This is going to polarize the populace here in a way that the last election can only dream of.
If you can keep your smoke from entering her window, you’re good. You can’t, if you exhale. So don’t exhale, or yeah you’re a big fat jerk.
(non-smoker)
If they have a rule, I’d take that into consideratipon when deciding whether to eat there or not.
If they don’t have a rule, I’d tell her to mind her own damn business.
Either way, she has no call to be sarcastic.
I think fast food is more harmful to peoples’ health than cigarettes are.
So why the heck did you ask the stupid question? FWIW, I think you sound like a jerk, in this particular situation.
Is really that hard to show a little courtesy to another person?
Is holding off on that cigarette for oh, another two minutes - or maybe, you know, waiting to finish your smoke before getting in the drive thru line - so hard that it’s worth getting that worked up over?
Sheesh. Sure it’s your car, but I’d say that you’re certainly being inconsiderate at best. She might have asked you to not smoke in a jerkish manner, but is it really that big a deal? You know that most folks in your area don’t appreciate smoke, so why wouldn’t you make a point of making your interactions with them a little more pleasant?
ETA: It’s a free country and you can certainly do as you please in your own car. I just don’t know why anyone ever trots out the ‘it’s my ________ and you can’t make me’ line over such things as this. This is a matter of courtesy, not of fulfilling your libertarian streak while making someone else’s day a little less pleasant.
Here’s the thing: We weren’t there, so we don’t know what manner or tone of voice she used with you. If she was indeed being condescending or demanding or anything less than polite with her request that you not smoke in the drive-through, she was in the wrong, at least for the way in which she addressed you.
The other piece of information we’re missing is whether “Don’t smoke in the drive-through” was her own personal rule, store policy, or the law. If it was the second or third, then she wasn’t the one trying “to tell me what activities I can’t participate in while in my vehicle”; and you were a jerk for putting her in the uncomfortable, lose-lose position of having to decide whether or not to call you on it, and how.
My best guess, though (and it is only a guess) is that she was having a bad day, and/or had built up some resentment over the inconsiderate behavior she had experienced from other smokers, and she (inappropriately) took it out on you.
To be honest, I wasn’t even thinking about it when I got to the window. I did light the cigarette with the intention of being finished before getting food, but traffic was a little quicker than usual today.
What about the carload of stoners that show up and order $40 worth of munchies and exhale dope smoke into the wild? Will the cashier sue them if she fails a drug test?
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Most localities which have smoking bans prohibit smoking within a certain distance of points of entry/egress of a building. Due to its specialized nature, one could reasonably include a drive-thru window in the category of point of entry/egress.
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Not only does cigarette smoke affect the drive-thru cashier, when someone has a cigarette burning in the drive-thru line and their window open, the smoke affects the other patrons waiting in line for their food as well. And because of the nature of the drive-thru, those other patrons cannot keep their windows up to avoid that particular extra form of pollution.
Yes, car exhaust is noxious and disgusting. That, as far as I’m concerned, is all the more reason to spare other patrons and the restaurant employees from even more noxious and disgusting fumes on top of that. Ideally, no one will ever be in a fast food drive-thru for more than seven minutes, even at peak times. Even the most hardcore smoker should be able to keep the addiction in check for seven minutes.
My SO is turning 40 years old in a couple months. When we’re in his car and pull up to the drive through window, he has this immature habit of cranking up his music. It’s some kind of search for validation that he hopes to get from the teenagers working the window that they’ll get their groove on to that music. I give him the look and turn off the radio and he gets that disappointed look on his face. I try to explain that music that loud isn’t good if there needs to be social interaction (which there will be) and frankly, they don’t give a shit what music you’re listening to and it will probably “uncool” the song for them. Yeah, I’m a wet blanket.
That said, I would have taken your cigarette and put it out. Assuming that the car had an ashtray as most don’t anymore. But that’s just me.
