we inconvenience others. Tell you what, I'm real tired of very overweight people sitting next to me on busses, being too big for one seat, and squishing me into mine. You back a ban on them being on busses and I'll back this ban.
Or we could let minor inconveniences go and try to focus on bigger issues.
Rincon Hill was a neighborhood long before most of the "nabes" in this little city.
http://www.spur.org/documents/030101_article_02.shtm
On second though, we should just ban the smoking and sale of cigarettes state wide and watch what happens to the programs the tobacco tax helps fund.
You can't really target smokers as a source of revenue and try to get rid of them at the same time, can you?
ban gasoline too .. what the heck. :)
"Let me know and I'll hunt them down and choke them with a bible." Read your definition of bigot.
According to Wikipedia - a bigot is a person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles, or identities differing from his or her own, and bigotry is the corresponding state of mind.
Lifestyle is the key word here.
According to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - obstinate and unreasoning attachment of one's own belief and opinions, with narrow-minded intolerance of beliefs opposed to them.
Yep, that fits too.
But WAIT - I just realized that you are a troll! I'm getting slow on the uptake in my advanced, oxygen-deprived age.
Wow, I'm getting really upset here. Don't these people realize how important it is that I shit in the street? I mean, look at this city. It's almost impossible to find a place with a publically available bathroom. Am I supposed to just do it at home? Take two buses to get home whenever I feel the intense and deep need to relieve myself?
I mean, I just ate two burritos here. I obviously have a legitimate and dire need to do this in public. And with all that extra hot salsa I don't think that just taking it 20 feet away is really going to be possible.
Plus, I'm super-considerate! Whenever I'm about to drop my pants I always quickly ask the person standing closest to me if it's ok while my pants are only at my knees. I mean, if anyone actually bothers to say "Uh, no, please don't do that" I'll still usually just go ahead and do it or at least give them a dirty look indicating that it really wasn't a choice, but a request for them to validate me. Besides, while I wouldn't do it inside a restaurant (c'mon... health code makes it illegal; but in the middle of a concert it's still ok right? I don't want to have to leave) as long as I'm at my outside table that still counts as being outdoors enough to make it ok. I mean, it's not like it could bother you. You're all the way over at the next table. That's gotta be a whole foot away.
I mean, sure I leave my soiled toilet paper in the gutter or on the sidewalk afterwards. Do you really expect me to pick it up? I just threw it on the ground to get rid of it. Of course it's not real trash... just ignore it.
How about this... we can compromise. I'll no longer stop, drop, and then roll on down the block if you guys agree to stop smoking right in front of building entrances or at the next table over at a restaurant.
When I was in college two of the years I spent living in the dorms were in a first-floor room right next to the back porch. People would often congregate out there to smoke even though it was banned by the dorm to smoke there and the second year the 20' rule was put into effect. Of course, nobody ever followed it. Even in nice weather people would be almost constantly smoking out there where it would blow directly into my windows. Considering they didn't turn on the AC until it was already really hot (not in SF mind you) I had little recourse, but to leave my window open. Which meant that the place I lived in by myself was constantly filled with other people's smoke to a very noticeable degree.
You want to say smoking right outside a building doesn't bother people? When it comes into my home is definitely crossing the line.
Welll, Chris said it, it's illegal to crap in the streets. So I'm sure the BOS willl make it a high priority to bust the people who do. Right?
Right?
If not, you can expect a similar level of enforcement of this one, so smokers, don't really worry about it. But I agree, strict enforcement of the no-pooing rule would be most welcome. The root cause of crap on the streets is people (or dogs) taking a crap on the streets.
*sigh* like I've said before, I couldn't care less what someone's "lifestyle" preference is, provided it doesn't impinge on MY lifestyle, i.e., the right to breathe air that doesn't reek of your cigarette smoke. Your freedom ends when it starts to impede on mine. Do you get it or are you really this dense?
And jlantsberger: you KNOW I'm with you on the ban on fatties whose ass creeps over onto the seat you pay for.
