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Gone are the days of free love, free LSD, and freedom to eat whatever you want. After last week's historic decision to make San Francisco the first in the country to ban the sale of cigarettes in pharmacies Walgreens and Rite Aid stores, City Hall isn't stopping there. The Board of Supes also wants to bar you from lighting up in city parks, ATM lines, and common areas of apartment buildings; voted for chain restaurants to post nutritional information on menus; have shunned delicious trans-fats (which is semi-ridiculous since high fructose corn syrup is the real enemy, but that's an entirely different post altogether); charge restaurants a fee for selling sugary sodas (which is good since Diet Coke tastes better); and close down city streets in an effort to get you to participate in mass jazzercise.
Are city leaders trying to invade your personal lives. Sure, but what else is new?
As software engineer Chris Carillo expertly tells the Chronicle, "Next, it'll be if you're fat and eating sugar, you'll get a ticket ... [t]here's crime on the streets, homeless people congregating, a lot of grime. I'd rather see them concentrate on that." (Sing it loud, Chris!)
Do you agree? Do San Franciscans need to be healthier even though the Bay Area is routinely rated as having some of the most in-shape people in the U.S.? Or are we just guinea pigs getting superfluously fit for Newsom's governorship resume?
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I totally agree with Supervisor Daly's legislation to ban smoking in many more areas that I'm more or less forced to walk by as a pedestrian - the City should be in a position to try to curb (enforcement is everything though, no?) the probability of one smoker's cigarette smoke entering the rest of our lungs involuntarily.
I totally disagree with Mayor Newsom's proposal to ban just Walgreens and Rite Aid from selling cigarettes while still allowing Safeway and Costco to sell both Pharmaceuticals and Cigarettes. I'd prefer that the City not try to tell retailers whether or not they can sell legal substances at all - but if they must go down this route, make it fair and ban sales at all stores with a pharmacy, including safeway and costco. Really, this legislation is just stupid.
While cigarettes are bad for your health, something tells me that the City's costs for public drunkenness and the effects of too much booze (dead brain cells, liver failure, etc....) leading to folks becoming a drain on society and living on the streets, cuz no one wants to put with a drunk for too long, are probably higher ... EMT calls, police calls, jails, attorney, court system, etc. and so on ... Maybe booze should be the target, not cigarettes ... as far as legislating the sales of these things. I'm just sayin'.... I know, too many liquor lovers in this town to touch that rail. :)
Let's keep throwing money at drug dealing juveniles though, shall we?
Well naturally, tickets for fatties is the only way to go. It's not like they can run away. But I'm bored that SF politics has descended into a bash the weakest mentality. Go after smokers, go after lardasses who can't keep their greasy mitts off the donuts, go after drivers, go after homeowners, go after restaurants and bars. It's lazy crap like this from both sides that's making this city the big Fail. It's the homeless, crime, and people from Freemont, stupid.
Our government leaders are just fucking stupid. That's all I'm going to say.
mmm... government paternalism... makes me feel all warm and safe inside. I am, afterall, totally incapable of making any decisions for myself, right? I think it makes complete sense for the sf board of supervisors to write legislation to make decisions about how to live my life for me. what's that you say? Eat more veggies? Ewww, but I hate veggies! Oh, alright, but only as long as Chris Daly chews them for me. Yum
Image FTW
Tickets for fatties is win-win.
Luckily we live in a city where politicians stay out of our bedrooms. Unfortunately they think that means we've invited them into our kitchens.
I don't even like soda, but I'm thinking of buying cases of coke, pepsi and mountain dew and handing them out to everyone I see just to protest this. We could have a drink-in in Golden Gate Park... (Although I'll wait for a nice warm day in September. Who's with me?)
Or maybe we could use them to send sugary-drink-grams to Chris Daly at City Hall.... Either way.
I definitely think that the City has gone a bit too far with this legislation. If people want to smoke, they will find a way to get cigarettes! Also, do we really want cops wasting their time ticekting people for smoking on the sidewalk or outside some McDonalds? I dare say that there are more important things that law enforcement in SF should concern itself with...