Did the drive thru person overstep in rights in asking you to put out your cigarette? Askin’ ain’t gettin’ of course, but she might be usurping protocol by creating rules that don’t reflect the owner’s wishes. So if the restaurant wants to have a non-smoking drive thru policy, the onus is on the restaurant for expressing that in written form to avoid these incidents.
Should you have complied to a semi-reasonable request to extinguish your cigarette? A considerate smoker tends to know that while the spaces for smoking are getting fewer and fewer and the hysterical “truth” campaign has some paranoid about even being near unlit smokes… but I’ve also seen folks put out a cigarette and relight it at a later minute.
My point is that if I were a smoker, I’d be incredibly paranoid and not smoke whenever there was a chance of human interaction when I didn’t explicitly know that it was ok to smoke.
“Hey man, is that Freedom Rock?”
“Yeah, man!”
“Well turn it up, man!”
So are you a big fat jerk?
Well, I don’t know how big or fat you are, but . . .
That’s not really the issue. The OP didn’t light up just to piss her off; he was already smoking, and given that I’ve never encountered any drive thru employee making the request this one did, I’d say she’s the exception rather than the rule. Ergo, she should show a little courtesy to the customer, who’s in his own car, and not just billowing smoke into her face.
What? Do you even know how long five seconds is? Here, start a stopwatch, I’ll wait.
If it takes the drive thru employee more than 5 seconds to hand me my food, there’s a problem with one of us.
It’s entirely relevant to judge how “inconvenienced” the employee was. Five seconds of exposure where the cigarette was in his other hand, inside his vehicle (as opposed to, five seconds of him blowing into her face). You know what, I’ll give you twenty seconds. Let’s say her window was opened four times (to ask for payment and receive, to return change or credit card, to give food, and… hmm… a fourth time, just to take in some polluted air).
I’m going to vote no, Mr. Krebbs. You were not a big, fat jerk.
They can refuse service to anyone.
If they do not want to serve you because your insistence on smoking bothers them then off you go. You are on their property. It does not matter that you are in your car. I am neither pro or anti-smoking I just want to say that:
Their property rights trump your smoking rights.
So, wait. You readily admit that what you did “is probably illegal”, you just get upset when someone points that out? Either way, you’re just kind of a moron. Wait five fucking minutes to light up, or wait that same five minutes before getting your food.
Sorry the cashier was so mean to you.
Nobody likes a self righteous prick.
I love how all these people are jumping on the band wagon claiming that smokers are all that’s wrong with this world.
Well alright non-smokers; you fucking won. Y’all are first class and we’re are second class; I get it. Now how about showing some fucking grace and not rubbing our collective noses in it every fucking chance that you get?
Jeez!
As a Washington State resident myself, I can tell you that smoking is prohibited within 25 feet of any door OR WINDOW. I’d imagine the drive-thru at TAco Bell counts. So not only were you rude, you were also breaking the law.
emphasis mine. from here
FTR, I’m a non-smoker, have never smoked, and cigarette smoke makes me suffer. But people still do smoke, and as long as they’re not puffing smoke directly in my face for extended periods of time, I can and do live with it. Live and let live.
So, anyone smoking in their car in the middle of the city is (most likely) breaking the law? 
(since they are almost certainly driving within [does mental arithmetic] 7-8 meters of storefronts, windows etc… all the time?) Again, I’m asking this as a non-smoker who broadly agrees with not allowing smoking in and near enclosed public spaces. I just this this law is another example of PC run amok.
This sounds like a “can’t be obeyed” type of law.
To the OP: had she asked you nicely, I’d say it’s a request you can decide whether or not to oblige. I would tend to oblige, in a hypothetical similar situation, but it’s your call. If she really was being obnoxious about it, I’m on board with your rant.
A. Really now? Objectively? Because I accept that cigarette smoke smells bad, but car exhaust is at least equally vile, in my opinion.
B. Okay I know cigarette smoke is bad, but it’s not EVIL. It does not have intentions, it is not stalking you, and even if it were, it’s not powerful enough to defy the laws of physics. Dude, you must chill.