Thank god for erielhonan, who apparently shares the same physical nonexistent space that I do being a smoker who isn't following bluecanary around trying to run his/her life with our precious smoke. We are oxymorons, strange beings from another planet apparently. Since power plants, many industries, and cars all contribute to the toxicity of the air, should we ban all them too, just so bluecanary can have pure oxygen? Or should we grow the fuck up and realize that many people, often with opposing interests, live in this city, and trying to legislate away the rights of others you don't agree with is fascist? Please move to the sticks, where other people's habits won't bother you.
As bluecanary says you don't have a right to smoke when you start infringing on other people. Frankly, you don't have a right to smoke in the first place.
As far as enforcement goes, think of it as a statement of common sense and polite public behavior. It won't affect the people currently being considerate smokers who realize that they need to keep their deadly habit to themselves and act in a suitable fashion already. I may not approve of smoking, but if they're being polite about it and keeping it to themselves, I don't have any complaints nor do I have any right to complain.
It's the other people who feel that because they chose to get themselves addicted to a drug that they have the right to feed their addiction whenever it suits them irregardless of the people around them and how they're harming them. Their sense of entitlement and inability to simply act in a polite and responsible fashion is where the problem stems from here.
What makes more sense: getting up in arms about this and bitching and complaining that someone is trying to take your precious right to bother others away or just moving away from the front of buildings (because walking a few feet out of politeness will kill you) and respecting that other people don't want to breathe in your carcinogenic smoke when they're coming and going from buildings and sitting around eating.
Realizing that other people with opposing interests live in this city is right. The smokers are failing to live up to their end of that bargain and then whining because they're being asked to respect others.
Oh, and as bluecanary said: pick up your cigarette butts. It's trash just like anything else you throw in the street. Cigarettes are not somehow magically immune from being litter.
You people are still at it with this? I thought I resolved it once in for all by telling you all to STFU nyah nyah yr wrong I'm right your very existence is offensive to my sense of smell anger vitriol brimstone rough anal sex one nation under Allah amen? (I think that's what I said).
I got one word for all you anti-cigarette people - medical marijuana. If people can smoke that shit outdoors on the sidewalk then I can smoke cigarettes. Plus, everything else I said. Case closed. Now fuck off.
Having just returned to San Francisco, after a trip to Reno, I love the anti-smoking laws here.
I don't hate smokers, I don't feel they should be hung out to dry, I am not afraid of getting cancer from second hand smoke.
I have asthma. My children have asthma. Cigarette smoke is the greatest trigger for my asthma that I have not control over that other humans do have control over.
This could kill me tomorrow.
Please think of others.
I usually smoke a cigarette if I have an asthma attack and no inhaler nearby. Works pretty well.
Also, if the litter is what annoys people, then just nab/fine smokers for throwing butts in the street. Seriously. that would be fine with me. I always threw my butts in the trash can. Still though, I gotta stand my ground on no to the smoking ban in front of non-residential buildings. You may be for it right now, but when your superior at work can't find a place to take a smoke break, they will get cranky very very fast, and your workday will turn into hell.
I feel like when you walk outside into the public domain, things are rougher, not perfect, and generally less restrictive. I like that aspect about our public spaces. I can play guitar outside, and while someone may complain, hey! public space! just as my music might be noise pollution to some, it may be music to other. Cigarettes are smelly to some, enjoyable to others. I really enjoy the brief moments of second hand smoke I get on the street. Call me crazy if you want, but these things are really quite subjective. Not everyone hates the outdoor smokers.
just be happy this isn't the middle ages anymore when people would just throw shit out their windows onto the sidewalk/street.
www.snuscamel.com
I don't smoke. I think these overarching smoking bans are damn ridiculous. It's an abuse of power. No smoking indoors? I understand that because it's a labor/working conditions issue for waitresses, bartenders, etc. But not smoking outdoors? Outdoors? Come on. Get a grip. Stop wasting our time with crap legislation like this put forward by people with chips on their shoulders. Solve some real problems and don't create new ones.