"Luckily we live in a city where politicians stay out of our bedrooms. Unfortunately they think that means we've invited them into our kitchens."
Well said, mamcart.
And it's not like most of the SF population can even afford this alleged bounty of organic produce that, if you believe city hall, can grow right on city streets.
So it's August 4th and there have been 66 murders so far this year in San Francisco. 104 last year. http://www.sfcrime.blogspot.com/ Maybe that's something to work on instead.
If the San Francisco supervisors want to act all fatherly and care for me, I'd rather they go beat up the guy that tried to grab my ass while I was walking down Geary. Maybe work on some of those "safety" issues.
So if the new smoking band goes into effect, it will be ok to smoke pot and crack on city sidewalks but not cigarettes? It's not like the first two drugs' label of "illegal" stops their public consumption.
And it's not like most of the SF population can even afford this alleged bounty of organic produce that, if you believe city hall, can grow right on city streets.
But we can grow it on our city streets! They're filled with fertilizer from our most gracious hobos.
The laws are ridiculous and differ only in subject matter from the actions of fundamentalist right (porn is bad, sex is for procreation, think about the children!!!!! etc...).
But I don't know if "homeless people congregating" is what I'm worried about either.
I guess it was only a matter of time before the Board became the local extension of the state legislature; only interested in pursuing feel-good/do-good laws and ignoring the large problems (obviously homelessness, crime, drugs in SF). I also can't help but think this kind of politics you get when a city rapidly loses middle-class people and gains rich yuppie snobs (as has happened here for the last 10-15 years or so). This crap gives progressives a bad name. Maybe the city can just levy another payroll tax and give everyone earning over 100K a little mobile bubble so they won't have to endure the terrible habits of their maids, bus drivers, shoe shine boys, waiters, and other "undesirables".
"So it's August 4th and there have been 66 murders so far this year in San Francisco. 104 last year. http://www.sfcrime.blogspot.com/ Maybe that's something to work on instead."
Uh, duh: once they ban everything tasty from stores and restaurants, you won't have any reason to leave the house. Hence, not getting shot. What part of this isn't totally sensible to you?
We're fit because we have to walk to and from work when Muni doesn't come for an hour. Wait... so THATS why Muni doesn't work.
BTW, Diet Coke tastes like something you could wring out of Martina Navaratilova's pants after a three set tie-breaker.
I just took a tour through DFW airport. AMERICANS
ARE FAT. SF government has nothing to worry about in this city.
I'm just not sure banning bad-for-you things in one of the fittest cities in one of the healthiest states will do much to improve the rest of life in SF. Unless their thought was, if we don't have lung cancer, we can sprint away from murderers.
i think i've fallen in love with a commenter.
We're all such fucking idiots. This is the classic smokescreen designed to keep our eye off what is not being done in our name, with our money. Oldest trick in the book and all that. Look douchebags, do something that works for the homeless, round up the gangs, solve a few murders, sort out the transport and leave everyone else alone. I've just written you pricks another check for $5,000, plus you've had years of my property, state, sales and federal taxes. Now go do what I pay you for. Fat chance, I can't even vote.
chris daly is chunky. he should lead by example and shut his mouth. he thinks he can pull it off cause he's tall - but he can't. he's tall and blubbery. matt gonzalez lost a buncha weight and looks even mightier finer than ever. i don't trust overweight politicans who tell me how to be healthier. i just don't.
Anything that makes smoking more inconvenient so that I don't have to walk through a fucking stink cloud to get to work, I am on board with.
But the trans-fat ban, while ignoring High Fructose Corn Syrup, as mentioned above which is far worse because it is in EVERYTHING (Orowheat 100% wheat bread, for fuck's sake), even things that you would never even imagine, is just a stupid smokescreen to make us think the powers that be are doing something for our health, and is akin to the foie gras ban which affects very, very few animals, while KFC/Tyson, et al. lets billions of chickens rot in battery cages and we say nothing.
Bottom line: someone being fat only bothers me if I'm seated next to them on the plane. They want to stuff their maws with big macs, let em, and have fun in the cardiac unit.
