I'm sorry, but this chaps my little hide. Now listen. I understand that smoking causes cancer and heart disease. I think it would be better for all of our health if nobody smoked. I am all for banning smoking inside bars, restaurants, airplanes, movie theatres, buses, subways, malls, etc. But unless our government decides to make it illegal altogether to smoke cigarettes (and starts doing something about all of the pollution that enters our atmosphere every single day due to the industries and corporations that continue to chug out emissions unregulated), nobody better tell me that I can't smoke while walking on a public sidewalk.
The Associated Press reported Aug. 26 that the Dublin, Calif., City Council has given a preliminary nod to a local ordinance that declares secondhand smoke a "public nuisance." The move makes it easier for residents to take obnoxious smokers to small-claims court, where they can seek damages of up to $7,500."We have to legislate civility at times," said Councilwoman Kasie Hildenbrand. The state of Utah and the city of Calabasas, Calif., already have secondhand-smoke nuisance laws on the books.
Under the law, smoking would still be permitted in private homes and backyards, and police would not be empowered to cite residents for nuisance smoking.
Do you know how F'ing irate I would be if someone took me to small claims court for smoking in public and sued me for $7,500 for magically activating their right to be a sanctimonious, moneygrubbing A-hole? It would not be pretty.
At this point I think it is appropriate to admit that here in NY, I get dirty looks and shitty gestures all the time, simply because I am a smoker. I have had people downright order me to put my cigarette out in a public place or say things like "you shouldn't be smoking." My canned responses are, "you shouldn't be discriminating" or "mind your own business."
The worst part is that I know I need to quit. I've been smoking since the 9th grade when I liked to stand on the corner outside of Santa Monica High School with my goth-surfer friends (yes, there is such a thing in California) drinking half-coffee, half-hot chocolate from the AM/PM. Camel filters just went so well, made me feel so cool. Smoking made me feel like I fit in with all the older girls who my boyfriend knew, made me not feel so young and dumbfaced. If I had a cigarette, I could pretend to be like people who I thought were cooler than me.
That illusion ended many years ago, and I am left with an addiction to something that I think used to be fun, and still is sometimes, but is mainly just a burden that I wish I could unchain myself from.
Despite all of this. Despite firsthand addiction and education in the realm of tobacco litigation, I do not think it is okay to discriminate against people who smoke. I wish I could say that the answer is better education. And it is - getting literature and public cessation programs out there. But I think that there is a degree to which - as long as smoking is made to look cool and harmless - teenagers are going to start smoking. It's a great battle to stop tobacco companies from appealing to the youth. The only answer is to plant the seed in a person's conscience that they need to quit. For themselves. For their loved ones. And in defiance of an industry that has taken so many lives and billions out of the wallets of those victims. I know it is inflammatory (NPI) and controversial to call smokers "victims," but as a smoker, and also as someone who has seen the energy and capitol that is invested in the defense against that exact statement, I assure you that categorization comes from a balanced perspective. For all the money that I have shelled out to Big Tobacco over the years, I will never get anything good back. I may even get something really goddamn bad in return. As a person who has a lot of confidence in my ability to shape my own fate, I hate to admit it, but it is only %50 about an individual's decision to quit, while the other 50% is fighting an addiction that is unfuckingbelievably difficult to overcome. And since I didn't create cigarettes, the only thing I know about why that is, is because someone else created them to be that way. Smoking isn't just about being low-class or too pathetic and lacking in common willpower to quit.
Nonetheless, anyone who has read this blog knows that I am very wary of legislating morality or civility as it is defined by people who lobby for prohibitive laws that relate to personal consumption or behavior that has virtually no adverse affect on any person other than the person performing the act. No one can tell me that if a person walks past me, or even stands beside me for an entire 5 minutes, and is "forced" to inhale my secondhand smoke, that it is offensive enough or harmful enough that anyone should be entitled to sue me for any amount, much less $7,500. Not as long as we aren't allowed to sue industrial polluters, the oil industry and individuals who drive motor vehicles for putting the majority of the carbon monoxide in our air. There's another thing: the idea of someone who drives a car that consumes massive amounts of oil and spits out emissions, having the nerve to tell me to stop blowing tobacco smoke into the sky, makes me want to kick that person in the crotch.
Posted by Maria at August 30, 2006 09:19 PM | TrackBackA-fucking-men. You took me to church, sister.
