Disclaimer: This isn’t the worst thing that has happened to me in my lifetime, this week, today, this afternoon, etc. So don’t bitch about the pettiness within.
I took exception to a Taco Bell cashier’s demands today. It irritates me that she feels she has the right to tell me to put my cigarette out before next coming through the drive through. Granted, I live in Washington state and smoking anywhere near the drive through window is probably illegal; this is not the issue. I just don’t like it when someone else tries to tell me what activities I can’t participate in while in my vehicle at their drive through. It’s my own goddamn car.
Mustering any level of sympathy for a cashier that might be exposed to my cigarette smell (only if she chooses to leave her window open) is pretty impossible for me. Big fucking deal. Smokers smoking smell bad, people with out-of-control B.O. smell bad, loggers just off the job smell bad in a gasoline/pine-sol sort of way. Only one of these groups of people is told to adjust their habits to spare one cashier’s poor little olfactory senses. Gag me.
The cashier suggested that employees have been burned before with a cig stub at the window. Here’s a suggestion: if some moron is reaching towards you with fire in his hand, retract your own hand, duh! Getting yourself burned with a cigarette in that situation takes acts of stupidity on both parties’ accounts.
(I held my cigarette in my right hand, in the interior of my vehicle the whole time, in case the question comes up.)
She said, “Please don’t smoke wwhen you come through drive throughs.” The “please” was put in for ironic effect, as though I were so low not to deserve cordiality.
It’s not as though I intentionally lit the thing expecting to be smoking it in the drive through.
How long does it take you to hand a drink, a bag of food and a credit card back? If you say more than five seconds, I bet your manager loved your drive-time.
Well, there’s definitely things you can do in your own car in the drive through that are totally rude - talk on your cell phone while the workers are trying to give you your phone, for example. I don’t think smoking is really one of those things, but I’ve never worked at a drive through.
Sounds to me like a polite request to keep your noxious fumes out of her lungs.
Their drive-through=their property.
I’ve never worked at a fast-food joint. And exchanging those materials takes a bit longer than five seconds, not that this has any relevance to what you originally said.
Sounds like she doesn’t mind the noxious fumes from the hundreds/thousands(?) of cars in the drive-through every day, how is cigarette smoke any different?
While I might have been just as annoyed as the OP, depending on the day… I’ve been trying to be more sympathetic in situations like these (New Year’s resolution). She doesn’t own the restaurant. She’s probably not even a manager. Chances are she could not give less of a fuck if someone smokes in their car – only she’s been told to instruct you to put it out either directly, seconds before she said it, or lectured about it in a recent meeting with bosses afraid of getting fined.
I might be a little bit more understanding if there were signs on the menu board. Most places with drive throughs have signs on the window itself; this particular Taco Bell doesn’t have any signs re: smoking, curiously enough.
A drive through isn’t the same as the restaurant itself legally speaking: Taco bell can’t disallow you from drinking from a McDonald’s cup at the drive through but they can forbid it inside the store.
I’m with the OP. If a drive-through employee told me to do that, I’d tell them to kiss my ass. Nobody has the right to tell you to put out your cigarette while you are in your car.
“Oh, your car is on their property!” So what’s next, cops pulling me over to tell me to put out my cigarette because I’m on a public road?
Yeesh, talk about a candidate for the “fire in the hole” treatment.
I’m largely unconcerned with the issue of property rights here.
I’ll vote you were being a jerk. I smoke occasionally, so I feel I’m in a unique position with respect to “smoker’s rights”-type-conflicts. She might have been a passive-aggressive ass (in Washington State, no less!), but is it so hard to put out your cigarette before picking up your food? I mean really.
And I’ll also say, the hysterics about OMG NOXIOUS FUMES IN HER LUNGZ are equally ludicrous. Thirty seconds of faint wisps of smoke is not going to kill you unless you’re one of those severely allergic to smoke types, and those people are more rare than they claim to be. :dubious:
A. Who care how it smells?
B. Said cashier is exposed to car exhaust every day, all day long. A few seconds of cig smoke from a random driver is not going to hurt her.
Not to mention that almost every drive-thru I’ve been to, the employees don’t lean out the window into your car, they extend their arm with your purchases in their hand for you to take from them. And depending on how the wind is blowing and how many car windows you have open, there’s also a really good chance that your cig smoke isn’t even wafting in their direction.
I smoke, I hate it, I understand why people who don’t smoke don’t like it, and why you basically cannot legally smoke indoors in a public place anymore. That’s fine.
You cannot, however, legally in any way compel me to put out my cigarette in my car unless you are a police officer.
I’m not sure where you get that impression. Its private property. They reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason(specific exceptions such as protected classes exist). If they ask you to leave its legally enforceable.
Just because cars create harmful fumes doesn’t mean that they should breath easily avoidable ones by say asking you to put out the cigarette.
If a town has laws covering their public property that includes a smoking ban I’m pretty sure the cops could pull you over and ask you to put it out.
I know some towns have laws against smoking and driving at the same time much like they do with cell phones.
My opinion on the matter is
You should be considerate of those around you and not smoke in there presence. That’s by no means a requirement.
If the restaurant has a policy against smoking at their drive through they should post it.
If the employee took it upon herself to make this restriction she was out of line.