NYC outdoor smoking ban

You all very well may have talked about this before, but New York City's new smoking ban went into effect yesterday:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/23/new.york.smoking.ban/index.html

I'm a smoker, and I really have no problem not being able to light up in restaurants, bars, etc. I don't have a problem with a ban at local beaches. I don't litter - I always make sure I'm near an ashtray and have one in my car so I'm not throwing butts out the window.

But at this point, it's getting ridiculous. In Central Park, for instance, why can't you put up a few "smoking stations" that are far enough off the beaten path that nonsmokers can avoid them?

 

New York is hardly the first to ban smoking in parks. My Chicago 'burb, not exactly flaming liberal central, has such a ban, which is why during kids' baseball and softball games you see parents retiring to the curb across the street for a mid-game smoke.

The issue -- to me, anyway -- is the littering, though being next to a smoker at a park sucks, too. So many smokers who would otherwise never throw garbage on the ground seem to have no compunction doing that with their spent cigarettes.

Chicago has banned smoking at beaches and parks since 2007, after a one-day beach cleanup found hundreds of thousands of butts. By the way, the city also bans feeding birds, so there isn't more bird poop to foul beaches and force e coli-related closures.

 

As long as smokers keep paying their increasing taxes, they'll be pushed out of public places.

 

They won't set up stations because that means there will be employees -- at risk of inhaling second-hand smoke -- that have to patrol them, and clean them.

 

I would rather that than sit next to someone on a bus for a half an hour with that on their breath. Talk about a wave of nausea.

 

Anyone who can't deal with someone smoking outside is just an obnoxious jerk. It's OUTSIDE. The smoke dissipates in .5 seconds. Fucking walk around the smoker in question. Seriously, if you're close enough to have to inhale it, you're walking too close to the smoker in the first place and you're probably invading their personal space.

 

Funny, they'll outlaw where you can smoke but they'll never outlaw the cigarettes. The lesson to be learned here, kids, is that the difference between tobacco users and tobacco makers is lobbyists. If its so bad for you (and I smoked a pack a day for 17 years so I'm well aware of what it does to you), fucking prohibit it altogether. But we couldn't do that because a few families in Virginia and Kentucky would lose their livelihood. Tough shit.

 

Finally, NYC will have pristine air.

 

Between the urine, vomit and stale water smell in some areas cigarette smoke is the least of your worries.

 

just smoke thoe E-cigarettes. No second-hand smoke and you still get the nicotine you crave.