Posted by: jen at September 1, 2006 12:01 AMUtah?
hahaha..wow I could name like a million annoying things these people do and what's that crazy cult thing they have? Oh yeah the Mormons. Like those people arent' annoying knocking on your front door dressed in white shirts and black ties. I just LOVE those guys on their little bikes and not drinking caffeine. If you don't drink caffeine I think something is wrong with you anyway.
So hey don't smoke in Utah but marry as many people as you want and have like 20 kids...it's all good..haha.
Posted by: Sandy at September 2, 2006 04:58 AMOh wait..I think I got my cults mixed up..was I thinking of Jehovah witnesses and the white shirt and black ties? Crap..I think I was but..the Mormons are nutty as fruitcaskes too. They don't come to your house do they?
I haven't had enough coffee just yet.
Jason works with a Mormon though and he's from UTAH. Still can't figure out why a Mormon guy would want to join the military but anyhoo...those folks don't do anything bad out there in Utah.
Germany is trying to pass a no smoking in public also and it looks like it's gonna go through...I can't belive it. I never thought I'd see the day Germans would say no to public smoking. But the thought of being SUED for smoking is outrageous and funny for me because just go ahead and sue me...you sure the hell won't get a whole lot...
I don't agree with the no smoking in bars because if you're a business owner you should be able to make those kinds of rules for yourself. Gov't shouldn't do that.
I'm kinda talking to myself here..hope you won't mind. My neighbor is CONSTANTLY getting in my shit because I smoke in my house. Her reason is she says it "smells".
A. My house.
B. Her house smells like wet dog 99% of the time.
My smoke is a WELCOME change from that let me tell ya'.
This smoking craze frightens me only because if it's allowed to continue my thought is...what's next? What's the next thing we'll all be attacked for?
Will we be sued or get in trouble because we let our kids watch a P*-13 flick while they're 11? I mean will people start coming inside our homes and really start monitoring us in other aspects of our lives?
Hahahaa. Sandy you kill me.
Mormons and JWs get mixed up all the time I've noticed, which makes me laugh because my mother was raised in the mormon faith and as soon as she turned 18, moved out of the house to marry my dad and abandoned the mormon religion forever. Her parents were not polygamists, but pretty weird in their beliefs all the same. The only grandparent I have still living is my grandma on my mom's side. She and my mother barely speak anymore because my mom thinks grandma's beliefs are screwed up and vice versa. The child-bearing thing is still crazy though, even in mormon families that are not polygamous (which is most of them - polygamists are shunned by the main church for political reasons). My mother has 91 first cousins. I don't know how many I have, but it's a hell of a lot. Thanksgiving or Christmas at my grandma's house was always a zoo.
Jehovah's Witnesses are a whole other kind of wacky. I can't even go there because I've had some pretty negative personal experiences...me and them just don't mesh.
There is one common thing in the two religions though (and only one, because their sets of beliefs are actually fairly different), one of the primary tenets is to go out and recruit others to the religion. Mormonism is the fastest growing religion in the United States. Jehovah's Witnesses aren't far behind. The money these organizations have only continues to multiply, as do their congregations. They do not come to my door. But I've seen them in my neighborhood. I think they're afraid to come down my stairs.
Depending on my mood, I would either give them an earful or brush them off gently. The thing is that I get them and what they're all about, but I don't want to be with them or one of them anymore than I want to hang out with born-again Christians...They're all the same to me. Condemning. Judgmental. And determined to convert everyone they come across. I have my trademark slogan ready for them, "fuuuuuck that." You gotta give them credit for having hutzpa though. They don't give up easy. I don't know how all that rejection doesn't get to a person. But no. They are not easily deterred. They are fixated on their mission to preach and convert. That bugs the crap out of me.
So no, it's not likely I'll be going to Utah anytime soon, but the thing about these kinds of ordinances that tick me off is that they spread. One bunch of idiots thinks it's a great idea, and the next bunch of idiots will always catch on.
As for the next right to be infringed upon by government...who could tell?!? They're on a roll. I take very little for granted in terms of freedoms anymore.
Posted by: Maria at September 2, 2006 09:41 AMSmoking Nazi's can kiss my menthol tainted ass. That is all.
Posted by: Cupie at September 5, 2006 01:30 PM