Being forced to walk in some asshole's cloud of stink to get to work? Having douchebags smoking outside my apartment? Yes, that negatively impacts me.
Which is why I live in the next county down...
bluecanary - wait until some fatty behind the wheel of an SUV has a heart attack and runs you over. Then when you get to the hospital with your broken leg, you have to wait in line behind said fatty because the heart attack is "higher priority"...
No need to go to DFW airport to see fat people. Just head on over to Concord and sit in the parking lot of Claim Jumper and watch each of the patrons be rolled out after eating 20,000 calories worth of food in one sitting. Compare them with most of the people here in SF and you'll instantly feel better about yourself no matter your size.
Whenever I'm having a "fat day" I just remember the people at Claim Jumper and my self-esteem is boosted beyond belief.
I agree with others, if SF really wants to be progressive, HFCS should be banned before all else.
what's up with picking on fat trannies?
All that I want to know is, and maybe it's mentioned here and I haven't taken the time to read it, why am I getting a "healthy san francisco" surcharge when I buy some items. I think it was at burger meister the other night, there was a $0.51 surcharge added to my bill.
I'm sorry, but shit is expensive enough already. Is this just another money grab or what?
Irritatedly, travin
Travin,
I think Burgermeister does it to recoup the cost of providing health care for their employees, if I recall correctly.
I spend some time in SF parks, and I don't ever recall seeing mobs of smokers chasing down defenseless pedestrians, pinning them down and blowing 2nd hand smoke in their noses. It's outside. If you walked down a street to the park, you probably ingested more carcinogens than you would from the occasional smoker, who you can choose to walk around.
JimBob, well that's understandable, thanks. But as far as I'm concerned they can take the $0.51 off the $13 burger I ordered. Freakin ridiculous.
Hudu,
I have found that the aggressive anti-smokers on this board, like most zealots are immune to such remarks, but good luck with your persuading.
Travin,
Here here. Great burgers but damn!
"Fuck, what are we going to do about this budget deficit? I mean, Christ, we charge people $100 for parking in their own driveways, I think we may have exhausted the parking ticket option."
"Ok, no, wait, I have an idea. I've been watching all these people smoke crack on the streets and thinking about how we can't do anything about it. I mean, they're broke and homeless, they can't pay a ticket. And what are we gonna do, jail them? We can't afford to keep them in our over-filled prisons.
"So I got to thinking about a whole group of people who smoke something that DO have at least a little money. A huge number of them have jobs and homes and a real incentive to pay a ticket - they want to keep their records clean and are afraid of going to jail for not paying a ticket!
"That's right, we ban public smoking! Think about it, it'll take a while for locals to catch on and even when they do, most will probably chance it to avoid having to walk somewhere where smoking is legal. And the tourists and east/south/north bay visitors in for a night or a weekend...my God, we're sitting on a gold mine!"
Too bad all voter-approved costs don't show up on our bills somehow (like healthy SF) - it might make some of us stop and think 2 seconds before voting Yes to implement it. :) Not to say I don't agree that all folks should be able to afford health insurance - more of a commentary on how quickly voters tend to pass any piece of shit proposition on the ballot in San Francisco.
New law to raise money: No farting on Muni metro trains when the air conditioning fails to work (which is becoming more common on the trains).
Anyone remember the funny stickers that passengers put on the old Boeing metro trains during the meltdown? Instead of "hold on sudden stops necessary," it was something like "hold on to your gas."
Funny how a cokehead like Newsom wants to ban something as innocuous as Coca-Cola.
jlantsberger has it absolutely 100% correct.
The real reason for this BS is that there is no revenue stream in fighting crime or cleaning shit, but there are massive salary hikes for City Hall PR goons that come from instituting fees and fines for everything other than sleeping and breathing for otherwise law-abiding citizens.
SF Supes went too far 8 years ago. This is just absurd, but bound to happen when WE vote to have them (the politicians) run our health care system.
I'm very very very glad to see a bunch of people disagreeing with The Supes' latest foray into lunacy. BUT, I have to ask you all this:
Why do we keep voting these self-serving, self-righteous buffoons into office?